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In Troubadour Land

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[Illustration: Cathedral of Valence.]

The church was consecrated in 1095 by Pope Urban II. in person. A new
western tower has been erected and a very fine west entrance in the
Romanesque style, all very good, except the topmost stage of the tower,
which has probably been confided to an inferior architect, who has managed
to mar a work of great promise.

Jacques Cujas, born at Toulouse in 1520, one of the most famous lawyers of
his time, taught at Valence. He was a candidate for the chair of laws in
the university of his native city, but was refused it; a certain Forcadel
was elected instead, whose chief merit seems to have been that he was a
wag. Cujas, on leaving Toulouse, turned, and shaking the dust off his feet
against it said, "Ungrateful fatherland, in you my bones shall not rest."
He kept his word, he died and was buried at Bourges. After he was gone
from the place and his fame was sounded abroad, the university of Toulouse
wanted to recall him, and sent a letter to him nominating him to the
chair of laws. His answer was, "Frustra absentem requiris, quem præsentem
neglexistis." "In vain do you desire him absent whom present you flouted."

At Valence he had eight hundred scholars, who attended his lectures. So
great was the reverence shown for his opinion, that it is said that in the
schools of Germany, when the professors quoted him they were wont to raise
their hands to their caps. And he deserved it. His burning ambition was to
break down the system of injustice to the accused which prevailed in French
courts, where one charged with a crime, if the crime were unproved did not
obtain complete acquittal. He wrote in the cause of humanity against the
abuses of tyranny and ignorance. "Where there is not complete proof of
guilt," said he, "there let there be no condemnation," a maxim observed in
England, but not in France. "What is not full truth," is a saying of his,
"is full falsehood." It was his hope, his prayer, that he might live to see
the injustice of the French laws swept away. That he was not destined to
see. He was a kind professor to all his scholars. When he found that some
were needy, he assisted them with money and books. "I was once a poorer lad
than you," said he to one whom he assisted, "and very grateful if any one
would have pity on me."

[Illustration: Doorway in the house Dupré Latour, Valence.]

He had a daughter, unworthy of her virtuous father. When his scholars were
caught flirting with the damsel, they were wont to excuse themselves by
saying that they were only "commenting on the works of Cujas."

On this the following epigram was composed:--

"Videras immensos Cujaci labores Æternum patri commeruisse decus: Ingenio
haud poterat tam magnum æquare parentem Filia; quod potuit corpore fecit
opus."

In his will Cujas desired that none of his books should be sold to a
Jesuit; and that his library should be sold in parcels, lest any one should
use his ill-digested notes for publication. His behest was obeyed. The
booksellers of Lyons purchased his MSS. and used them as binding for books.
It was not till sixteen years after his death that Alexander Scott of
Carpentras, one of his pupils, collected his works.

At Valence died and was buried the unfortunate Pope Pius VI. who had been
treated with great harshness, and had been loaded with insults by the
French. His was, indeed, a strange story. He began his pontificate in
splendour in 1775, and set to work at once to aggrandise his family, the
Braschi. He was a man of rapacious avarice; of this one glaring instance is
given. He persuaded, or compelled, a certain Amanzio Lepri to constitute
him his heir, and hand over to him the title-deeds of an estate worth
many millions of lire. The natural heirs of Lepri were greatly annoyed at
this, and instituted proceedings before the tribunals, which gave judgment
sometimes for them and sometimes for the Pope, and the matter might have
dragged on indefinitely, had not public opinion begun to manifest itself
with such force that Pius thought it best to agree to a compromise.

In everything relating to himself and his family the Pope showed unbounded
extravagance and ostentation. He had pedigrees manufactured to prove
the descent of his family from ancient Scandinavian heroes, and that of
his nephews, on whom he heaped honours, from the Dukes of Benevento. He
collected all the proudest devices of heraldry to incorporate them as
quarterings into his arms, and this gave rise to an epigram from the pen of
an ex-Jesuit, to this effect: "The eagle belongs to the Empire, the lilies
of the field to France, to heaven belongs the stars--to Braschi what?
Puff."

