The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 25

The charm of situation of the Riviera is great, and the interest awakened by its many reminders of the historied past is equally so; but, with regard to its architectural remains, the most ready and willing temperament will be doomed to disappointment.

The cathedral cities of the Riviera are not of irresistible attraction as shrines of the Christian faith; but they have much else, either within their confines or in the immediate neighbourhood, which will go far to make up for the deficiency of their religious monuments.

It is not that the architectural remains of churches of another day, and secular establishments, are wholly wanting. Far from it; Frejus, Toulon, Gra.s.se, and Cannes are possessed of delightful old churches, though they are not of ranking greatness, or splendour.

Still the fact remains that, of themselves, the natural beauties of the region and the heritage of a historic past are not enough to attract the throngs which, for any one of a dozen suspected reasons, annually, from November to March, flock hither to this range of towns, which extends from Hyeres and St. Raphael, on the west, to Bordighera and Ospadeletti, just over the Italian border, on the east.

It is truly historic ground, this; perhaps more visibly impressed upon the mind and imagination than any other in the world, if we except the Holy Land itself.

Along this boundary were the two main routes, by land and by water, through which the warlike and civil inst.i.tutions of Rome first made their way into Gaul, conquered it, and impressed thereon indelibly for five hundred years the mighty power which their ambition urged forward.

At Cimiez, a suburb of Nice, they have left a well-preserved amphitheatre; at Antibes the remains of Roman towers; Villefranche--the port of Nice--was formerly a Roman port; Frejus, the former _Forum Julii_, has remains of its ancient harbour, its city walls, an amphitheatre, a gateway, and an arch, and, at some distance from the city, the chief of all neighbouring remains, an aqueduct, the crumbling stones of which can be traced for many miles.

Above the promontory of Monaco, where the Alps abruptly meet the sea, stands the tiny village of _La Turbie_, some nineteen hundred feet above the waters of the sparklingly brilliant Mediterranean. Here stands that venerable ruined tower, the great _Trophoea Augusti_ of the Romans, now stayed and strutted by modern masonry. It commemorates the Alpine victories of the first of the emperors, and overlooks both Italy and France. Stripped to-day of the decorations and sculptures which once graced its walls, it stands as a reminder of the first splendid introduction of the luxuriant architecture of Rome into the precincts of the Western Empire.

Here it may be recalled that sketching, even from the hilltops, is a somewhat risky proceeding for the artist. The surrounding eminences--as would be likely so near the Italian border--are frequently capped with a fortress, and occupied by a small garrison, the sole duty of whose commandant appears to be "heading off," or worse, those who would make a picturesque note of the environment of this _ci-devant_ Roman stronghold. The process of transcribing "literary notes" is looked upon with equal suspicion, or even greater disapproval, in that--in English--they are not so readily translated as is even a bad drawing. So the admonition is here advisedly given for "whom it may concern."

From the Rhone eastward, Ma.r.s.eilles alone has any church of a cla.s.s worthy to rank with those truly great. Its present cathedral of Ste.

Marie-Majeure a.s.suredly takes, both as to its plan and the magnitude on which it has been carried out, the rank of a masterwork of architecture.

It is a modern cathedral, but it is a grand and imposing basilica, after the Byzantine manner.

Westward, if we except Beziers, where there is a commanding cathedral; Narbonne, where the true sky-pointing Gothic is to be found; and Perpignan, where there is a very ancient though peculiarly disposed cathedral, there are no really grand cathedral churches of this or any other day. On the whole, however, all these cities are possessed of a subtle charm of manner and environment which tell a story peculiarly their own.

Foremost among these cities of Southern Gaul, which have perhaps the greatest and most appealing interest for the traveller, are Carca.s.sonne and Aigues-Mortes.

Each of these remarkable reminders of days that are gone is unlike anything elsewhere. Their very decay and practical desertion make for an interest which would otherwise be unattainable.

Aigues-Mortes has no cathedral, nor ever had; but Carca.s.sonne has a very beautiful, though small, example in St. Nazaire, treated elsewhere in this book.

Both Aigues-Mortes and Carca.s.sonne are the last, and the greatest, examples of the famous walled and fortified cities of the Middle Ages.

Aigues-Mortes itself is a mere dead thing of the marshes, which once held ten thousand souls, and witnessed all the pomp and glitter which attended upon the embarking of Louis IX. on his chivalrous, but ill-starred, ventures to the African coasts.

"Here was a city built by the whim of a king--the last of the Royal Crusaders." To-day it is a coffin-like city with perhaps a couple of thousand pallid, shaking mortals, striving against the marsh-fever, among the ruined houses, and within the mouldering walls of an ancient Gothic burgh.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The Ramparts of Aigues-Mortes_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _St. Sauveur d'Aix_]

II

ST. SAUVEUR D'AIX

Aix, the former capital of Provence, one of the most famous ancient provinces, the early seat of wealth and civilization, and the native land of the poetry and romance of mediaevalism, was the still more ancient _Aquae s.e.xtiae_ of the Romans--so named for the hot springs of the neighbourhood. It was their oldest colony in Gaul, and was founded by s.e.xtius Calvinus in B. C. 123.

