Produced by Giovanni Fini, David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) TRANSCRIBERâS NOTE: âObvious print and punctuation errors were corrected. A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA BY THE SAME AUTHOR A BOOK OF CORNWALL A BOOK OF DARTMOOR A BOOK OF DEVON A BOOK OF NORTH WALES A BOOK OF SOUTH WALES A BOOK OF THE RHINE A BOOK OF THE PYRENEES THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE THE TRAGEDY OF THE CÃSARS A BOOK OF FAIRY TALES THE VICAR OF MORWENSTOW OLD COUNTRY LIFE A GARLAND OF COUNTRY SONG SONGS OF THE WEST A BOOK OF NURSERY SONGS AND RHYMES STRANGE SURVIVALS YORKSHIRE ODDITIES DEVON BRITTANY A BARING-GOULD SELECTION READER A BARING-GOULD CONTINUOUS READER [Illustration: CAP ROUX, ESTÃREL] A BOOK OF THE RIVIERA BY S. BARING-GOULD âON OLD HYEMSâ CHIN, AND ICY CROWN, AN ODOROUS CHAPLET OF SWEET SUMMER BUDS IS SET.â _Midsummer Nightâs Dream_, ii. 2. WITH FORTY ILLUSTRATIONS SECOND EDITION METHUEN & CO. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON _First Published_ _November 1905_ _Second Edition_ _December 1909_ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. PROVENCE 1 II. LE GAI SABER 24 III. MARSEILLES 39 IV. AIX 55 V. TOULON 72 VI. HYÃRES 84 VII. LES MONTAGNES DES MAURES 97 VIII. S. RAPHAEL AND FRÃJUS 113 IX. DRAGUIGNAN 130 X. LâESTÃREL 147 XI. GRASSE 157 XII. CANNES 180 XIII. NICE 205 XIV. MONACO 227 XV. MENTONE 255 XVI. BORDIGHERA 264 XVII. SAN REMO 276 XVIII. ALASSIO 288 XIX. SAVONA 296 ILLUSTRATIONS CAP ROUX, LâESTÃREL _Frontispiece_ From a photograph by G. Richard. GODâS CANDELABRA _To face page_ 1 From a photograph by J. Giletta. A PASSAGE IN THE GORGE DU LOUP â 4 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. PALMS AT CANNES â 7 From a photograph by J. Giletta. LA RADE, MARSEILLES â 39 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. KING RÃNÃ â 63 From the triptych of the Burning Bush, at Aix. OLIVE TREES â 85 From a photograph by J. Giletta. PINES NEAR HYÃRES â 89 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. A CAROB TREE â 97 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. GRIMAUD â 109 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. AN UMBRELLA PINE, S. RAPHAEL â 113 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. LE LION DE TERRE, S. RAPHAEL â 115 From a photograph by A. Bandieri. THÃOULE â 147 From a photograph by J. Giletta. LâESTÃREL FROM CANNES â 153 From a photograph by G. Richard. GRASSE, LES BLANCHISEUSES â 157 From a photograph by J. Giletta. CARROS â 167 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. THE CASCADE OF THE LOUP â 172 From a photograph by J. Giletta. FALL IN THE GORGE OF THE LOUP â 173 From a photograph by Neurdein frÃ¨res. INTERIOR OF THE CHÃTEAU SAINT HONORAT â 180 From a photograph by J. Giletta. THE PRISON OF THE MAN WITH THE IRON MASK â 190 From a photograph by J. Giletta. THE CASTLE OF S. HONORAT â 195 From a photograph by J. Giletta. LA NAPOULE â 203 From a photograph by J. Giletta. THE CASCADE OF THE CHÃTEAU, NICE â 205 From a photograph by J. Giletta. VILLEFRANCHE â 225 From a photograph by J. Giletta. THE THEATRE, MONTE CARLO â 237 From a photograph by J. Giletta. POSTCARDS PROHIBITED AT MONACO â 244 THE GAMING SALOON, MONTE CARLO â 248 From a photograph by J. Giletta. THE CONCERT HALL, MONTE CARLO â 252 From a photograph by J. Giletta. DOLCE ACQUA â 273 From a photograph by Alinari. SAN AMPELIO, BORDIGHERA â 274 From a photograph by Alinari. ARCHES IN STREET, BORDIGHERA â 276 From a photograph by J. Giletta. CERIANA â 279 From a photograph by G. Brogi. BUSSANA â 280 From a photograph by J. Giletta. ALBENGA â 293 From a photograph by Alinari. SAVONA â 301 From a photograph by Alinari. POPE SIXTUS IV â 304 From an old engraving. PREFACE THIS little book has for its object to interest the many winter visitors to the Ligurian coast in the places that they see. A consecutive history of Provence and Genoese Liguria was out of the question; it would be long and tedious. I have taken a few of the most prominent incidents in the history of the coast, and have given short biographies of interesting personages connected with it. The English visitor calls the entire coastâfrom Marseilles to Genoaâthe Riviera; but the French distinguish their portion as the CÃ´te dâAzur, and the Italians distinguish theirs as the Riviera di Ponente. I have not included the whole of this latter, so as not to make the book too bulky, but have stayed my pen at Savona. [Illustration: GODâS CANDELABRA] THE RIVIERA CHAPTER I PROVENCE Montpellier and the Riviera comparedâThe discovery of the Riviera as a winter resortâA district full of historic interestâGeology of the coastâThe floraâExoticsâThe original limit of the seaâThe formation of the _craus_âThe MistralâThe olive and cypressâLes AlpinesâThe chalk formationâThe Jura limestoneâEruptive rocksâThe colouring of ProvenceâThe towns and their narrow streetsâEarly historyâThe PhÅniciansâArrival of the PhocÅansâThe Roman provinceâRoman remainsâDestruction