His extravagance had become so great that the States of the Church were
practically bankrupt long before the French overran and pillaged them. In
his money difficulties he laid his hands on the funds appropriated to pious
works, and so barefaced were his robberies at last, that ten years before
the French invasion he had appropriated 36,000 pounds weight of silver from
the Holy House of Loretto. Then came the crash. This luxurious and splendid
Pope, in his old age, was reduced to be a prisoner, and to be hustled about
from place to place by the French. He had been sent first to the Certosa,
near Florence, with only two companions; then, by order of the Directory,
was conveyed to Parma. There he was allowed to remain only thirteen days,
and, in spite of his age and growing infirmities, was conveyed to the
citadel of Turin. One day was there allowed him for repose, and then he was
carried over the Alpine pass of Mont Genèvre in April to Briançon. There he
was left in peace, but sick and feeble, till the end of June, when he was
hurried away by Gap towards Dijon, but at Valence he became so ill that he
could be no further moved, and there he died on the 29th August 1799, three
days after his arrival.

[Illustration: Doorway and niche in the Maison des Têtes, Valence.]

The story is told that the official at Briançon on receiving him, sent to
headquarters a formal receipt couched in these terms: "Reçu--un pape, en
fort mauvais état."

There is not much of interest in domestic architecture at Valence, with the
sole exception of the Maison des Têtes, which stands near the market-place,
and which is sculptured over with great richness, with heads representing
the seasons, and Roman emperors. The enrichment of this house is in the
style of Flamboyant passing into Renaissance; the façade being in sandstone
has been sadly gnawed by the tooth of Time, has indeed lost all edge to the
sculpture, but within the entrance porch, where protected, the sandstone
retains its sharpness. Curiously enough, no one knows for whom this
gorgeous mansion was raised. It has a pretty interior court, but there is
not much sculpture therein. One cannot quite forgive the original owner and
edifier of the mansion for a bit of ostentation and vulgarity of which he
has been guilty. The house has one portion looking on to the square, but at
the side bends away at an obtuse angle down the street. As the whole façade
was not visible at a single glance, only that portion which was most seen
was sculptured, and that with overpowering richness, whereas the other
portion in the street was left bare to baldness. Wind and rain and frost
are engaged in rubbing down all the decoration, and flattening the surface
of the decorated portion to the simplicity of the other part.

The same destroying agencies are at work upon a very quaint mausoleum, on
the north side of the cathedral, called _Le Pendentif_, which was erected
in 1548 in Classic style as a monument to the Mistral family. It is
quadrangular, and consists of four great piers at the angles, and is
adorned with pillars and with arches in the sides sustaining a vault. In
the rusticated space that fills the sides, quaint sculptures of monsters
and birds of foreign plumage may, or rather might have been traced, the
honeycombing by weather has made them almost undiscoverable. Probably the
structure is more picturesque now in its decay than it ever was before.

Immediately opposite Valence, on the farther side of the Rhone, rises a
bold scarp of sandstone cliff, crowned with the ruined castle of Crussol
above the village of S. Peray at its feet, where is made a very capital
sparkling wine, not at all inferior to champagne. There is also there an
odd château, designed, it is believed, by Marshal Vauban, on the plan of a
mimic fortress, with bastions, curtains, glacis, portcullis, and loopholes.
It is now the residence of the owner of the great vineyards where the S.
Peray effervescing wine is made.

The view of the cliff of Crussol and the village of S. Peray from the
terrace of Valence is spoiled by the river being at some distance from the
base of the terrace, and the flat land that intervenes being covered by
poplars, manufactories and cottages, so that the Rhone is shut out from
sight.

Originally, certainly, the cliff on which stands the cathedral, as well as
that now converted into a promenade, were swept by the Rhone, but it has
thrown its gravels on to the left bank and cut its way farther to the west.

The castle of Crussol belonged to the Dukes d'Uzès, and occupies a headland
formed by the torrent at its side, that has sawn a chasm through the soft
sandstone in its course to join the Rhone. Within the walls may be seen the
remains of a small town that clustered there, much like Les Baux, but now
completely deserted. The family of Crussol was not of much note till Louis
de Crussol gained the favour of Louis XI., and was created his chamberlain,
and governor of Dauphiné. The son married the heiress of Uzès, and with
her the title of viscount passed to their son Charles, whose son Anthony
obtained the title of Duke d'Uzès. There is nothing very remarkable in the
story of the Crussols, but the origin of the Uzès is of romantic interest.

There were three brothers, Ebles, Guy, and Pierre, who had a little estate
and castle at Uzès near Nimes. There they lived together, unmarried, and in
very pinched circumstances. So, one day Ebles said to his brothers that it
was a shabby life for three gentlemen thus to live scraping a few coppers
together whilst all was beautiful beyond Uzès. Let them all three leave the
crumbling walls and leaky roof of Uzès to the bats and owls, and seek their
fortunes in the courts of princes.

