Part 7

There and then Romée de Villeneuve took off his robes of office and, having donned the pilgrim’s dress in which he had arrived at the castle, made his way out of the gate into the open road. Raymond Berenger never saw him again. Where the pilgrim wandered no one knows. All that the chronicle relates is that he died in the castle of Vence and that his will was dated 1250—five years after the death of the count, his master.

Many a time in the days that followed Romée’s disappearance Count Raymond would be found standing alone in a certain deserted room gazing at an empty coffer.

* * * * *

Queen Jeanne.—As has been said in the previous chapter, there was in the Place aux Aires at Grasse a palace of Queen Jeanne, who died in 1382. When Jeanne took refuge in Provence with her second husband—after the murder of her first—she caused this palace to be built. All that is left of it, at the present day, is the kitchen stair and a few mouldings, but, writes Miss Dempster, “there is not a bare-foot child but can tell you that those steps belonged to the palace of Queen Jeanne.”[19]

There is no evidence that this meteoric lady ever lived in this house that she had built, although she was Countess of Provence as well as Queen of Naples. It was from no indisposition to travel on her part, for she was never quiet and never in one place long, not even when she was in prison. Flitting about from Provence to Naples took up no little of her time, and when she was not occupied on these journeys she was either pursuing her enemies or being, in turn, pursued by them.

In the language of the history book she “flourished” in the fourteenth century. The expression is ineffective, for she “blazed” rather than flourished. She was the political fidget of her time. A beautiful and passionate woman, she traversed the shores of the Mediterranean like a whirlwind. Her adventures would occupy the longest film of the most sensational picture theatre. Tragedy and violent domestic scenes became her most; but wherever she went there circled around her the makings of a drama of some kind. All the materials for a moving story were present. The scene was laid in feudal times when the license of the great was unrestrained. The heroine was a pretty woman who fascinated everyone who came in her path. She was, moreover, a wayward lady of ability and wide ambitions who was quite unscrupulous, who felt herself never called upon to keep her word and who was determined to get whatever she wanted.

She had a somewhat immoderate taste for matrimony, since she was a widow four times and would probably have married a fifth husband had not a friend of her youth strangled her when she was in prison. Her selection of husbands was catholic, as the list of men she chose will show. They were, in the order in which they died, Andrew of Hungary, Louis of Tarentum, James of Majorca, and Otto of Brunswick.

She was charged with having murdered her first husband. The charge was pressed by popular clamour and she was tried, in great state, in her own town of Avignon, in Provence, in the year 1348. The Pope himself presided. At the trial she is said to have made a deep impression on the court. She startled this august assembly of solemn men. They saw in her a woman full of the tenderest charm. They were moved by her grace, by her ease of manner, by the sweetness of her voice, by her pathos-stirring eloquence, and—strangest of all—by her remarkable knowledge of Latin. She was acquitted and then publicly blessed by the Pope.

Her loyal subjects at Naples were not satisfied with this tribunal. They wanted their queen tried over again. They were rather proud of her and they liked revelations of palace life. Probably too they knew a little more than had “come out” at Avignon. Anyhow, the Pope was compelled again to proclaim her innocent, and, being a man of the world and anxious to put himself in the right, he added that even if she _had_ murdered her husband she had been the victim of witchcraft and sorcery and so was not responsible for her actions.

Queen Jeanne the Unquiet was one of the most obstinate women that ever lived. The only way to influence her was to put her in prison and her experience of prisons was large. At one time she was disposed to hand over Provence, or some part of it, to the King of France or other neighbouring potentate. To stop this recklessness she was arrested by the barons of Les Baux and of adjacent Provençal towns and locked up. Having promised never to alienate Provence or any part of it, she was let out of jail; but she had not long been free before she sold Avignon, the chief town of Provence, to the Pope for 80,000 gold florins. As an excuse she said, with a smile, that she was rather short of money.

