CHAPTER VI.

THE ÉTANG DE BERRE

Martigues is the metropolis of the towns and villages which fringe the shore of the Étang de Berre, a sort of an inland sea, with all the attributes of both a salt and fresh water lake.

Around Martigues, in the spring-time, all is verdant and full of colour, and the air is laden with the odours of aromatic buds and blossoms. At this time, when the sun has not yet dried out and yellowed the hillsides, the spectacle of the background panorama is most ravishing. Almond, peach, and apricot trees, all covered with a rosy snow of blossoms, are everywhere, and their like is not to be seen elsewhere, for in addition there is here a contrasting frame of greenish-gray olive-trees and punctuating accents of red and yellow wild flowers that is reminiscent of California.

Surrounding the “Petite Mer de Berre” are a half-dozen of unspoiled little towns and villages which are most telling in their beauty and charms: St. Mitre, crowning a hill with a picturesquely roofed Capucin convent for a near neighbour, and with some very substantial remains of its old Saracen walls and gates, is the very ideal of a mediæval hill town; Istres, with its tree-grown chapel, its fortress-like church and its “classic landscape,” is as unlike anything that one sees elsewhere in France as could be imagined; while Miramas, St. Chamas, and Berre, on the north shores of the Étang, though their names even are not known to most travellers, are delightful old towns where it is still possible to live a life unspoiled by twentieth-century inventions and influences.

If the mistral is not blowing, one may make the passage across the Étang, from Martigues to Berre, in one of the local craft known as a “_bête_,” a name which sounds significant, but which really means nothing. If the north wind is blowing, the journey should be made by train, around the Étang via Marignane. The latter route is cheaper, and one may be saved an uncomfortable, not to say dangerous, experience.

One great and distinct feature of the countryside within a short radius of Marseilles, within which charmed circle lie Martigues and all the surrounding towns of the Étang de Berre, are the _cabanons_, the modest villas (_sic_) of these parts, seen wherever there is an outlook upon the sea or a valleyed vista. They cling perilously to the hillsides, wherever enough level ground can be found to plant their foundations, and their gaudy colouring is an ever present feature in the landscape of hill and vale.

The _cabanon_ is really the _maison de campagne_ of the _petit bourgeois_ of the cities and towns. It is like nothing ever seen before, though in the Var, east of Marseilles, the “_bastide_” is somewhat similar. In its proportions it resembles the log cabin of the Canadian backwoods more than it does the East Indian bungalow, though it is hardly more comfortable or roomy than the wigwam of the red man. Indeed, how could it be, when it consists of but four walls, forming a rectangle of perhaps a dozen feet square, and a roof of red tiles?

If, like the Japanese, the inhabitant of the _cabanon_ likes to carry his household gods about with him, why, then it is quite another thing, and there is some justice in the claim of its occupant that he is enjoying life _en villégiature_.

“_Le cabanon: c’est unique et affreux!_” said Taine, and, though he was a great grumbler when it came to travel talk, and the above is an unfair criticism of a most intolerant kind, the _cabanon_ really is ludicrous, though often picturesque.

The simple stone hut, with the stones themselves roughly covered with pink or blue stucco, sits, always, facing the south. Before it is a tiny terrace and, since there are often no windows, the general housekeeping is done under an awning, or a lean-to, or a “_tonnelle_.”

It is not a wholly unlovely thing, a _cabanon_, but it gets the full benefit of the glaring sunlight on its crude outlines, and, though sylvan in its surroundings, it is seldom cool or shady, as a country house, of whatever proportions or dimensions, ought to be.

Some figures concerning the Étang de Berre are an inevitable outcome of a close observation, so the following are given and vouched for as correct. It is large enough to shelter all the commercial fleet of the Mediterranean and all the French navy as well. For an area of over three thousand hectares, there is a depth of water closely approximating forty feet. Between the Étang and the Mediterranean are the Montagnes de l’Estaque, which for a length of eight kilometres range in height from three hundred to fifteen hundred feet, and would form almost an impenetrable barrier to a fleet which might attack the ships of commerce or war which one day may take shelter in the Étang de Berre. This, if the naval powers-that-be have their way, will some day come to pass. All this is a prophecy, of course, but Elisée Reclus has said that the non-utilization of the Étang de Berre was a _scandale économique_, which doubtless it is.

In spite of the name “Étang,” the “Petite Mer de Berre” is a veritable inland harbour or _rade_, closed against all outside attack by its narrow entrance through the elongated Étang de Caronte. That its strategic value to France is fully recognized is evident from the fact that frequently it is overrun by a practising torpedo-boat fleet. What its future may be, and that of the delightful little towns and cities on its shores, is not very clear. There is the possibility of making it the chief harbour on the south coast of France, but hitherto the influences of Marseilles have been too strong; and so this vast basin is as tranquil and deserted as if it were some inlet on the coast of Borneo, and, except for the little lateen-rigged fishing-boats which dot its surface day in and day out throughout the year, not a mast of a _goélette_ and not a funnel of a steamship ever crosses its horizon,--except the manœuvring torpedo-boats.