His advice was relished, and they invited their cousin, named Elias, a
comic poet, to travel with them. Now Guy, the youngest of the brothers,
and Ebles the eldest, had a pretty gift at poetry, and the second brother,
Pierre, had a pleasant pipe, so they agreed that Ebles should write
_sirventes_, and Guy _chansons_, and that Pierre should sing them.
Moreover, Elias should compose little comedies that could be performed by
their small party, and the profits were to be equally shared between them.
They also put their hands together and vowed to be true and friendly, and
not to separate till they came back to ramshackle Uzès.

So the company started, and went first to the court of Reynald, Viscount of
Albuzoni and of Marguerite his wife, who received them with pleasure, both
of them being fond of Provençal poetry. The brothers and cousin had great
success with their songs and comedies, sent round the hat, and got a
handsome sum. Then, when they had sucked their orange, they went farther,
mounted like paladins, and passed into the territories of the Countess of
Montferrat, who received them quite as cordially as had the Viscount of
Albuzoni. There they sang and twanged the guitar, but having unhappily
composed some satirical verses under the title of "The Life of the Tyrants"
in which the morals and greed of the popes and some of the princes of
Europe were chastised, the Papal Legate complained and threatened them
with public punishment; he finally imposed silence on them, under threat
of excommunication. Then the little company returned home laden with
treasures, but sad at heart; and Guy died about 1230. The company must have
done pretty well, if Guy founded with his share of the profits the family
which later became one of viscounts. I fear dramatic and musical companies
nowadays have not the same success.




CHAPTER XXI.

VIENNE.


Historic associations--Salvation Army bonnets--The fair--A quack--A
vampire--The amphitrite--A _carousel_--Temple of Augustus and
Livia--The Aiguille--Cathedral--Angels and musical instruments--S.
André-le-Bas--Situation of Vienne--Foundation of the Church there--Letter
of the Church on the martyrdoms at Lyons.


I went on to Vienne with mind full of thoughts of the Burgundian kingdom
of which it was the capital in the fifth century, of S. Avitus, of King
Clovis, of Calixtus II., of the condemnation of the Templars at the Council
of Vienne in 1307--one of the most cruel and iniquitous deeds done by the
Crown of France in compact with the Papacy--and I found myself plunged,
unexpectedly, suddenly, into the vortex of a great popular fair. I had
passed from a fair in a condition of languor into one in full flush of
life.

Which was to be done first, the temple of Augustus and Livia, the remains
of the Roman theatre--microscopic I found afterwards--the cathedral of S.
Maurice, or the shows?

But surely, the proper study of mankind is man, so I resolved on seeing the
fair first, and after that of studying the antiquities, and indulging in
antiquarian and historic dreams.

The weather was sorry: wind and threatenings of rain. Moreover it was
cold and overcast. Yet nothing damped the ardour of the sellers, and the
acquisitiveness of the buyers. But--had I come upon a nursery of hallelujah
lasses? Were the nights to be made hideous with Salvation Army howls? On
all sides of me were great girls and little girls, matrons and maids, in
Salvation Army straws. I turned sick and faint with dismay. In the city of
S. Mamertius, of S. Avitus and of Ado--"General" Booth's great Religious
Speculation! It was not so, however, I was rejoiced to find, only all the
women had been buying straws in the fair of the Salvation Army shape that
were selling cheap, and having bought them ran home, trimmed them, and then
out they popped again and marched about to show them.

An avenue of booths and stalls. Boots, straw hats and Salvation bonnets,
ribbons, kerchiefs, books and engravings. There was even a reduced
household selling off all their worldly goods, lamps, chairs, prayer-books,
kettles, crocks, linen--and a spinning-wheel. I looked lovingly, longingly
at that spinning-wheel, and might have bought it for a franc and a half,
and would have done so, had I not been encumbered with the hurdy-gurdy.
_That_ had brought me into such difficulties that I felt convinced a
hurdy-gurdy + a spinning-wheel would lodge me in a lunatic asylum. So
reluctantly I left it.

A gust of wind, and away went the straw hats from the stall, up into the
air, over the heads of the crowd, spinning along in the gutters; one, a
very kiss-me-quick, was blown slap in the face of an old priest trudging
along reading his breviary. Then such outcries, entreaties, objurgations,
as the straw hats and bonnets were run after and recovered, or sought to be
recovered.