of the theatre at ArlesâVisigoths and BurgundiansâThe SaracensâWhen Provence was joined to FranceâPagan customs linger onâFloral gamesâCarnivalâThe origin of the FauxbourdonâHow part-singing came into the service of the churchâReform in church musicâLittle Gothic architecture in ProvenceâChoirs at the west end at Grasse and Vence. WHEN a gambler has become bankrupt at the tables of Monte Carlo, the Company that owns these tables furnish him with a railway ticket that will take him home, or to any distance he likes, the further the better, that he may hang or shoot himself anywhere else save in the gardens of the Casino. On much the same principle, at the beginning of last century, the physicians of England recommended their consumptive patients to go to Montpellier, where they might die out of sight, and not bring discredit on their doctors. As Murray well puts it:â âIt is difficult to understand how it came to be chosen by the physicians of the North as a retreat for consumptive patients, since nothing can be more trying to weak lungs than its variable climate, its blazing sunshine alternating with the piercingly cold blasts of the _mistral_. Though its sky be clear, its atmosphere is filled with dust, which must be hurtful to the lungs.â The discovery of a better place, with equable temperature, and protection from the winds, was due to an accident. In 1831, Lord Brougham, flying from the fogs and cold of England in winter, was on his way to Italy, the classic land of sunshine, when he was delayed on the French coast of the Mediterranean by the fussiness of the Sardinian police, which would not suffer him to pass the frontier without undergoing quarantine, lest he should be the means of introducing cholera into Piedmont. As he was obliged to remain for a considerable time on the coast, he spent it in rambling along the Gulf of Napoule. This was to him a veritable revelation. He found the sunshine, the climate, the flowers he was seeking at Naples where he then was, at Napoule. He went no farther; he bought an estate at Cannes, and there built for himself a winter residence. He talked about his discovery. It was written about in the papers. Eventually it was heard of by the physicians, and they ceased to recommend their patients to go to Montpellier, but rather to try Cannes. When Lord Brougham settled there, it was but a fishing village; in thirty years it was transformed; and from Cannes stretches a veritable rosary of winter resorts to HyÃ¨res on one side to Alassio on the other; as white grains threaded on the line from Marseilles to Genoa. As this chain of villas, hotels, casinos, and shops has sprung up so recently, the whole looks extremely modern, and devoid of historic interest. That it is not so, I hope to show. This modern fringe is but a fringe on an ancient garment; but a superficial sprinkling over beds of remote antiquity rich in story. Sometimes it is but a glimpse we getâas at Antibes, where a monument was dug up dedicated to the manes of a little âboy from the North, aged twelve years, who danced and pleasedâ in the theatre. The name of the poor lad is not given; but what a picture does it present! Possibly, of a British child-slave sent to caper, with sore heart, before the Roman nobles and ladiesâand who pined and died. But often we have more than a hint. The altar piece of the Burning Bush at Aix gives up an authentic portrait of easy-going King RÃ©nÃ©, the luckless wearer of many crowns, and the possessor of not a single kingdomâRÃ©nÃ©, the father of the still more luckless Margaret, wife of our Henry VI. Among the Montagnes des Maures, on a height are the cisterns and foundations of the stronghold of the Saracens, their last stronghold on this side of the Pyrenees, whence they swept the country, burning and slaying, till dislodged in 972 by William, Count of Provence. Again, the house at Draguignan of Queen Joanna, recalls her tragic story; the wife of four husbands, the murderess of the first, she for whose delectation Boccaccio collected his merry, immoral tales; she, who sold Avignon to the Popes, and so brought about their migration from Rome, the Babylonish captivity of near a hundred years; sheâstrangled finally whilst at her prayers. The EstÃ©rel, now clothed in forest, reminds us of how Charles V. advancing through Provence to claim it as his own, hampered by peasants in this group of mountains, set the forests on fire, and for weeks converted the district into one great sea of flame around the blood-red rocks. Marseilles recalls the horrors of the Revolution, and the roar of that song, smelling of blood, to which it gave its name. At Toulon, Napoleon first drew attention to his military abilities; at S. Raphael he landed on his return from Egypt, on his way to Paris, to the 18th Brumaire, to the Consulate, to the Empire; and here also he embarked for Elba after the battle of Leipzig. But leaving history, let us look at what Nature affords of interest. Geologically that coast is a