The obstinacy of this irrepressible lady led to her dramatic ending. She took a very decided part in the controversy known as the Great Schism of the West. Her determined attitude led to many and varied troubles. Finally she was besieged in Castel Nuovo and there had to surrender to her kinsman and one time friend, Charles of Durazzo. He attempted to make her renounce the errors—or reputed errors—to which she clung. He failed, and “finding that nothing could bend her indomitable spirit, he strangled her in prison on May 12th, 1382.”[20]

* * * * *

Louise de Cabris.—On a certain day, in the year 1769, there was great commotion in and around the mansion of the Marquis de Cabris in the Rue du Cours. The young marquis was bringing home his bride. The de Cabris represented the pinnacle of society in Grasse. They were the great people of the town. To know them was in itself a distinction. The bride belonged to a family even more eminent, for she was the daughter of the Marquis de Mirabeau, of Mirabeau, near Aix en Provence. She was a mere girl, being only seventeen years of age.

The nice, worthy people of Grasse received her with effusive kindness. They were sorry for her, because they knew the husband. He was young, weak and vicious and came from a stock deeply tainted with insanity. They took the gentle little marquise under their motherly wing. They petted her, made much of her and comforted her in a warm, caressing way. They knew as little what kind of innocent they were fussing over as does a hen who fosters a pretty ball of yellow down that turns into a duckling.

When Louise, Marquise de Cabris, reached her full stature, those who had mothered her viewed with amazement the product of their care. They beheld a lady who was not only the terror of Grasse, but a subject for scandal far beyond anything that the virtuous town had ever dreamed of. Louise, the full-grown woman, was beautiful to look at, was an adept in the arts of seduction, was brilliant in speech and possessed of a dazzling but dangerous wit. She was a woman of great vitality who loved excitement and cared little of what kind it was. She was depraved in a genial kind of way, picturesquely wicked, had a lover, of course—a feeble youth named Briançon—had no heart and no principles. She could claim, as one writer says, “the Mirabeau madness and badness and all the Mirabeau brains.”[21]

When the good old ladies of Grasse gossiped together they no longer discussed what they could do to help the poor marquise. Their sole anxiety was to know “what on earth she would do next.” She did a great deal. Incidentally she challenged another lady to fight a duel with pistols. Think of it! The timid, clinging bride of a few years taking to fighting with firearms! What next indeed!

Louise was much attached to her famous brother, the great Mirabeau, the orator, statesman and roué. Whenever this illustrious man was in a mess—and he was very often in a mess—he always came for help and sympathy to his nimble-minded and wicked sister. Louise was the only member of the Mirabeau family who attended his wedding with Mademoiselle Marignane, and she had always regarded his shortcomings with indulgence and even with admiration.

One visit that Mirabeau paid to his sister at Grasse became memorable. The brother was in some trouble again. The affair had to do with his wife’s lover and he came to his sister as to an expert in the treatment of lovers.

Now shortly before his arrival the sober city of Grasse had passed through a species of convulsion. Placards had been mysteriously posted all over the town in which the characters of the ladies of Grasse were attacked in the coarsest and plainest language. It was curious that one lady’s name was not touched upon. Of all names the name of the Marquise de Cabris alone was wanting. The inference naturally followed that the libels had been propagated by the de Cabris. There was a violent and confused uproar which was hushed at last by the payment to the injured parties of a large sum by the foolish Marquis de Cabris. Louise, on the other hand, who had no doubt written the abusive lampoons herself, placidly disclaimed all knowledge of the matter. She said, with hauteur, that they were beneath her notice and, at the same time, wished it to be known that she was very cross with those who had the audacity to suspect her.

Among the society folk who had “said things” about Madame de Cabris in connection with the libels was her next-door neighbour, a certain Baron de Villeneuve-Monans.