Here--a quack with an assortment of bones that were so brown they looked as
if they had been devilled, but they had acquired their tone from his hands.
He held up a distorted piece of spine and pelvis, and declared he had a
plaster so curative--fifty centimes, ten sous--that it would restraighten
the most curved back. As for corns! He raised a horrible foot, applied
to it some tow steeped in green fat, rapidly narrated the treatment he
recommended--_et voilà!_--he drew away the tow, and the supposed corn was
lodged in the midst of it. An inflammation of the lungs? a darling child
sick? He opened a coffin and exposed a baby skeleton. "Look! your _cher
enfant_ will be like this, but for fifty centimes I will save it, I
guarantee. Pelt me with rotten apples, with addled eggs, if I fail. This
plaster placed here (he applied it to the breast of the skeleton), and your
child breathes thus (drew a long inhalation)--is well. Warts (a labourer
held up a horny hand, the middle joint of the little finger disfigured with
such excrescences)? Nothing easier! You take this bottle--warts are my
speciality--you rub the wart with this. Thank you, fifty centimes. Come
here next Sunday. If the wart be not gone--I do not say it will not leave
a scar, but the scar will disappear in a month--here is a knife, stick it
into my heart. I give you leave. I will not resist. I will not budge."

[Illustration: House in Vienne.]

Here--a man selling silvering-liquor, to be applied to vulgar yellow
spoons, only a franc a bottle, and a whole set turned into purest
silver-plating, plating that will not wear out through all your lives.

Then, among the shows:--Cora, the Beautiful Serpent Charmer. Cora was
outside beating a drum, and was quite the reverse of beautiful; she may
have had the faculty of charming serpents, but not men. A cluster of young
soldiers stood without, shook their heads, and would not be allured within.

"Galerie des actualités artistiques"--a peep-show at photographs from the
Paris Exhibition.

"The real Vampire, alive, living on BLOOD. Called by the Chinese, from its
powers of traversing twenty kilometres in an hour, 'The Flying Horse.'"

The showman was outside, haranguing. His system was to thrill the audience
with horror, till they precipitated themselves in a spasm of terror into
his show. Just as when one is on a height, a nervous, uncontrollable
impulse fills some men to throw themselves down out of very fear of
falling, so did this great artist in horrors work up the feelings of
his audience to such tension that it became insupportable, they must go
headlong in, and see the vampire, if they died for it.

"The vampire is to be seen--smacking his lips--thirsting, ravening, for
BLOOD. A live rabbit will be offered him; he will roll his eyes, look at
the human beings present, try the bars of his cage--he cannot reach them.
En fin, a rabbit is better than nothing! Mesdames, je vous implore! Do not
bring your babes within. A stern necessity--a care for the consequences
would prevent me from admitting them. The sight of a human babe rouses in
the vampire the sanguinary passion to a paroxysm of frenzy. In its natural
state the vampire sucks the blood of men. This vampire has sucked that of
KINGS, and to have to descend to--RABBIT!"

[Illustration: At Vienne.]

I did not expend my sous to see the wretched bat, but I did lavish
thirty centimes on the amphitrite next door. The programme was so
characteristically French that I give it:--

"Amphitrite vivante. Tous les soirs au couche du soleil elle laisse son
palais royal de coraux et d'algues, et sort des vagues sombres pour
jouir de son amour idéal. Légère et vaporeuse comme un ange, elle
caresse les ondes, et observe d'un doux regard son idéal, et réplonge
au fond de l'océan. Dépeindre avec quelle perfection on présente cette
expérience au public est impossible!!!"

Thirty centimes, reserved seats; twenty, unreserved. As it turned out,
there were no seats at all, but a slushy soil on which one stood, where the
water had run in under the sides of the booth, and which sightseers had,
with their boots, churned into mud.

I supposed I was to see a nautilus; it was légère et vaporeux, it could not
then be a seal. No, a nautilus. Thirty centimes--here goes for a sight of
the nautilus. But it was touching to observe the confidence of the showman.
He refused the entrance fee.

"No, gentlemen. You shall yourselves decide whether the amphitrite is worth
six sous. If you say not--go forth; I am content, but I pity you."

A piece of drugget served as a curtain, which cut off what may be termed
the stage. At a signal the drugget was withdrawn, and the spectators looked
into a cave, the sides made of painted calico. Beyond this was the rippling
ocean, with the evening sun sparkling on it, much like the scene in
"Oberon," only on a very small scale, and with no stage. At a word from
the showman, Amphitrite arose. By Ginger! not a nautilus, not a seal, but
a living girl of sixteen summers, in fleshings, who floated in the air,
made revolutions, waved her hands, stood on her head, touching nothing,
precisely as if she really were devoid of all specific gravity. Only when
hand or foot touched the calico-rocks did these same rocks begin to wave
about.