The Marseillais know this “Petite Mer” and its curious border towns and villages full well. They come to Martigues to eat _bouillabaisse_ of even a more pungent variety than they get at home, and they go to Marignane for _la chasse_,--though it is only “_petits oiseaux_” and “_plongeurs_” that they bag,--and they go to St. Chamas and Berre for the fishing, until the whole region has become a Sunday meeting-place for the Marseillais who affect what they call “_le sport_.”

On the western shore of the “Petite Mer,” on the edge of the dry, pebbly Crau, with a background of greenish-gray olive groves, is Istres, a _chef-lieu_ not recognized by many geographers out of France, and known by still fewer tourists. Istres is in no way a remarkable place, and its inhabitants live mostly on carp taken from the Étang de l’Olivier, _moules_, and such _poissons de mer_ as find their way into the “Petite Mer.” Fish diet is not bad, but it palls on one if it is too constant, and the _moule_ is a poor substitute for the clam or oyster. Istres makes salt and soda and not much else, but it is a town as characteristic of the surrounding country as one is likely to find. It grew up from a quasi-Saracen settlement, and down through feudal times it bore some resemblance to what it is to-day, for it numbers but something like three thousand souls. There are remains of its old ramparts which, judging from their aspect, must once have borne some relationship to those of Aigues Mortes.

Truly the landscape round about is weird and strange, but it is superb in its very rudeness, although no one would have the temerity to call it magnificent. There are great hillocks of fossil shells which would delight the geologist, and there are “_petits oiseaux_” galore for the sportsman.

Twilight seems to be the time of day when all Istres’s strange effects are heightened,--as it is on the Nile,--and it will take no great stretch of the imagination to picture the shores of the Étang as the banks of Egypt’s river. The aspect at the close of day is strange and unforgettable, with the great plain of the Crau stretching away indefinitely, and the blue “_nappe_” of the Étang likewise indefinitely hazy and tranquil. In spite of its lack of twentieth-century comforts, the seeker after new sensations could do worse than spend a night and a part of a day at Istres’s Hôtel de France, and, if he is a painter, he may spend here a week, a month, or a lifetime and not get bored.

If one happens to be at Istres on the “Jour des Mortes,” in November, he may witness, in the evening, in the cypress-sheltered cemetery, one of the most weird and eerie sights possible to imagine. When Odilon, Abbot of Cluny, established the “Fête des Mortes,” in 998, he little knew the extent to which it would be observed. The “Fête des Mortes” is one thing in the royal crypt at St. Denis and quite another in the small towns and villages up and down the length of France.

It has been commonly thought that Bretagne was the most religious and devout of all the ancient provinces of France, at least that it had become so, whatever may have been its status in the past; but certainly the good folk of Istres are as devout and religious as any community extant, if the wonderfully impressive chanting and illuminating in the graveyard by its old tree-grown chapel count for anything. It is as if the night itself were hung with crêpe, and the hundreds, nay, thousands, of candles set about on the tombs and in the trees heighten the effect of solemnity and sadness to an indescribable degree. In the town the church-bells toll out their doleful knell, and the still air of the night carries the wails and chants of the mourners far out over the barren Crau. It is the same whether it rains or shines, or whether the mistral blows or not. The candles, the mourners, and the little crosses of wheat straws--a symbol of the Resurrection--are as mystical as the rites of the ancients to one who has never seen such a celebration. Decidedly, if one is in these parts on the first day of November, he should come to Istres for the night, or he will have missed an exceedingly interesting chapter from the book of pleasurable travel.

Passing from Istres to the north shore of the Étang, one comes to Miramas.

Miramas is a quaint little longshore town which makes one think of pirates, Saracens, and Moors, all of whom, in days gone by, had a foothold here, if local traditions are to be believed. Miramas and St. Chamas, which is the metropolis of the neighbourhood, though its population only about equals that of Miramas, are twin towns which are quite unlike anything else in these parts in that they are neither progressive nor somnolent, but while away their time in some inexplicable fashion, bathed in the brilliant Mediterranean sunlight reflected from off the surface of the Étang, which stretches at their feet and furnishes the seafood on which the inhabitants mostly live. The chief curiosity of the neighbourhood is the Pont Flavien, which crosses the Touloubre near by, on the “Route d’Aix.” The structure is a monument to Domnius Flavius by his executors Domnius Vena and Attius Rufus. It possesses an elegance and sobriety which many more magnificent works lack, and the classic lines of its superstructure and its great semicircular arch in the twilight carry the observer back to the days of mediævalism.

