Chapter 10

Whatever the interests and prejudices of M. Fransoy may be, it is improbable that he would have risked his professional and private reputation, by misrepresenting recent occurrences on the spot where they took place; and certainly his narrative places the Mission in a new point of view, both as to its conduct, its reception, and its effects. It is, indeed, natural enough that such wits as do not affect either much knowledge or much interest on religious subjects, should indulge in desultory sarcasms (and the Hermite en Provence prudently does no more) on such instances of spiritual Quixotism as may possibly have occurred. The absurd[33] choice of hymn tunes, the petulant zeal of one or two ecclesiastics, and the rueful countenances of some of the penitents, though they prove nothing as to the main question, present a ludicrous picture to the imagination, and have been made the most of by the fictitious correspondent of the Hermite. It is also natural enough that the violent Liberaux, who view with distrust every measure countenanced by government, should treat the Mission as a mere engine of policy; that the avaricious should consider the donatives received on its behalf as squandered away; and that a large class of persons, who are inveterately sceptical as to their neighbour's good motives, and childishly credulous as to his bad ones, should pronounce it a mere manoeuvre of bigotry. The little tract in question, however, addressed to the experience of eye-witnesses of all that it describes, tells a different story, though its effect may be weakened by the ludicrous _naivete_ of its style. It describes the missionaries as addressing themselves particularly to those who stood most in need of their instructions, and who were most likely to treat them with derision; as availing themselves of the favourable reception which they experienced from the Avignonese, to preach the duties of forgiveness and reconciliation, both private and political, and to dwell on the practical and fundamental parts of Christianity.

[Footnote 33: See the letter introduced in Jouey's Hermite en Provence.]

Had they, indeed, in a public manner, denounced the vengeance of Heaven against the murderers of the unfortunate Brune, or pointedly rebuked the religious and political animosities subsisting in the south of France, they would have given a proof of their sincerity, but at the risk of much of that good which it was desirable to use their temporal influence in effecting. Instead, therefore, of giving unnecessary offence, they laboured to eradicate from the minds of their hearers the seeds of hatred and uncharitableness, and to divert their attention from their private bickerings and dissensions, to the common guilt of all in the sight of Heaven. The very object which, from all we learn respecting the state of feeling in Languedoc and Provence, appears particularly desirable, appears also to have been sought, not only by repeated and fervent exhortations, but by the exaction also of public vows and promises, so as to enlist the sense of shame as much as possible, in favour of the general forgiveness which the missionaries preached. Their exertions also, always supposing the tract in question to be entitled to credit, were rewarded by the conduct of their penitents, some of whom put away their vices, and others their mutual animosities. If this be fanaticism, then it were to be wished that such fanaticism should prevail widely in the south of France. "Out of the same mouth cannot proceed blessing and cursing;" and if the secret object of the Mission be to denounce the disaffected, or preach crusades against Protestants, it must be owned that their public labours at Avignon savour but little of such a purpose, as far as all appearances go.

There is, it is true, something extravagant and bordering on stage effect, in many of the ceremonies performed, and expressions used, as recorded by the pen of M. Fransoy. An Englishman, however, is not always a fair judge of the best means of influencing the mind of a Frenchman, more particularly a south-eastern one. The Provencaux possess, both in appearance and in character, the strong characteristics of a people born under a burning sun; at once lively and ferocious, strongly led away by the excitement of the moment, and ardent in their partialities and antipathies: in short, the same romance of character is perceptible among them, which, in the dark ages, peopled the country with troubadours. The mass of such a people, particularly when profoundly ignorant, may not be accessible to cool argument; and the manner and style of oratory which would disgust a reasoning Scotch peasant, or English mechanic, may be exactly adapted to act on the temperament of an Avignonese. The surest test, therefore, of the character and design of the Mission, will be the practical effects which it produces on the conduct of its congregation, as well as the future application of those liberal donatives, which have excited so much unfavourable feeling against it. Time and fair play alone can justify the motives of those who planned and conducted it. The question in the mean time is, not whether they may or may not have occasionally gone to the lengths of a "zeal without knowledge," but whether or not their purpose has been to instruct and benefit their fellow-countrymen according to the best of their power and belief, and without reference to political party.

CHAP. VIII.

PONT DU GARD--NISMES--MONTPELIER--CETTE.

