The Cathedrals Of Southern France Part 31

Between Bayonne and Bordeaux, and bordered by the sea, the Garonne, and the Adour, is a nondescript land which may be likened to the deserts of Africa or Asia, except that its barrenness is of the sea salty. It is by no means unpeopled, though uncultivated and possessed of little architectural splendour of either a past or the present day.

Including the half of the department of the Gironde, a corner of Lot et Garonne, and all of that which bears its name, the Landes forms of itself a great seaboard plain or mora.s.s. It is said by a geographical authority that the surface so very nearly approaches the rectilinear that for a distance of twenty-eight miles between the dismal villages of Lamothe and Labonheyre the railway is "a visible meridian."

The early eighteenth-century writers--in English--used to revile all France, so far as its topographical charms were concerned, with panegyrics upon its unloveliness and lack of variety, and of being anything more than a flat, arid land, which was not sufficient even unto itself.

What induced this extraordinary reasoning it is hard to realize at the present day.

Its beauties are by no means as thinly sown as is thought by those who know them slightly--from a window of a railway carriage, or a sojourn of a month in Brittany, a week in Provence, or a fortnight in Touraine.

The _ennui_ of a journey through France is the result of individual incapacity for observation, not of the country. Above all, it is certainly not true of Guienne or Gascony, nor of Provence, nor of Dauphine, nor Auvergne, nor Savoie.

As great rivers go, the Garonne is not of very great size, nor so very magnificent in its reaches, nor so very picturesque,--with that minutiae a.s.sociated with English rivers of a like rank,--but it is suggestive of far more than most streams of its size and length, wherever found.

Its source is well within the Spanish frontier, in the picturesque Val d'Aran, where the boundary between the two countries makes a curious detour, and leaves the crest of the Pyrenees, which it follows throughout--with this exception--from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

The Garonne becomes navigable at Cazeres, some distance above Toulouse, and continues its course, enhanced by the confluence of the Tarn, the Lot, the Arriege, and the Dordogne, beyond the junction of which, two hundred and seventy odd miles from the head of navigation, the estuary takes on the nomenclature of _La Gironde_.

Of the ancient provinces of these parts, the most famous is Guienne, that "fair duchy" once attached--by a subtle process of reasoning--to the English crown.

It is distinguished, as to its economic aspect, by its vast vineyards, which have given the wines, so commonly esteemed, the name of claret.

These and the other products of the country have found their way into all markets of the world through the Atlantic coast metropolis of Bordeaux.

The Gascogne of old was a large province to the southward of Guienne. A romantic land, say the chroniclers and _mere litterateurs_ alike.

"Peopled by a race fiery, ardent, and impetuous ... with a peculiar tendency to boasting, hence the term _gasconade_." The peculiar and characteristic feature of Gascogne, as distinct from that which holds in the main throughout these parts, is that strange and wild section called the _Landes_, which is spoken of elsewhere.

The ancient province of Languedoc, which in its lower portion is included in this section, is generally reputed to be the pride of France with regard to climate, soil, and scenery. Again, this has been ruled otherwise, but a more or less intimate acquaintance with the region does not fail to endorse the first claim. This wide, strange land has not vastly changed its aspect since the inhabitants first learned to fly instead of fight.

This statement is derived to a great extent from legend, but, in addition, is supported by much literary and historical opinion, which has recorded its past. It is not contemptuous criticism any more than Froissart's own words; therefore let it stand.

When the French had expelled the Goths beyond the Pyrenees, Charlemagne established his governors in Languedoc with the t.i.tle of Counts of Toulouse. The first was Corson, in 778; the second St. W. du Courtnez or Aux-Cornets, from whence the princes of Orange derive their pedigree, as may be inferred from the hunting-horns in their arms.

Up to the eighteenth century these states retained a certain independence and exercise of home rule, and had an a.s.sembly made up of "the three orders of the kingdom," the clergy, the n.o.bility, and the people. The Archbishop of Narbonne was president of the body, though he was seldom called upon but to give the king money. This he acquired by the laying on of an extraordinary imposition under the name of "_Don-Gratuit_."

The wide, rolling country of Lower Languedoc has no very grand topographical features, but it is watered by frequent and ample streams, and peopled with row upon row of st.u.r.dy trees, with occasional groves of mulberries, olives, and other citrus fruits. Over all glows the luxuriant southern sun with a tropical brilliance, but without its fierce burning rays.

Mention of the olive suggests the regard which most of us have for this tree of romantic and sentimental a.s.sociation. As a religious emblem, it is one of the most favoured relics which has descended to us from Biblical times.

A writer on southern France has questioned the beauty of the growing tree. It does, truly, look somewhat mop-headed, and it does spread somewhat like a mushroom, but, with all that, it is a picturesque and prolific adjunct to a southern landscape, and has been in times past a source of inspiration to poets and painters, and of immeasurable profit to the thrifty grower.

The worst feature which can possibly be called up with respect to Lower Languedoc is the "skyey influences" of the Mistral, dry and piercingly cold wind which blows southward through all the Rhone valley with a surprising strength.

