Part 14 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Beaucaire Castle from Tarascon.--Sunset.]
CHAPTER XV.
NIMES.
The right spelling of Nimes--Derivation of name--The fountain--Throwing coins into springs--Collecting coins--Symbol of Agrippa--Character of Agrippa--What he did for Nimes--The Maison Carree--Different idea of wors.h.i.+p in the Heathen world from what prevails in Christendom--S.
Baudille--Vespers--Activity of the Church in France--Behaviour of the Clergy in Italy to the King and Queen--The Revolution a blessing to the Church in France--Church services in Italy and in France--The Tourmagne--Uncertainty as to its use--Cathedral of Nimes--Other churches--A canary lottery--Altars to the Sun--The sun-wheel--The Cross of Constantine--Anecdote of Flechier.
I pray the reader to observe how I spell the name of Nimes, with neither an s nor a circ.u.mflex, neither as Nismes, nor as Nimes, for both are wrong.
Nimes is Nemausus, and there is no s to be sounded or suppressed in the ancient name of the place, which comes from the Keltic _naimh_, a fountain or spring. And in very truth no other name could better suit it, for here under a limestone hill wells up the river in one large flood sufficient for boats to go on it at once. This great green spring, ever flowing, mysterious even nowadays, is the great feature of Nimes, and this fountain certainly awoke the veneration of the old Gauls, who believed it to be a direct gift of the G.o.ds. One follows up a ca.n.a.l between streets planted with trees, and looks down into the pure water like liquid green gla.s.s, then suddenly reaches a garden. Above rises a wooded hill, thick with pines, syringa, Judas tree of brilliant pink lake, laburnum with its chains of gold, forming an arc of flowers, and sees before one a wide enclosed pool, walled round, of the shape of the figure 8, heaving with cold pure water that flows away under the terrace and falls with a roar to the lower level of the ca.n.a.l. On one side are ruins--of a temple to the Nymphs; but one cannot at first look at that, the volume of water engages one--a lake lifting itself up by its own strength out of the earth, always, night and day, inexhaustible, hardly varying in volume, coming no one knows whence, deep and green, with no visible bottom, without a bubble, without a ruffle--it is indeed wonderful. I have seen the spring of the Danube at Donaueschingen: it is nothing to this; the fountain of Vaucluse one can understand--it breaks out from a cave in the mountainside, like scores of others; this is otherwise--a river rising with no fuss, no display, no noise, without even a ripple.
It does not gush, it does not boil up. It is simply one gla.s.sy surface, and looking at it you cannot conceive that it is a river rising vertically and sliding away under your feet. Pliny says of the source of the c.l.i.tumnus: ”At the foot of a little hill covered with venerable and shady trees, a spring issues which, gus.h.i.+ng out in different and unequal streams, forms itself, after several windings, into a s.p.a.cious basin, so extremely clear that you may see the pebbles, and the little pieces of money that are thrown into it, as they lie at the bottom.” I have quoted this pa.s.sage, not because the source of the c.l.i.tumnus at all resembles that of the river at Nimes, but because of the mention of the coins thrown in. Suetonius speaks of this same practice in his life of Augustus. Now this fountain at Nimes has yielded, and yields still, an almost inexhaustible supply of Roman and Gaulish and Gallo-Greek coins that have been thus thrown in as oblations to the nymphs in remote times; and these coins are now in the museums of Nimes and Paris, and in those of private collectors. The same custom still remains, but instead of coins, pins are now cast into springs.
[Ill.u.s.tration: In the public gardens, Nimes.]
At the entrance to the public gardens, over the iron gate is a medallion representing a crocodile and a palm-tree. The moment I saw it I stood still and stared. I knew that symbol, had known it from a boy. And this is how I came to know it. Living much in the south of France, and having always a hankering after old things, I collected coins, and I got them from the priests. The peasants were wont to drop old Roman coins which they found in their fields into the offertory bags and plates, and as these were of no use to the _cures_, they were very glad to give or sell them to me for small current sous. By this means I succeeded in making a very tolerable collection of Roman coins at an incredibly small cost. Now among these, one of the very first I got, and most curious, represented Octavius and Agrippa on one side, and on the reverse this identical symbol of a crocodile under a palm tree. Often enough did I turn that coin over and wonder what it meant, and highly delighted was I to discover its signification at length.
It was symbolical of the subjugation of Egypt, and was struck in compliment to Agrippa. Then most a.s.suredly Agrippa had something to do with Nimes. I turned to a little history of the place that I had, and to my delight found that he it was who is held to have been the great benefactor, indeed maker, of this little town.
I have the greatest possible respect for Agrippa. His stern, yet n.o.ble face, once seen in this bust is never to be forgotten, and infinitely sad--sad beyond comparison in history is the story of his family.