MAY 13.--This day was fixed on for a journey to Vaucluse, the road to which is better adapted for the accommodation of two wheels than of four. M. Durand, our voiturier, attended accordingly with one of his portly mares harnessed to a sort of cabriolet, very much resembling an Irish noddy. Its high boarded front reaching to our chins, and the little fat person of Durand rather incommoded than accommodated on a cushion tied to the shaft, and much too near the mare on every account, formed a grotesque combination but little in character with what ought to have been a voyage of sentiment. The deficiency in pathos, however, was made up by the poor mare, who bewailed her absent companion with such incessant roarings, as to draw many cuts of the whip, and "sacra carognas," from the unrelenting Durand. We were struck, by-the-by, more than once during this day's route, by the Spanish and Italian terminations of the Provencal patois. A village which we passed, on an insulated height commanding the road, and crowned by ruined fortifications, is laid down as Chateau Neuf in the map, and called by the peasants Castel Novo. A man of whom we inquired the distance to Avignon, answered "Tres horas," using not only the words, but the method of computation which a Spaniard would employ.

Whether we really reached our place of destination, or were stopped short by intense heat and execrable roads, were interested, or overturned, this deponent saith not, nor indeed is it necessary. One may be pardoned for omitting the mention of a subject already so fully described as Vaucluse, its rocks and fountain, its associations, and even its eatables; for some travellers have dwelt on the subject of its excellent bisque, or crayfish soup, and its eels, a solace, no doubt, to[34] that gentle degree of melancholy, which Fielding affirms to be a whet to the appetite.

[Footnote 34: "And do not forget the toasted cheese." Vide _Matilda Pottingen_ in "The Rovers."]

"And, says the anatomic art, The stomach's very near the heart;"

as Peter Pindar also maintains. Some also, with an accuracy worthy Moubrays treatise on domestic fowls, have informed us that the hens near the fountain of Vaucluse are peculiarly prolific in fine eggs, and so on. For my own part, I may as well honestly confess that I am more partial to the memory of Petrarch as a philosopher, a patriot, and reviver of ancient learning, than as the Werter of Troubadours, though in the latter capacity he has stood unrivalled for five hundred years. I must own, also, that the hermitage whither he retired to stifle his rebellious passion for the wife of another, however melancholy and impressive the ideas may be which it would of itself excite, is poisoned, in my mind, by the pestilent frivolities with which the mawkish of all ages have defaced its sombre features, in violation of truth and sound feeling. What syllables of dolour the forgotten Della-Cruscan school may have yelled out on the subject, is not worth ascertaining, and probably recollected by few or none. The French, who with all their ingenuity, are not very apt at comprehending the madness of contemplative minds, have caricatured the shade of poor Petrarch most woefully, and[35] the Abbe Delille (peace to his ashes!) has teazed the innocent trees of Vaucluse with embarrassing questions, fitter for the mouths of Susanna's elders. Under such blighting influence, the stern rocks of Vaucluse are transformed into a sentimental tea-garden, the high-minded and melancholy Petrarch into a more ingenious Piercie Shafton, and the virtuous Laura, who probably never saw the place, into a starched Gloriana of the old school, paraded and gallanted round it with all due form. It is, perhaps, a judgment on Petrarch's adulterous Platonism, that it has laid him open to impertinences like these, which would torture his sensitive ghost almost as keenly as oblivion itself, and which very strongly remind one of Punch's intrusion at a tragedy. Such ideas cannot be engrafted on the [36]Nonwenwerder, or the [36]Pena de los Enamorados, spots on which a simple and obscure legend has thrown an interest which Vaucluse cannot really possess, though embellished by every thing which poetry can do for it.

[Footnote 35: See the Quarterly Review, to which I am obliged for the Abbe's remark.]

[Footnote 36: See Campbell's ballad of "The Brave Roland," in one of the numbers of the New Monthly Magazine; and Southey's tale of Manuel and Leila, in his early productions.]

It were to be wished, that the shade of Petrarch could return to his former haunts, to frighten away frivolous visitors, and read a lesson to the thinking. Instead of rejoicing at the posthumous fame which his poetical talents have earned, he would probably dwell on the insufficiency of the highest mental endowments without conduct and self-command. He would also probably describe his passion as fostered by the pedantic and high-flown gallantry of the age, and the applauses bestowed on his verses; as increasing and strengthening, after the marriage of Laura had rendered it criminal, without any purpose which his better conscience dared avow, till his eyes at length opened themselves too late to its culpable nature. His mind, of that high-wrought and desponding tone which often characterizes extraordinary genius, and too sincere to trifle with impunity, struggled then fruitlessly against a fatality formerly imagined, but become real; and the flower of his life was passed amid illusions and conflicts, in alternate self-deception and self-reproach, in wild and beautiful visions from which he awoke to sickness of heart and weariness of himself and all things, like the victim of a powerful opiate. Compromising weakly between his passion and his conscience, he would say, he secluded himself at Vaucluse from a society which had become dangerous to him, and by the verses which he composed as a vent to his feelings, fixed the illusion too deep to be eradicated by lapse of time, or the indifference of Laura. Such voluntary mental martyrdom resembles the punishment inflicted by some tyrant of history on his prisoners, whom he commanded to embrace his Apega, a beautiful automaton so constructed as to plunge a concealed dagger into their hearts.