At St. Chamas one is likely to find his hotel--regardless of which of the two leading establishments he patronizes--most unique in its management, though none the less excellent, enjoyable, and amusing for that. If by chance he reaches the town on a Saturday night and comes upon a _grand bal familier_ in the dining-room, and is himself compelled to eat his dinner at a small table in the office, he must not quarrel, but rest content that he is to be rewarded by a sight which will prove again that it is only the French bourgeois who really and truly knows how to enjoy simple pleasures. Fortnightly, at least, during the winter months this sort of thing takes place, and the young men and maidens, and young mothers and their babies in arms, and old folk, too old indeed to swing partners, form a cordon around the walls to gaze upon the less timid ones who dance with all the abandon of a southern climate until the hour of eleven,--and then to bed. It is all very primitive, the orchestra decidedly so,--a violin and a clarionette, and always a Provençal tambourine, which is not a tambourine at all, but a drum,--but an occasional glimpse of a beautiful Arlesienne will truly repay one for any discomfort to which he may have been put.

St. Chamas is renowned through Provence from the fact that commerce in the olive first came to its great proportions through the perspicuity of one of the local cultivators. It was he who first had the idea of preparing for market the “_olive-picholine_,” or green briny olive, which figures so universally on dining-tables throughout the world. In some respects they may not equal the “queen olives” of Spain; but the olives of Provence have a delicacy that is far more subtle, and the real enthusiast will become so addicted to eating the olive of Provence on its native heath that it will become an incurable habit, like cigarettes or golf.

From St. Chamas to Berre is scarce a dozen kilometres, but, to the traveller from the north, the journey will be full of marvels and surprises. The panorama which unfolds itself at every step is of surpassing beauty, though not so very grand or magnificent.

“La Petite Mer” is in full view, the opposite shore lost in the refulgence of a reflected glow, as if it were the open sea itself. All around its rim are the rocky hills, of which the highest, the Tête Noire, rises to perhaps fifteen hundred feet.

Everywhere there are goats, and many of them great long-haired beasts, the females of which give an unusually abundant supply of milk. For a long period, on the shores of the Étang de Berre, there were no cows, and the inhabitants depended for their milk-supply solely upon the goat, which the French properly enough call “_la vache du pauvre_.” Like the love of the olive, that for goat’s milk is an acquired taste.

The first apparition of the city of Berre is charming, and, like Martigues, it is a sort of a cross between Venice and Amsterdam. Its streets, like its canals and basins, are narrow and winding, though for the most part it stretches itself out along one slim thoroughfare. Its aspect, apparently, has not changed in thirty years, when Taine wrote his impressions of “_ces rues d’une étroitesse étonnante_.” He made a further comment which does not hold true to-day. He said that there was an infectious odour of concentrated humanity, with the dust and mud of centuries still over all. From the very paradox of the description it is not difficult to infer that he nodded, and assuredly Berre is not to-day, if it ever was, _sale, comme si depuis le commencement des siècles_.

All the same Berre is not a progressive town, as is shown by the fact that between the two last censuses its population has fallen from eighteen hundred to fifteen. However, its trade has increased perceptibly, thanks to the salt works here, and the tiny port gave a haven, in the year past, to a hundred craft averaging a hundred tons each.

Northward from the shores of the Étang de Berre lies Salon, the most commercial of all the cities and towns between Arles and Marseilles. Differing greatly from the lowlands lying round about, Salon is the centre of a verdant garden-spot reclaimed by the monks of St. Sauveur from an ancient marshy plain. In reality the town owes its existence to Jeanne de Naples, who, forced to flee from her kingdom in 1357, dreamed of establishing another here in Provence. She actually did take up a portion of the country, and the village of Salon, through the erection of a donjon and a royal residence, took on some of the characteristics of a capital.

In spite of its royal patronage, the chief deity of Salon was Nostradamus, who was born at St. Rémy, of Jewish parents, in 1503. Destined for the medical profession, he completed his studies at Montpellier and retired to Salon to produce that curious work called “Centuries,” he having come to believe that he was possessed of the spirit of prophecy to such an extent that his mission was really to enlighten rather than cure the world.

Michael Nostradamus and his prophecies created some stir in the world, for it was a superstitious age. The Medici was doing her part in the patronizing of astrologers and necromancers, and promptly became a patron of this new seer of Provence, though never forswearing allegiance to her pet Ruggieri. It is on record that Catherine got a horoscope of the lives of her sons from Nostradamus and showed him great deference.

After this all the world of princes and seigneurs flocked to the prophet’s house at Salon, which became a veritable shrine, with a living deity to do the honours. To-day one may see his tomb in the parish church of St. Laurent.