great picture book of successions of deposits and of convulsions. There are to be found recent conglomerates, chalk, limestone, porphyry, new red sandstone, mica schist, granite. The EstÃ©rel porphyry is red as if on fire, seen in the evening sun. The mica schist of the Montagnes des Maures strews about its dust, so shining, so golden, that in 1792 a representative of the Department went up to Paris with a handful, to exhibit to the Convention as a token of the ineptitude of the Administration of Var, that trampled under foot treasures sufficient to defray the cost of a war against all the kings of the earth. The masses of limestone are cleft with _clus_, gorges through which the rivers thunder, and _foux_ springs of living water bursting out of the bowels of the mountains. [Illustration: THE GORGE OF THE LOUP] Consider what the variety of geologic formation implies: an almost infinite variety of plants; moreover, owing to the difference of altitudes, the flora reaches in a chromatic scale from the fringe of the Alpine snows to the burning sands by the seas. In one little commune, it is estimated that there are more varieties to be found than in the whole of Ireland. But the visitor to the seaboardâthe French CÃ´te dâazur and the Italian Rivieraâreturns home after a winter sojourn there with his mind stored with pictures of palms, lemons, oranges, agaves, aloes, umbrella pines, eucalyptus, mimosa, carob-trees, and olives. This is the vegetation that characterises the Riviera, that distinguishes it from vegetation elsewhere; but, although these trees and shrubs abound, and do form a dominant feature in the scenery, yet every one of them is a foreign importation, and the indigenous plants must be sought in mountain districts, away from towns, and high-roads, and railways. These strangers from Africa, Asia, Australia and South America have occupied the best land and the warmest corners, just as of old the Greek and Roman colonists shouldered out the native tribes, and forced them to withdraw amidst the mountains. The traveller approaching the Riviera by the line from Lyons, after passing Valence, enters a valley that narrows, through which rolls the turbid flood of the Rhone. Presently the sides become steeper, higher, more rocky, and draw closer; on the right appears Viviers, dominated by its cathedral and tower, square below, octagonal above, and here the Rhone becomes more rapid as it enters the _Robinet de DonzÃ¨re_, between calcareous rocks full of caves and rifts. Then, all at once, the line passes out of the rocky portal, and the traveller enters on another scene altogether, the vast triangular plain limited by the Alps on one side and the Cevennes on the other, and has the Mediterranean as its base. To this point at one time extended a mighty gulf, seventy miles from the present coast-line at the mouth of the Rhone. Against the friable limestone cliffs, the waves lapped and leaped. But at some unknown time a cataclysm occurred. The Alps were shaken, as we shake a tree to bring down its fruit, and the Rhone and the Durance, swollen to an enormous volume, rolled down masses of dÃ©bris into this gulf and choked it. The Durance formed its own little _crau_ along the north of the chain of the Alpines, and the Rhone the far larger _crau_ of Arles, the pebbles of which all come from the Alps, in which the river takes it rise. But, in fact, the present _craus_ represent but a small portion of the vast mass of rubbish brought down. They are just that part which in historic times was not overlaid with soil. [Illustration: PALMS, CANNES] When this period was passed, the rivers relaxed their force, and repented of the waste they had made, and proceeded to chew into mud the pebbles they rolled along, and, rambling over the level stretches of rubble, to deposit upon it a fertilising epidermis. Then, in modern times, the engineers came and banked in the Rhone, to restrain its vagaries, so that now it pours its precious mud into the sea, and yearly projects its ugly muzzle further forwards. When we passed the rocky portal, we passed also from the climate of the North into that of the South, but not to that climate without hesitations. For the sun beating on the level land heats the pebble bed, so that the air above it quivers as over a lime-kiln, and, rising, is replaced by a rush of icy winds from the Alps. This downrush is the dreaded Mistral. It was a saying of old:â âParlement, Mistral, et Durance Sont les trois flÃ©aux de Provence.