The better feelings of Petrarch's readers will dwell with the least alloy on the period after the death of Laura, when he contemplated her as beyond the reach of human ties, affections, or jealousies, and sought only to rescue from oblivion the virtues and purity which had strengthened and refined his passion, while they rendered it hopeless. There is a beautiful passage in Campbell which appears exactly written to express his state of mind at this time, and the retrospective glance which he must have often cast on his past life.

"And yet, methinks, when wisdom shall assuage The griefs and passions of our greener age, Though dull the close of life, and far away, Each flower that hailed the dawning of our day, Yet o'er her lovely hopes that once were dear, The time-taught spirit, pensive, not severe, With milder griefs her aged eye shall fill, And weep their falsehood, though she love them still!"

The private memorandum,[37] written in the manuscript Virgil, of this extraordinary man, which is shown in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, may be considered as expressing his most undisguised feelings, as excited by an event which dissolves trifling attachments, while it gives permanence to those of a genuine nature. It was probably intended for no eye but his own. I annex as literal a translation as possible, and from the beauty and ease of their latinity, have been tempted to precede it with the original words.

[Footnote 37: I had procured this document from Milan, and translated it for the press, previous to reading the version of it which is given in the Quarterly.]

"Laura, propriis virtutibus illustris, et meis longum celebrata carminibus, primum oculis meis apparuit sub primum adolescentiae meae tempus, anno Domini 1327, die 6 mensis Aprilis, in ecclesia sanctae Clarae Avinioni, hora matutina. Et in eadem civitate, eodem mense Aprilis, eodem die 6, eadem hora prima, anno autem Domini 1348, ab hac luce lux illa subtracta est, cum ego forte Veronae essem, heu fati mei nescius! Rumor autem infelix, per literas Ludovici mei, me Parmae reperit, anno eodem, mense Maii, die mane.

"Corpus illud castissimum ac pulcherrimum in loco Fratrum Minorum repositum est ipsa die mortis ad vesperam. Animam quidem ejus, ut de Africano ait Seneca, in coelum, unde erat, rediisse, mihi persuadeo.

"Haec autem, ad acerbam rei memoriam, amara quadam dulcedine scribere visum est; hoc potissimum loco, qui saepe sub oculis meis redit, ut cogitem nihil esse debere quod amplius mihi placeat in hac vita, et effracto majori laqueo, tempus esse de Babylone fugiendi, crebra horum inspectione, ac fugacissimae aetatis aestimatione, commonear. Quod, praevia Dei gratia, facile erit, praeteriti temporis curas supervacuas, spes inanes, et inexpectatos exitus acriter ac viriliter cogitanti."

"Laura, illustrious for her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, first appeared to my eyes, in the time of my early youth, on the morning of the sixth day of April, in the year of our Lord 1327, in the church of St. Clare at Avignon; and in the same month of April, on the same first hour of the morning, in the year of our Lord 1348, that light was removed from this light of day, while I by chance was at Verona, unconscious, alas! of my fate. The unhappy news, however, reached me at Parma, in a letter from my friend Ludovico, on the morning of the 19th of May.

"Her most chaste and fair body was buried in the evening of the day of her death, in the convent of the Fratres Minores; but her soul, as Seneca saith of the soul of Africanus, hath returned, I am persuaded, to the heaven from whence it came.

"I have felt a kind of bitter pleasure in writing the memorial of this mournful event, the rather in this place, which so often meets my eyes, to the end that I may consider there is nothing left which ought to delight me in this world; and that I may be reminded by the frequent sight of these words, and the due appreciation of this fleeting life, that my principal tie to the world being broken, it is time for me to fly from this Babylon; which, through the preventing grace of God, will be an easy task, when I reflect deeply and manfully on the superfluous cares, the vain hopes, and the unlooked for events of the time past."

This simple and affecting tribute, written, as it evidently seems, under such solemn impressions, clears the memory of Laura from the imputation of any thing trifling or criminal, while it sufficiently establishes the identity of "a nymph," according to Gibbon, "so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned."