The traffic in olives and olive-oil is very considerable at Salon; indeed, one may say that it is the centre of the industry in all Provence, for the olives known as “Bouches-du-Rhône” are the most sought for in the French market, and bring a higher price than those of the Var, or of Spain, Sicily, or Tunis.

Not far from the northern shores of the Étang de Berre, just above Salon, runs the great national highway from Paris to Antibes, branching off to Marseilles just before reaching Aix-en-Provence. The railway also passes through the heart of the same region; but, in spite of it all, only few really know the lovely country round about.

The region is historic ground, though in detail it perhaps has not the general interest of the Campagne d’Arles or Vaucluse; still it has an abounding interest for the traveller by road, and nowhere will one find a greater variety of topography or a pleasanter, milder land than in this neglected corner of Provence.

The roads here are flat, level stretches, five, ten, or more kilometres in length, and are as straight as an arrow. There is a kilometre stretch just west of Salon that the Automobile Club de France has adjudged to be perfectly level, and there a road-devouring monster of 200 h.p. recently made a world’s record for the flying kilometre of 20¾ seconds.

Before returning to the shores of the Étang de Berre, one should make a détour to Roquefavour and Ventabren. One finds a complete change of scene and colouring, quite another atmosphere in fact, and yet it is only a scant ten kilometres off the route.

The château and aqueduct of Roquefavour are each a sermon in stone, the latter one of those engineering feats of modern times, which, unlike wire-rope bridges and sky-scrapers, have something of the elements of beauty in their make-up.

Near by, on a rocky promontory, with a base so firm that all the winds of the four quarters could never shake its foundations, is the significantly named village of Ventabren. All about are the ruins of the magnificence which had existed before, somewhat reminiscent of Les Baux, while beneath flows the river Arc, the alluvial soil of whose bed has proved so advantageous to the vine-culture hereabouts.

The aqueduct of Roquefavour has not had the benefit of six centuries of aging possessed by that similar work near Nîmes, the Pont du Gard of Agrippa; but it harmonizes wonderfully with the surrounding landscape, in spite of the fact that it is only a mid-nineteenth-century work, built to conduct water to Marseilles from far up the valley of the Durance. Overhead, and beneath the ground, for 122 kilometres, runs the canal until here, where it crosses the Arc, the monumental viaduct has proved to be a more stupendous work than any undertaken by the Romans, who, supposedly, were the master builders of aqueducts.

On returning to the Étang, and after passing several perilously perched hillside villages, one comes suddenly to Marignane, a name which is little known or recognized. The town is very contracted, and it is wofully lacking in every modern convenience, except the electric light, which, curiously enough, its more opulent neighbour, Martigues, lacks.

Marignane preserves traces of the Roman occupation, though what its status among the cities of the ancient Provincia may have been will perhaps ever remain in doubt. Principally it will be loved for its château of Renaissance times, which belonged to Mirabeau’s mother, who was of the seigneurial family of Marignane. It is not a remarkably beautiful building, but it is a satisfactory one in every way, and, though now in a state of decrepitude, it is a monumental reminder of other days and other ways. The Hôtel de Ville occupies the old château, but nothing very lively ever takes place there except the civil marriages of the commune, participants in which would, it seems, rather have the knot tied there than in any other similar edifice. Only the façade misses being a ruin, but all parts preserve the elegance--in suggestion, at least--of its former glory, and the great state chamber has been well preserved and cared for.

Formerly the town had the usual fortifications with which important mediæval cities were surrounded, but they have now disappeared, and one will have to turn his steps to Salon for any ruins that suggest feudalism.

There has ever been a contention between archæologists and historians as to the exact location of the Maritima of Pliny and Ptolemy, a designation given to a colony of Avatici, in the days when the sea power of the Greeks and Romans seemed likely never to wane. The question is still unsettled and crops up again and again.

Marignane, on the shores of the Étang de Bolmon,--an offshoot of that wonderfully fascinating Étang de Berre,--was, perhaps, the ancient Maritima Colonia Avaticorum, and Martigues, its grander and better known neighbour, may have borne the title of Maritima Colonia Anatiliorum. As a mere matter of title, it is a fine distinction anyway, but everything points to the fact that the ancients had a great port somewhere on the shores of this landlocked Étang. Just where this may have been, and what its name was, is not so clear to-day, for there is scarcely more than a dozen feet of water in the shallow parts of the Étang, and this fact of itself would seem to preclude that it was ever a rival of the great ports of the Mediterranean of other days. The speculation, at any rate, will give food for thought to any who are interested, and whether this same Étang ever becomes, as is prophesied, a great series of ports and docks which will more than rival Marseilles, does not matter in the least. To-day the Étang de Berre is quite unspoiled in all the charm and novelty of its environment and of the little salt-water towns which surround it.