Madame de Sevigne paints it thus in words:

"_Le tourbillon, l'ouragan, tous les diables dechaines qui veulent bien emporter votre chateau._"

Foremost among the cities of the region are Toulouse, Carca.s.sonne, Montpellier, Narbonne, and Beziers, of which Carca.s.sonne is preeminent as to its picturesque interest, and perhaps, as well, as to its storied past.

The Pyrenees have of late attracted more and more attention from the tourist, who has become sated with the conventionality of the "trippers'

tour" to Switzerland. The many attractive resorts which the Pyrenean region has will doubtless go the way of others elsewhere--if they are given time, but for the present this entire mountain region is possessed of much that will appeal to the less conventional traveller.

Of all the mountain ranges of Europe, the Pyrenees stand unique as to their regularity of configuration and strategic importance. They bind and bound Spain and France with a bony ligature which is indented like the edge of a saw.

From the Atlantic at Bayonne to the Mediterranean at Port Bou, the mountain chain divides its valleys and ridges with the regularity of a wall-trained shrub or pear-tree, and sinks on both sides to the level plains of France and Spain. In the midst of this rises the river Garonne. Its true source is in the Piedrafitta group of peaks, whence its waters flow on through Toulouse, various tributaries combining to give finally to Bordeaux its commanding situation and importance. Around its source, which is the true centre of the Pyrenees, is the parting line between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. On one side the waters flow down through the fields of France to the Biscayan Bay, and on the other southward and westward through the Iberian peninsula.

Few of the summits exceed the height of the ridge by more than two thousand feet; whereas in the Alps many rise from six to eight thousand feet above the _ma.s.sif_, while scenic Mont Blanc elevates its head over fifteen thousand feet.

As a barrier, the Pyrenees chain is unique. For over one hundred and eighty miles, from the Col de la Perche to Maya--practically a suburb of Bayonne--not a carriage road nor a railway crosses the range.

The etymology of the name of this mountain chain is in dispute. Many suppose it to be from the Greek _pur_ (fire), alluding to the volcanic origin of the peaks. This is endorsed by many, while others consider that it comes from the Celtic word _byren_, meaning a mountain. Both derivations are certainly apropos, but the weight of favour must always lie with the former rather than the latter.

The ancient province of Bearn is essentially mediaeval to-day. Its local tongue is a pure Romance language; something quite distinct from mere _patois_. It is princ.i.p.ally thought to be a compound of Latin and Teutonic with an admixture of Arabic.

This seems involved, but, as it is unlike modern French, or Castilian, and modern everything else, it would seem difficult for any but an expert student of tongues to place it definitely. To most of us it appears to be but a jarring jumble of words, which may have been left behind by the followers of the various conquerors which at one time or another swept over the land.

II

ST. ANDRe DE BORDEAUX

"One finds here reminders of the Visigoths, the Franks, the Saracens, and the English; and the temples, theatres, arenas, and monuments by which each made his mark of possession yet remain."

--AURELIAN SCHOLL.

Taine in his _Carnets de Voyage_ says of Bordeaux: "It is a sort of second Paris, gay and magnificent ... amus.e.m.e.nt is the main business."

Bordeaux does not change. It has ever been advanced, and always a centre of gaiety. Its fetes and functions quite rival those of the capital itself,--at times,--and its opera-house is the most famed and magnificent in France, outside of Paris.

It is a city of enthusiastic demonstrations. It was so in 1814 for the Bourbons, and again a year later for the emperor on his return from Elba.

In 1857 it again surpa.s.sed itself in its enthusiasm for Louis Napoleon, when he was received in the cathedral, under a lofty dais, and led to the altar with the cry of "_Vive l'empereur_;" while during the b.l.o.o.d.y Franco-Prussian war it was the seat of the provisional government of Thiers.

Here the Gothic wave of the North has produced in the cathedral of St.

Andre a remarkably impressive and unexpected example of the style.

In the general effect of size alone it will rank with many more important and more beautiful churches elsewhere. Its total length of over four hundred and fifty feet ranks it among the longest in France, and its vast nave, with a span of sixty feet, aisleless though it be, gives a still further expression of grandeur and magnificence.

It is known that three former cathedrals were successfully destroyed by invading Goths, Saracens, and warlike Normans.

Yet another structure was built in the eleventh century, which, with the advent of the English in Guienne, in the century following, was enlarged and magnified into somewhat of an approach to the present magnificent dimensions, though no English influence prevailed toward erecting a central tower, as might have been antic.i.p.ated. Instead we have two exceedingly graceful and lofty spired towers flanking the north transept, and yet another single tower, lacking its spire, on the south.

The portal of the north transept--of the fourteenth century--is an elaborate work of itself. It is divided into two bays that join beneath a dais, on which is a statue of Bertrand de Goth, who was Pope in 1305, under the name of Clement V. He is here clothed in sacerdotal habits, and stands upright in the att.i.tude of benediction.

At the lower right-hand side are statues of six bishops, but, like that of Pope Clement, they do not form a part of the constructive elements of the portal, as did most work of a like nature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but are made use of singly as a decorative motive.

The spring of the arch which surrounds the tympanum is composed of a cordon of foliaged stone separating the six angels of the _premiere archivolte_ from the twelve apostles of the second, and the fourteen patriarchs and prophets of the third.