May 14.--We left Avignon this morning, with a more favourable impression of its cleanliness and comfort than any other town had as yet left on our minds. The road to Nismes, winding up a hill on the opposite side of the river, above Fort Villeneuve, is remarkably adapted also to display its numerous spires, and the grand Gothic mass of the legate's palace, to the utmost advantage: and we watched with something like regret the disappearance of these objects over the brow of the hill which we had ascended, more especially as on this spot the eye takes leave, for some time, of every thing agreeable. The view here consists of a high dull flat, with hardly a tree, and the road of rolling stones and dust; and a high wind prevailed, which seemed a combination of the Bise and Mistral, aided by all the bottled stores of a Lapland witch, and very nearly blew poor Durand off his box. After passing Fouzay and Demazan, two Little villages, adorned each a la Provencale, with a ruined castle, we turned out of the road to Nismes at Remoulin, where the features of the country somewhat improve. Another mile and a half brought us to an indifferent inn within a ten minutes' walk of the Pont du Gard. It is adapted for nothing more than a baiting-place for a few hours, and not at all of that description which so well-known a ruin would be in most cases capable of maintaining. The landlord, however, "a sallow, sublime sort of Werter-faced man," was civil, and inclined to do his best, and gathered us some double yellow roses, of a sort we had never seen before, to season his bad fare.

The Pont du Gard, which we were not long in visiting, is seen to the greatest advantage on the side on which we approached it from the inn. The deep mountain glen, inhabited only by goats, whose entrance it crosses from cliff to cliff, forms a striking back-ground, and serves as a measure to the height of the colossal arches which appear to grow naturally, as it were, out of the gray rocks on which they rest.[38] There is certainly something more poetical in the stern and simple style of architecture of which this noble aqueduct is a specimen, than in the more florid and graceful school of art. The latter speaks more to the eye, but the former to the mind, possessing a superiority analogous to that which the great style of painting (as it is termed) boasts over the florid and ornamental Venetian school. Our own Stonehenge is too much, perhaps, in the rude extreme of this branch of architecture to be quoted as a favourable instance of it; but few persons can come suddenly in sight of Stonehenge on a misty day without being struck by its peculiar effect; and the Pont du Gard, placed in as lonely a situation, exhibits materials almost as gigantic in detail, and knit into a towering mass which seems to require no less force than an earthquake, or a battery of cannon, to change the position of a single stone. A large and solid bridge which has been built against it by the states of Languedoc, appears by comparison to shrink into insignificance, and shelter itself behind the old Roman arches, the lower tier of which, eleven in number, overtop it in height by about three-fifths. The span of the largest arch is about 78 feet; of the other ten, 66 each: and they are surmounted by a row of thirty-five smaller arches. With the exception of two or three of these last, the whole fabric is complete, and, if unmolested, appears likely to witness more changes of language and dynasty than it has already done. I do not know that the mind is ever more impressed with the idea of Roman power and greatness, than by contemplating such structures as these, erected for subordinate purposes at a distance from the main seat of empire. It is like discovering a broken hand or foot of the Colossus of Rhodes, and estimating in imagination the height and bulk of the whole statue from the size of its enormous extremities.

[Footnote 38: Vide Cooke's Views.]

From the Pont du Gard the road to Nismes has little to recommend it excepting the high state of cultivation of the country, and this is not of a nature to gratify an eye accustomed to English verdure. Olive-groves, it is true, have been naturalized in poetry as conveying an image of beauty and freshness; but in reality nothing can be more opposed to the oaks and elms of an English hedge-row, than the pale shining gray of this stunted tree, which has more of a metallic than a vegetable appearance. Nor does a perpetual succession of corn-fields, however rich in reality, present the same appearance of luxuriant vegetation as an English pasture. There is, besides, nothing in the nearer approach to Nismes, which reminds one of the environs of an opulent commercial town, and its precincts would cut a poor figure when compared with those of Leeds or Bristol. The transition is immediate, from a dull range of corn-fields, without a gentleman's house, to a long dirty suburb. On emerging, however, from the latter into the better and more central part of the town, one is surprised to find wide and elegant streets well watered and planted, and public buildings, whose beauty and good taste show that the citizens of Nismes have made a good use of the fine architectural models afforded by the ancient Nemausis. The Palais de Justice deserves to be particularly remarked for its classical elegance, and contrasts well with the black solid arches of the Arenes, near which it is placed.

"_Monsieour!_ les antiquites!--_Heou! Monsieour!_ les Arenes!--Commissionaire pour voir la Maison Carree!--_Heou--ou! Monsieour!_ decrotteur, s'il vous plait!--Le Temple de Diane, _Monsieour!_" are the cries with which every third or fourth ragamuffin at Nismes salutes you, enforcing his application by a peculiar yell, of which no combination of letters can give an idea uncouth enough. As it is hardly possible to walk in the central part of Nismes without seeing its antiquities before you, it is best to avoid a troublesome live appendage of this sort, by appearing totally deaf. The Arenes are nearly in front of the Hotel du Louvre, and the Maison Carree is within two or three minutes' walk of it: the Temple of Diana and the Baths are situated in the most conspicuous spot in the public gardens, whither a perpetual concourse of people may be seen thronging; and the Pharos overlooks them from the summit of a small precipitous hill, which may be ascended in five minutes by a good walker. Every thing therefore lies within the compass of an evening's stroll.