I supposed at the time, I suppose still, that the trick is done by means
of mirrors. But _how_--I cannot conceive. Presently the hat went round for
Amphitrite's special benefit: her _amour idéal_ had something of the sordid
mammon in it. As everyone put a copper into the hat, "Merci, monsieur;
merci, madame!" was what she said. So that there is a difficulty in
supposing that the phenomenon was achieved by reflectors. She watched and
acknowledged every offering made, as she calmly folded her arms and floated
in mid-air, with head on one side, observant.

I can't explain it--I am puzzled still. I paid my thirty centimes with
alacrity, so did every one else. The show was worth the money.

There was a merry-go-round--a _carousel_; the only feature in it with which
I was unfamiliar was a ship, sails spread, on a pivot athwart the ring, so
that it swayed as on a rolling sea when the _carousel_ was in revolution. I
would not have entered that ship for twenty francs. Before the orchestrion
that accompanied the merry-go-round had accomplished the first strain
of Strauss's waltz I should have been feebly calling for the steward. I
observed that those silly youngsters with nautical proclivities who did
scramble into the swaying ship, got out with livid lips, and did not ask to
go in again.

Some years ago I was at Innsprück with a friend. We were sauntering
together in the afternoon, not exactly knowing what to do with ourselves,
when we found one of these _carousels_. We went farther; then I said, "We
will return and go and see the Xaverianum"--a collection of paintings,
mostly daubs, at Innsprück. "No," said my companion, "I don't feel inclined
for the Xaverianum, I'll go down by the river." So we parted. Now, I had
not gone far along my way in the direction of the Xaverianum, before I said
to myself, "I don't want to see the Xaverianum either; but, as my friend
is away--upon my word--I am unknown here! I'll--yes, I will--by Jove, I
will--I'll go and have a round on the whirligig."

So I retraced my steps, and, on reaching the merry-go-round, what should
I behold but my friend seated on a piebald horse, with a short sword in
his hand, aiming at the targets he passed in his revolution. He was a
bald-headed man, with a long grey beard. His face and head became like a
beetroot when he saw me; but I comforted him. At Würzburg, in the Episcopal
palace, is a _carousel_, in which the bishop--a prince elector--was wont on
rainy days to go round and round, seated in a purple velvet chair with the
Episcopal arms embroidered on the curtains, and the mitre over it.

Enough of the fair. Now to graver matters; and first the temple of Augustus
and Livia. I do not know whether it was that the weather was gloomy, or
that the fair had set me out of tune for antiquities; but somehow this
temple did not impress me as did the dear little Maison Carrée at Nimes.
For one thing the stone is dingy, whereas that of Nimes is bright and
white; and the proportions did not please me. I believe the knowing ones
say that the Nimes temple is not proportioned according to the laws of
Vitruvius, and this at Vienne is. If that be the case, then I am sorry for
Vitruvius. The temple is structurally perfect--as perfect as that of Nimes.

Another object of interest is the Aiguille, a Roman obelisk seventy-six
feet high. There is a square base, pierced by arches in each face, and the
obelisk, or pyramid rather, stands on this. It is not very beautiful,
but it is worth examining. It is thought that the monument to Marius at
Pourrières was somewhat similar.

[Illustration: Hurdy-Gurdy Played by an Angel.]

The cathedral of Vienne is of sandstone, and has decayed accordingly.
The west end, which was very rich, and is rich still, has suffered
from corrosion in the upper part; but a firmer, less friable sandstone
was fortunately employed for the lower stage, in which is the richest
sculpture, and that is fairly perfect. Murray pooh-poohs this west front:
"It is rich in flamboyant ornaments, but they are clumsy and without
delicacy." The sculpture was adapted to the material, and any other would
not have looked well. After the severe and bald west fronts in Provence, I
was disposed, I suppose, to be pleased with the rich façade at Vienne. I
confess that "clumsy and without delicacy" though it might be, I thoroughly
enjoyed it. But that façade caught me quite by my weak point. There is a
central doorway, and one into each aisle, and round the archways into these
lateral doors are sculptured angels playing upon musical instruments. As I
have told the reader, ancient forms of musical instruments are my hobby,
or rather one of my hobbies. I at once pulled out my sketch-book and
drew them; there are angels with fiddles, angels with viols--no, not
hurdy-gurdys!--but twanged with the fingers, angels with pipes and horns,
one with a harp, two with portable organs of ten pipes in each, two angels
with bagpipes with single drones. Conceive of a salutation on bagpipes
from the celestial choir! An angel plays the cymbals, and another with a
plectrum strikes a metal disc.

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