The gardens of the baron and the lady touched. These gardens ended in two terraces one above the other, like two steps. On the upper terrace the marquise had built a summer house which she called Le Pavillon des Indes. It was her Petit Trianon, her quiet corner, and was surmounted by a gilded goat’s head, the goat’s head being the “canting” arms of the Cabris (_cabri_).

On the occasion of her brother’s visit Louise gave a quiet dinner in her pavilion. The party consisted of her brother and herself, her lover Briançon and an unnamed lady who was invited, no doubt, to entertain Mirabeau. Before the meal was over the baron appeared on the upper terrace of his garden, in order to take the air before the sun went down. Louise pointed him out to her brother, told him what the baron had done and what she would do with that nobleman if she had the strength. Mirabeau at once jumped up from the table, stepped over into the baron’s garden and fell upon the unsuspecting man with explosive violence.

Now to introduce a comic element into a conflict of this kind it is essential that at least one of the combatants should be elderly and corpulent and that, by some means or another, an umbrella should be brought into the affair. All these factors were present. The baron was over fifty; he was very fat and, as the evening was hot, he carried an umbrella. Excessive perspiration, also, is considered to be conducive to humour.

Mirabeau, the statesman, flew at the fat man, bashed in his hat and, seizing the umbrella, proceeded to beat him on the head with it. Further he made the baron’s nose bleed and tore his clothes, especially about the neck.

He also kicked him. The fat baron, who was shaped like a melon, clung to the agile politician, with the result that they both rolled off the terrace on to the ledge below, where sober gardeners, with bent backs, were busy with the soil. These honest men were surprised to see two members of the aristocracy drop from a wall and roll along the ground, with an umbrella serving as a kind of axle, snarling like cats and using language that would have brought a blush to the cheek of a pirate.

Louise, on the terrace above, was beside herself with joy. She screamed, she clapped her hands, she stamped, she jumped with pure delight. She was in an ecstasy; and when a fresh rent appeared in the baron’s coat or when fresh mud appeared on his face as he rolled over and over, or when Mirabeau’s fist sounded upon him like a drum she was bent double with laughter.

Mirabeau was of course arrested for his part in this entertainment and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. The prison to which he was sent was the famous Château d’If. In his confinement, however, he was consoled by thinking that he had given his sister the merriest day in her life.

The Mirabeau family was a peculiar one. The Marquis de Mirabeau hated his daughter and she, as cordially, hated him. The basis of the enmity was the fact that Louise sided with her mother in the constant quarrels upon which her parents were engaged. The marquis, who called his daughter Rongelime after the serpent in the fable, contrived to have her sent to the Ursuline convent at Sisteron, as a punishment for her many and scandalous misdeeds. The sisters were, no doubt, pleased to receive so noble a lady; but their pleasure was short-lived, for at the dinner table the marquise used such unusual language and told such improper stories that the convent was soon divided into two parties—those who were too horrified to associate with her and those who could not withstand the lure of the beautiful woman who said such thrillingly dreadful things.

Exile to Sisteron was rather a severe measure for the flighty Louise. Although it is one of the most picturesque towns in this part of France it lies far away among the hills, no less than 118 miles from Nice by the Grenoble road. This road, which is as full of wonders and enchantment as any road in an adventurous romance, did not exist in the days of Madame de Cabris.

Sisteron stands in a narrow gorge through which rushes the Durance river. The pass is bounded on either side by a towering precipice. The town, which has only room for one long dim street, clings to a ledge some few yards above the torrent and at the foot of the loftier cliff. On the summit of this height stood the castle, the place of which is now occupied by a modern military work. In the town, besides the exquisite church of Notre Dame of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, are four isolated and very lonely round towers. They were built about the year 1364. They are put to no purpose, but simply stand in a row on vacant ground, looking disconsolate, as if they had been accidentally left behind when the other ancient properties of the city were removed.