â The Parliament is gone, but the Mistral still rages, and the Durance still overflows and devastates. The plain, where cultivated, is lined and cross-lined as with Indian ink. These lines, and cross-lines, are formed of cypress, veritable walls of defence, thrown up against the wind. When the Mistral rages, they bow as whips, and the water of the lagoons is licked up and spat at the walls of the sparsely scattered villages. Here and there rises the olive, like smoke from a lowly cottage. It shrinks from the bite of the frost and the lash of the wind, and attains its proper height and vigour only as we near the sea; and is in the utmost luxuriance between SolliÃ¨s Pont and Le Luc, growing on the rich new red sandstone, that skirts the Montagnes des Maures. Presently we come on the lemon, the orange, glowing golden, oleanders in every gully, aloes (âGodâs candelabraâ), figs, mulberries, pines with outspread heads, like extended umbrellas, as the cypress represents one folded; cork trees, palms with tufted heads; all seen through an atmosphere of marvellous clearness, over-arched by a sky as blue as that of Italy, and withâas horizonâthe deeper, the indigo blue, of the sea. On leaving Arles, the train takes the bit between its teeth and races over the _crau_, straight as an arrow, between lines of cypresses. It is just possible to catch glimpses to the north, between the cypresses, of a chain of hills of opalescent hue. That chain, Les Alpines, gives its direction to the Durance. This river lent its aid to Brother Rhone to form this rubble plain, the _Campus lapideus_ of the Romans, the modern _crau_. This was a desert over which the mirage alternated with the Mistral, till Adam de Craponne, in the sixteenth century, brought a canal from the Durance to water the stony land, and since then, little by little, the desert is being reclaimed. This vast stony plain was a puzzle to the ancients, and Ãschylus, who flourished B.C. 472, tells us that Heracles, arriving at this plain to fight the Ligurians, and being without weapons, Heaven came to his aid and poured down great stones out of the sky against his foes. This is much like the account in Joshua of the battle against the Kings in the plain of Esdraelon. At length, at Miramas, we escape from between the espalier cypresses and see that the distant chain has drawn nearer, that it has lost its mother-of-pearl tints, and has assumed a ghastly whiteness. Then we dash among these cretaceous rocks, desolate, forbidding and dead. They will attend us from Marseilles to Toulon. The cretaceous sea bed, that once occupied so vast an area, has been lifted into downs and mountains, and stretched from Dorset and Wiltshire to Dover. We catch a glimpse of it at Amiens. A nodule that has defied erosion sustains the town and cathedral of Laon. It underlies the Champagne country. It asserts itself sullenly and resolutely in Provence, where it overlies the Jura limestone, and is almost indistinguishable from it at the junction, for it has the same inclination, the same fossils, and the same mineralogical constituents. In England we are accustomed to the soft skin of thymy turf that covers the chalk on our downs. Of this there is none in Provence. The fierce sun forbids it. Consequently the rock is naked and cadaverously white, but scantily sprinkled over with stunted pines. The Jura limestone is the great _piÃ¨ce de resistance_ in Provence: it is sweeter in colour than the chalk, ranging from cream white to buff and salmon; it has not the dead pallor of the chalk. Any one who has gone down the CaÃ±on of the Tarn knows what exquisite gradations and harmonies of tone are to be found in Jura limestone. Here this formation stands up as a wall to the North, a mighty screen, sheltering the Riviera from the boreal winds. It rises precipitously to a plateau that is bald and desolate, but which is rent by ravines of great majesty and beauty, through which rush the waters from the snowy Alps. The chalk and the limestone are fissured, and allow the water flowing over their surface to filter down and issue forth in the valleys, rendering these fertile and green, whereas the plateaux are bare. The plateaux rise to the height of 3,000 or 4,500 feet. The tract between the mountain wall of limestone and the sea is made up of a molass of rolled fragments of the rock in a paste of mud. This forms hills of considerable height, and this also is sawn through here and there by rills, or washed out by rivers. Altogether different in character is the mass of the Montagnes des Maures, which is an uplifted body of granite and schist. Altogether different again is the EstÃ©rel, a protruded region of red porphyry. About these protruded masses may be seen the new red sandstone. When we have mastered thisâand it is simple enough to rememberâwe know the character of the geology from the mouths of the Rhone to Albenga. âThe colouring of Provence,â says Mr. Hammerton, âis pretty in spring, when the fields are still green and the mulberry trees are in leaf, and the dark cypress and grey olive are only graver notes in the brightness, while the desolation of the stony hills is prevented from becoming oppressive by the freshness of the foreground; but when the hot sun and the dry wind have scorched every remnant of verdure, when any grass that remains is merely ungathered hay, and you have nothing but flying dust and blinding light, then the great truth is borne in upon you that it is Rain which is the true colour magician, though he may veil himself in a vesture of grey cloud.