Part 4 (1/2)

We have s.p.a.ce to notice only one or two inscriptions. One is the sign of Athenades, son of Dioscorides, professor of Latin grammar, probably set up two thousand years ago over his door; another is a notice of a young lad, Cleudemos, son of Dionysius, having gained a prize. A curious Greek inscription is found at Carpentras, a colony from Ma.r.s.eilles, that ill.u.s.trates the manner in which foreign religions got mixed up with those that were proper to the Greeks.

”Blessed be Thebe, daughter of Thelhui, laden with oblations for the G.o.d Osiris--she never jawed her husband--she was blameless in the eyes of Osiris, and receives his benediction.”

Truly such a wife deserved that her conduct towards her husband should be commemorated through ages upon ages, and we may thank good fortune that it has preserved to us the name of this incomparable lady.

As I am on the subject of Greek inscriptions, I may quote the following touching one, that has been found built into the wall of a house at Aix.

”On the banks, beaten by the waves, a youth appeals to thee, voyager! I, beloved by G.o.d, am no more subject to the domination of Death. I pa.s.sed my life sailing on the sea, myself a sailor, like to the youthful G.o.ds, the Amyclaeans, saviours of sailors, free from the yoke of matrimony. Here in my tomb, which I owe to the piety of my masters, I rest sheltered from all maladies, free from toil, from cares, from pains; whereas in life, all these woes fall on our gross envelopes of matter. The dead, on the other hand, are divided into two cla.s.ses, of which one returns to the earth, whereas the other rises to join the dance with the celestial choirs; and it is to this latter cla.s.s that I belong, having had the good fortune to range myself under the banners of the Divinity.”

Clearly this was the tomb of a young sailor-boy, a native of Aix, who had served in a merchant vessel of Ma.r.s.eilles. There is something graceful and pathetic in the monument.

But enough of the past. Now for the present, and in considering the present let us attend to that which feeds and builds up that gross envelope of matter the young Greek sailor had laid aside.

At Ma.r.s.eilles I put up at the Hotel des Negociants, in the Cours Belzunce.

Let me observe that I do not see the fun of going to hotels of the first cla.s.s. Not only is one's expense doubled, but one is thrown among English and American travellers, and sees nothing whatever of the people in whose country one is travelling. Now, here in this commercial inn, I had for dinner the following dishes, which I am quite sure I should not have had in the Grand Hotel de Noailles, where a dinner is six francs, whereas at my inn I paid just half. I must also observe that the dinners were abundant and excellent, but among the dishes were some that were peculiar to the Provencal cuisine, for instance:--

Bread slices sopped in saffron, with fish, garnished with small crabs, to be chewed up, sh.e.l.l and all.

Artichokes, raw, with oil and vinegar.

Oranges with pepper and salt.

On the table were gla.s.s jugs with tar-water, and I observed that over half those present drank their wine diluted with this tar-water.

One day in summer I was at table-d'hote in France when I saw a very fine melon on the table. Said I, in my heart of hearts, ”I'll have some of you by-and-by!” But, to my consternation, the melon was taken round with stewed conger eel, and eaten with salt and pepper. I could not summon up courage to try the mixture, and the whole melon was consumed before the next course came on.

I was at Ma.r.s.eilles when M. Carnot, the President of the Republic visited it, April 16th. Great efforts were made to give him a splendid reception.

Venetian masts were set up, strings of fairy lamps were suspended between them, and tricolours were hung as banners to the masts, or grouped together in trophies. But alas! No sooner were all preparations made, than a furious gale broke over the coast, the venetian masts swayed in the wind and were upset or thrown out of the perpendicular, the little lamps jingled against each other and were broken, such as were not s.h.i.+vered were filled with rain, the banners were lashed with the broken wires and torn to shreds, and when M. Carnot arrived, in a pouring rain, it was amidst a very wreckage of festival preparations, and he was received by a crowd of umbrellas. Under such circ.u.mstances enthusiasm was damped and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of welcome were m.u.f.fled. The President occupied an open landau, and drove along the boulevards without umbrella or waterproof, bowing to right and left in a slas.h.i.+ng rain. A deputation of flower women presented him with a sodden bouquet, by the hand of a dripping little girl in white that clung to her as a bathing gown. The President insisted on the maid being lifted to him into the carriage, where he hugged and kissed her, whilst the moisture ran out of her garments like a squeezed sponge, and this demonstration provoked some damp cheers.

I bought Henri Rochefort's paper next day, to see what his correspondent had to say about the visit. Some pa.s.sages from it are too racy not to be quoted.

”Il faisait un temps a ne pas mettre un ministre dehors, lorsque le train presidentiel est arrive en gare, et le defile a la detrempe etait pitieux a voir dans _le gargouillement et la transsudation de ce degorgement cataractal_. Sadi Carnot avait donne l'ordre de laisser son landau decouvert, afin de recevoir les ovations enthousiastes des parapluies.

”Bref, la Presidence est arrivee a la prefecture _trempee comme une soupe a l'oignon et fortement dessalee_.”

Verily there is no tongue like the French for saying nasty things in a nasty way.

I do not know whether it is fair for one to pa.s.s an opinion on a man from a sight of his face overrun with rain-water, and with his nose acting like a shoot from a roof; but certainly the impression produced on me by M.

Sadi Carnot was that his features were wooden, and that he was but a very ordinary man--intellectually. I pa.s.s this opinion with hesitation. When dried possibly the sparks of genius may be discovered and may flare up; they were all but extinguished in the downpour when I saw him.

That cheerful king, Rene of Anjou and Provence, paid a visit to Ma.r.s.eilles in 1437, and made his royal entry on Sunday, December 15th. He was delighted with the reception accorded him, and in a gush of kindly feeling promised to make Ma.r.s.eilles his headquarters. But he forgot his promise, or circ.u.mstances were against his keeping it. He never revisited Ma.r.s.eilles.

On January 22, 1516, Francis I. entered the town and was received by children carrying banners and garlands, and troupes of young girls in white, then followed archers, arquebusiers, the consuls, and the clergy bearing the relics of S. Lazarus and S. Victor. A theatre was erected at every street corner, on which were presented to his sight incidents from the life of S. Louis. The procession ended with a battle of oranges and lemons, in which the king gave and received a good many blows on the head with the golden fruit.

At the head of the Allees des Capucins, a fine street planted with trees and with a handsome fountain in the place where the Allees de Meilhan unites with it, is a really fine modern Gothic church with twin west spires of open tracery. They are perhaps too thin, a usual fault with modern work, but otherwise the church is very good and stately. It is as fine within as without, but sorely disfigured by the coloured gla.s.s, which is garish.

French painted gla.s.s is very bad. It is precisely the sort of stuff that was turned out by English gla.s.s-painters about thirty years ago, the colours crude and distressing to the eye--windows that our more cultured taste cannot now endure. But the French artists have not advanced, the windows put in to-day are as detestable as those they put in at the beginning of the revival. Unfortunately, every cathedral is crowded through the length and breadth of France with this abominable stuff, that is only tolerable in a modern tasteless church, vulgar in its architecture and insipid in its sculpture, but is painfully out of place in a venerable minster.

The city of Ma.r.s.eilles has been lucky in securing a good architect for the Church of S. Vincent de Paul, but in another architectural venture Ma.r.s.eilles has been unfortunate. She was resolved to have a cathedral, and she gave the designing of it to a man void of taste, who has built a hideous erection on the quay in what he is pleased to call Byzantine style.