Across the river, at the foot of the gentler cliff, is a little wizen, sun-bleached place called the Old Town. It is made up of gaunt houses which show many traces of grandeur and of haughty bearing; but which are now tenanted by a colony of poor and picturesquely untidy folk. At the far end of this row of ghostly buildings is Louise’s convent, where she chafed and fumed, said terrible things and told un-nun-like stories.

It was a bustling place in its day but it is now deserted and falling into ruin. Those who would realise the pathos and the beauty of the last days of an old convent should make a pilgrimage to Sisteron. The convent buildings are tenanted by a few humble families who seem to have settled here in the half-hearted mood of diffident intruders. There cannot be many habitable rooms left in the rambling building, although there is much space for hoarding rubbish. At one end is the little chapel, still almost intact, but in a state of lamentable neglect. It is low, has a curious rounded apse and a bell gable with two bells in it. One wonders who was the last to ring these bells, for their ropes are gone and they must have been silent for many years. The ringer may have been some bent, grey-haired nun who loved the bells and, hearing them sound for the last time with infinite sorrow, would have dropped the rope with tears in her eyes.

The chapel is built of a warm, yellow stone and has a roof of rounded tiles of such exquisite tints of ashen-grey, of dull red and of chestnut brown that it may be covered with a rippled thatch of autumn leaves. At the other end of the convent is a fine campanile of sturdy mason’s work. It is still proud and commanding, although its base is occupied by a stable and is stuffed with that dusty rubbish, that mouldy hay and those fragments of farm implements that the poor seem never to have the heart to destroy.

Behind the chapel is a tiny graveyard which is symbolic of the place; for it is so overgrown that its few sad monuments are almost hidden by weeds and scrubby bushes. The view from the convent is one of enchanting beauty. It looks down the valley of the Buëch which joins the main river just above the town. It might be a glade in Paradise.

The place is very silent. The only sounds to be heard are the same as would have fallen upon the ears of the restless marquise—the child-like chuckle of the river, the song of a shepherd on the hill, the clang of a black-smith’s hammer far away and the tolling of the old church bell across the stream.

Before long the illustrious Mirabeau was in another mess and needed once more the help of his experienced sister. This time he was running away with Madame de Monnier, the wife of a friend. Louise was still in the convent; but she could not resist the temptation of assisting her brother in this laudable and exciting enterprise. So she bolted from the convent, assumed a man’s attire, armed herself and started on horseback with her lover Briançon to join the runaway couple. The movements of the party are a little difficult to follow. They went to Geneva, to Thonon and to Lyons. They had difficulties at the frontier and other mishaps. In some way Louise and Briançon failed Mirabeau at a critical moment. The lady seems to have lost her nerve and to have unwittingly given a clue as to her brother’s whereabouts, so that he narrowly escaped capture.

Briançon and Mirabeau quarrelled, flew at one another’s throats, and were parted, with difficulty, by the panting marquise. This episode led to a coolness between brother and sister, a coolness which in time ended in bitter enmity.

Then came the French Revolution which brought complete ruin to the de Cabris family and destruction to their house. Louise and her husband fled from the country during the Terror. When they returned to France they found their home at Grasse gone and their affairs in a state of dissolution. To add to the troubles of the irrepressible lady her husband had lapsed into a state of hopeless insanity.

The once gay marquise, having lost estate, position and friends, retired to a small _appartement_ in Paris with her sick husband. She had one daughter who was married and had children.

The moralist may ask what was the end of this wild, rollicking and reckless woman. She did not end her days—as some may surmise—in a poor-house, a lunatic asylum or a jail. On the contrary she devoted the last years of her life to the care of her poor imbecile husband whom she nursed with a tenderness that the most loving wife could not exceed. More than that she applied her fine talents to the teaching of her grandchildren; so that the last we see of the flighty marquise is a sweet-faced old lady, with white hair, who guides the finger of a child, standing at her knee, across the pages of a book of prayer.

[18] “Contes Populaires des Provençaux,” by Beranger-Feraud, 1887.

[19] “The Maritime Alps,” by Miss Dempster, 1885.