He was a man of obscure, plebeian birth, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, belonging to a family, the Vipsanian, of which the gentlemen of Rome professed never to have heard, or not to have found it necessary to trouble their heads to learn anything. He was a fine soldier, a man of plain manners, good morals, upright, faithful, unambitious. Octavius Augustus was warmly attached to him, and valued his good qualities and his admirable military genius; and Agrippa on his side was tenderly devoted to his n.o.ble friend. Their characters were as unlike as their faces and as their manners. When Octavius became the supreme ruler of the destinies of Rome, he heaped honours on his friend. He made him put away his wife and marry his own daughter Julia. He had children by her, Caius and Lucius, who grew to man's estate and then died, one from a wound, the other of decline, and another son, an ill-conditioned boy, Agrippa Posthumus, put to death, probably by order of Octavius, a commission given on his own deathbed, to save Rome from internecine war.
His daughter, Agrippina, starved herself to death, heartbroken at the murder of her two sons by Tiberius, and despairing at the thought that her other son, the crazy, debauched, cruel Caligula was alone left to represent her family. The other daughter of Agrippa, Julia, was infamous for her debaucheries, and died in banishment. The family was then represented by the second Agrippina, daughter of the first Agrippina, who became the mother of Nero--that son who was his mother's and his brother's murderer, and died finally by his own hand, amidst the execrations of the Roman world.
The sad shadow that lies on the brow of Agrippa almost seems to be cast there by the destiny awaiting his family. Not one drop of his blood mingled with the sacred _ichor_ of the Julian race remains on earth. But other remnants of Agrippa abide. The Pantheon of Rome, and the Pont du Gard near Nimes, aye--and the baths he made for the washerwomen in the water he led into this town, that they might not sully the sacred spring that welled up before the temple of the Nymphs.
Agrippa in his various offices and governors.h.i.+ps acc.u.mulated great wealth, but he was not a grasping man, nor one who spent his wealth upon himself.
Wherever he was, he expended his fortune on improving and embellis.h.i.+ng the cities under his sway. Thus it was that for quite an inconsiderable little town, which the cla.s.sic authors pa.s.s over without notice, he lavished very large sums to provide it with excellent water from two springs twenty-five miles distant, not that the river that rises at Nimes is impure, but that a certain awe felt for it withheld the natives from desecrating the sacred waters to common use.
The Pont du Gard which carried the waters by three tiers of arches across the valley of the Gurdon, at a height of one hundred and eighty feet, is one of the most striking and perfect of the monuments left by the Romans in Gaul, or anywhere; and it is certainly remarkable that the two most complete relics of this great people that remain, should have been the work of Agrippa, the Pantheon and the Pont du Gard. This latter is a colossal work. Its length is 873 feet at top, and may well be compared to its advantage with the modern aqueduct that conveys water to the Prado of Montpellier, a more lengthy, but a feeble structure.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Pont du Gard.]
The Roman remains in Nimes are held famous everywhere. Nowhere, least of all in Rome, are the relics of that great people of builders to be seen in such perfection. There is the amphitheatre, smaller, but more perfect even, than that at Arles. There is the _Maison Carree_, a temple almost quite perfect, and of surpa.s.sing proportional perfection. Small this temple is: it consists of thirty elegant Corinthian columns, ten of which are disengaged, and form the portico, whereas the remainder are engaged in the _naos_ or sanctuary. No engraving can give an idea of its loveliness. It is the best example we have in Europe, of a temple that is perfectly intact.
It is mignon, it is cheerful, it is charming. I found myself unable at any time to pa.s.s it without looking round over my shoulder, again and again, and uttering some exclamation of pleasure at the sight of it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Maison Carree, Nimes.]
That temple is instructive in a way the ordinary traveller would hardly suspect. It is a valuable example to us of the complete and radical difference that existed between the Pagan and the Christian ideas of wors.h.i.+p. The Pagan world had no idea of gathering a congregation together, any more than I may say have the old canons of Florence, or of S. Peter's, Rome, who shut themselves into gla.s.s boxes, of bringing all men into one building to unite in prayer and praise. The sanctuaries of the Pagan G.o.ds were quite small and dark. Wors.h.i.+p was simply an individual matter, a bringing of a sacrifice to an altar. There was nothing like congregational wors.h.i.+p in the Jewish temple either. The priest alone went within to offer the incense, whilst the people stood without. But in the Christian church the condition of affairs was completely reversed. The wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d was to be for all the people, all together, with one heart and one voice. That is why the early Christians in the fourth century never adapted a temple to a church. A temple could not be adapted. The pillars were all outside, and within was a little dark box--the sanctuary--that would not hold more than a couple of score of persons. They could not use the temples; what they wanted were temples turned outside-in, the pillars within forming great halls in which a crowd might be gathered.
I had been looking at this delightful little temple and considering this, and it was a Sunday. I sauntered on, this still on my mind, when I fell in with trains of school children, all drifting in one direction. I followed them, and found myself in the great new church of S. Baudille. The time was afternoon. The church, quite a cathedral in size, was crowded, boys'
schools, girls' schools, men, women, of all sorts and ranks were there.
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