In King Rene's time,--"_le bon roi_" died at Aix in 1480,--_Aix-en-Provence_ was more famous than ever as a "gay capital,"

where "mirth and song and much good wine" reigned, if not to a degenerate extent, at least to the full expression of liberty.

In 1481, just subsequent to Rene's death, the province was annexed to the Crown, and fifty years later fell into the hands of Charles V., who was proclaimed King of Arles and Provence. This monarch's reign here was of short duration, and he evacuated the city after two months' tenure.

During all this time the church of Aix, from the foundation of the archbishopric by St. Maxine in the first century (as stated rather doubtfully in the "_Gallia Christiania_"), ever advanced hand in hand with the mediaeval gaiety and splendour that is now past.

Who ever goes to Aix now? Not many Riviera tourists even, and not many, unless they are on a mission bent, will cross the Rhone and the Durance when such appealingly attractive cities as Arles, Avignon, and Nimes lie on the direct pathway from north to south.

Formerly the see was known as the Province of Aix. To-day it is known as Aix, Arles, and Embrun, and covers the Department of Bouches-du-Rhone, with the exception of Ma.r.s.eilles, which is a suffragan bishopric of itself.

The chief ecclesiastical monuments of Aix are the cathedral of St.

Sauveur, with its most unusual _baptistere_; the church of St.

Jean-de-Malte of the fourteenth century; and the comparatively modern early eighteenth-century church of La Madeleine, with a fine "Annunciation" confidently attributed by local experts to Albrecht Durer.

The cathedral of St. Sauveur is, in part, an eleventh-century church.

The portions remaining of this era are not very extensive, but they do exist, and the choir, which was added in the thirteenth century, made the first approach to a completed structure. In the next century the choir was still more elaborated, and the tower and the southern aisle of the nave added. This nave is, therefore, the original nave, as the northern aisle was not added until well into the seventeenth century.

The west facade contains a wonderful, though non-contemporary, door and doorway in wood and stone of the early sixteenth century. This doorway is in two bays, divided by a pier, on which is superimposed a statue of the Virgin and Child, framed by a light garland of foliage and fruits.

Above are twelve tiny statuettes of _Sibylles_ or the theological virtues placed in two rows. The lower range of the archivolt is divided by pilasters bearing the symbols of the Evangelists, deeply cut arabesques of the Genii, and the four greater prophets--Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel.

Taken together, these late sculptures of the early sixteenth century form an unusually mixed lot; but their workmans.h.i.+p and disposition are pleasing and of an excellence which in many carvings of an earlier date is often lacking.

The interior shows early "pointed" and simple round arches, with pilasters and pediment which bear little relation to Gothic, and are yet not Romanesque of the conventional variety. These features are mainly not suggestive of the Renaissance either, though work of this style crops out, as might be expected, in the added north aisle of the nave.

The transepts, too, which are hardly to be remarked from the outside,--being much hemmed about by the surrounding buildings,--also indicate their Renaissance origin.

The real embellishments of the interior are: a triptych--"The Burning Bush," with portraits of King Rene, Queen Jeanne de Laval, and others; another of "The Annunciation;" a painting of St. Thomas, by a sixteenth-century Flemish artist; and some sixteenth-century tapestries.

None of these features, while acceptable enough as works of art, compare in worth or novelty with the tiny _baptistere_, which is claimed as of the sixth century.

This is an unusual work in Gaul, the only other examples being at Poitiers and Le Puy. It resembles in plan and outline its more famous contemporary at Ravenna, and shows eight antique columns, from a former temple to Apollo, with dark shafts and lighter capitals. The dome has a modern stucco finish, little in keeping with the general tone and purport of this accessory. The cloister of St Sauveur, in the Lombard style, is very curious, with its a.s.sorted twisted and plain columns, some even knotted. The origin of its style is again bespoke in certain of the round-headed arches. Altogether, as an accessory to the cathedral, if to no other extent, this Lombard detail is forceful and interesting.

III

ST. REPARATA DE NICE

"What would you, then? I say it is most engaging, in winter when the strangers are here, and all work day and night; but it is a much better place in summer, when one can take their ease."

--PAUL AReNE.

Whatever may be the attractions of Nice for the travelled person, they certainly do not lie in or about its cathedral. The guide-books call it simply "the princ.i.p.al ecclesiastical edifice ... of no great interest,"

which is an apt enough qualification.

In a book which professes to treat of the special subject of cathedral churches, something more is expected, if only to define the reason of the lack of appealing interest.