[20] “Old Provence,” by T. A. Cook, 1914, vol. 2, p. 298.

[21] “Life of Mirabeau,” by S. G. Tallentyre. “Les Mirabeau,” by L. de Lomenie.

XII CAGNES AND ST. PAUL DU VAR

ALONG the road from Nice to Vence are two interesting little towns, Cagnes and St. Paul du Var. Cagnes—or rather old Cagnes—is perched on the top of a beehive-shaped hill on the confines of a plain. It looks very picturesque from the distance and, unlike many other places, it is equally attractive near at hand.

It is an odd town in the sense that it is made up of odd fragments. There are no two things alike in Cagnes, nothing that matches. It is indeed a pile of very miscellaneous houses inclined to set themselves askew like the parts of a cubist picture. Mixed up with dwellings, notable by their contrariness and their obvious revolt against all that is conventional in the shape and arrangements of a house, are portions of old ramparts, a ruined sentry tower and a gate that has got astray from its connections. There is a church too that is apparently out of drawing, that has a lane burrowing under its tower and that has become wedged in among bits of a town on a precarious slope. It looks like a very decrepit sick person who has slipped down in bed. Curious chimneys (some of which are wonderful to see) form conspicuous features of the dwellings of Cagnes. There are houses that seem to have rather overdone their efforts to be picturesque; as well as others that have carried their determination to be simple to excess. Of the super-simple house the old _Maison commune_ affords a good example.

Cagnes is a quiet town with a total absence of traffic in its streets. Indeed as if to show that the highway is not intended for traffic an old lady has seated herself in the centre of the main road to knit, finding, no doubt, the light better in that position than in a house. The sudden way in which lanes drop headlong down the hill, to the right and to the left, is quite disturbing. It is a place of pitfalls and hazardous stairs that must be very trying to the village drunkard.

The centre of Cagnes—its Place de la Concorde—is a peasant-like little place, humble and very still, called the Place Grimaldi. It is made green by a line of acacia trees and is bounded on one side by a row of modest houses, ranged, shoulder to shoulder, like a company in grey. The buildings at the principal end are supported upon arches with sturdy old pillars which give the spot an air of mystery. On the other side of the square a double flight of stairs mounts pompously to the castle. The square is approached by a lane which, to add to the fantastic character of the Place, pops out unexpectedly through the base of the church tower.

There was a time, long ago, when life in Cagnes was very gay and when, indeed, Cagnes’ society was so lively and so exuberant as to bring down upon the inhabitants a crushing reproof from the bishop of Vence. The reprimand was conveyed to the young men and women of Cagnes in a message of great harshness in which were unfeeling references to the pains of hell. This was in 1678. It appeared that the people of Cagnes had passion for dancing, a passion almost as uncontrolled as the craze of the present day. They danced in the streets, the bishop stated. As there are no level streets in Cagnes it is probable that the Place Grimaldi was the scene of this display of depravity. The young people seem to have favoured a kind of mediæval tango, for the bishop said some very unpleasant things to the ladies of Cagnes about their “indelicate postures and embraces.” As to the male dancers they are described as “_forcenés_”; so they may be assumed to have introduced into these street dances some of the violence and surprises of the madhouse.

The dancing took place, of course, principally on a Sunday and the dancers excused themselves to the bishop by saying that the church was so exceedingly dirty that they did not care to enter it and, therefore, there was nothing for them to do on the Sabbath but either to sit in the shade and yawn or to dance in the streets.

The bishop, who was clearly very “down upon” Cagnes, was severe too on the subject of the ladies’ dress, or rather lack of dress. He especially found fault with the low-necked costume and affirmed that women had been seen in church “with bare throats and chests and without even a kerchief or scarf to veil them.” It would be interesting to know what the bishop of Vence would say about the low-necked dress of to-day, which is carried down to the diaphragm in front and to the base of the spinal column behind.