Rambles on the Riviera
9781465595805
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
“À Valence, le Midi commence!” is a saying of the French, though this Rhône-side city, the Julia-Valentia of Roman times, is in full view of the snow-clad Alps. It is true, however, that as one descends the valley of the torrential Rhône, from Lyons southward, he comes suddenly upon a brilliancy of sunshine and warmth of atmosphere, to say nothing of many differences in manners and customs, which are reminiscent only of the southland itself. Indeed this is even more true of Orange, but a couple of scores of miles below, whose awning-hung streets, and open-air workshops are as brilliant and Italian in motive as Tuscany itself. Here at Orange one has before him the most wonderful old Roman arch outside of Italy, and an amphitheatre so great and stupendous in every way, and so perfectly preserved, that he may well wonder if he has not crossed some indefinite frontier and plunged into the midst of some strange land he knew not of. The history of Provence covers so great a period of time that no one as yet has attempted to put it all into one volume, hence the lover of wide reading, with Provence for a subject, will be able to give his hobby full play. The old Roman Provincia, and later the mediæval Provence, were prominent in affairs of both Church and State, and many of the momentous incidents which resulted in the founding and aggrandizing of the French nation had their inception and earliest growth here. There may be some doubts as to the exact location of the Fossés Mariennes of the Romans, but there is not the slightest doubt that it was from Avignon that there went out broadcast, through France and the Christian world of the fourteenth century, an influence which first put France at the head of the civilizing influences of Christendom. The Avignon popes planned a vast cosmopolitan monarchy, of which France should be the head, and Avignon the new Rome. The Roman emperors exercised their influence throughout all this region long before, and they left enduring monuments wherever they had a foothold. At Orange, St. Rémy, Avignon, Arles, and Nîmes there were monumental arches, theatres, and arenas, quite the equal of those of Rome itself, not in splendour alone, but in respect as well to the important functions which they performed. The later middle ages somewhat dimmed the ancient glories of the Romanesque school of monumental architecture—though it was by no means pure, as the wonderfully preserved and dainty Greek structures at Nîmes and Vienne plainly show—and the roofs of theatres and arenas fell in and walls crumbled through the stress of time and weather. In spite of all the decay that has set in, and which still goes on, a short journey across Provence wonderfully recalls other days. The traveller who visits Orange, and goes down the valley of the Rhône, by Avignon, St. Rémy, Arles, Nîmes, Aix, and Marseilles, will be an ill-informed person indeed if he cannot construct history for himself anew when once he is in the midst of this multiplicity of ancient shrines. Day by day things are changing, and even old Provence is fast coming under the influences of electric railroads and twentieth-century ideas of progress which bid fair to change even the face of nature: Marseilles is to have a direct communication with the Rhône and the markets of the north by means of a canal cut through the mountains of the Estaque, and a great port is to be made of the Étang de Berre (perhaps), and trees are to be planted on the bare hills which encircle the Crau, with the idea of reclaiming the pebbly, sandy plain. No doubt the deforestation of the hillsides has had something to do, in ages past, with the bareness of the lower river-bottom of the Rhône which now separates Arles from the sea. Almost its whole course below Arles is through a treeless, barren plain; but, certainly, there is no reflection of its unproductiveness in the lives of the inhabitants.