â In winter and early spring it is that the coast is enjoyable. In winter there is the evergreen of the palms, the olive, the ilex, the cork tree, the carob, the orange and lemon and myrtle. Indeed, in the Montagnes des Maures and in the EstÃ©rel, it is always spring. The resident in winter can hardly understand the structure of the towns, with streets at widest nine feet, and the houses running up to five and six storeys; but this is due to necessity. The object is double: by making the streets so narrow, the sun is excluded, and the sun in Provence is not sought as with us in England; and secondly, these narrow thoroughfares induce a draught down them. In almost every town the contrast between the new and the old is most marked, for the occupants of the new town reside there for the winter only, and therefore court the sun; whereas the inhabitants of the old town dwell in it all the year round, and consequently endeavour to obtain all protection possible from the sun. But this shyness of basking in the sun was not the sole reason why the streets were made so narrow. The old towns and even villages were crowded within walls; a girdle of bulwark surrounded them, they had no space for expansion except upwards. What Mr. Hammerton says of French towns applies especially to those of Provence:â âFrance has an immense advantage over England in the better harmony between her cities and towns, and the country where they are placed. In England it rarely happens that a town adds to the beauty of a landscape; in France it often does so. In England there are many towns that are quite absolutely and hideously destructive of landscape beauty; in France there are very few. The consequence is that in France a lover of landscape does not feel that dislike to human interference which he so easily acquires in England, and which in some of our best writers, who feel most intensely and acutely, has become positive hatred and exasperation.â It was fear of the Moors and the pirates of the Mediterranean which drove the inhabitants of the sea-coast to build their towns on the rocks, high uplifted, walled about and dominated by towers. I will now give a hasty sketch of the early history of Provenceâso far as goes to explain the nature of its population. The earliest occupants of the seaboard named in history are the Ligurians. The Gulf of Lyons takes its name from them, in a contracted form. Who these Ligurians were, to what stock they belonged, is not known; but as there are megalithic monuments in the country, covered avenues at Castelet, near Arles, dolmens at Draguignan and Saint Vallier, a menhir at Cabasse, we may perhaps conclude with some probability that they were a branch of that great Ivernian race which has covered all Western Europe with these mysterious remains. At an early period, the PhÅnicians established trading depÃ´ts at Marseilles, Nice, and elsewhere along the coast. Monaco was dedicated to their god, Melkarth, whose equivalent was the Greek Heracles, the Roman Hercules. The story of Heracles fighting the gigantic Ligurians on the _crau_, assisted by Zeus pouring down a hail of pebbles from heaven, is merely a fabulous rendering of the historic fact that the PhÅnician settlers had to fight the Ligurians, represented as giants, not because they were of monstrous size, but because of their huge stone monuments. The PhÅnicians drew a belt of colonies and trading stations along the Mediterranean, and were masters of the commerce. The tin of Britain, the amber of the Baltic, passed through their hands, and their great emporium was Marseilles. It was they who constructed the Heraclean Road, afterwards restored and regulated by the Romans, that connected all their settlements from the Italian frontier to the Straits of Gibraltar. They have left traces of their sojourn in place names; in their time, Saint Gilles, then Heraclea, was a port at the mouth of the Rhone; now it is thirty miles inland. Herculea Caccabaria, now Saint Tropez, recalls Kaccabe, the earliest name of Carthage. One of the islets outside the harbour of Marseilles bore the name of PhÅnice. This energetic people conveyed the ivory of Africa to Europe, worked the lead mines of the Eastern Pyrenees, and sent the coral and purple of the Mediterranean and the bronze of the Po basin over Northern Europe. The prosperity of Tyre depended on its trade. âInventors of alphabetical writing, of calculation, and of astronomy, essential to them in their distant navigations, skilful architects, gold-workers, jewellers, engravers, weavers, dyers, miners, founders, glass-workers, coiners, past-masters of all industries, wonderful sailors, intrepid tradesmen, the PhÅnicians, by their incomparable activity, held the old world in their grip; and from the Persian Gulf to the Isles of Britain, either by their caravans or by their ships, were everywhere present as buyers or sellers.â[1] ArchÃ¦ological discoveries come to substantiate the conclusions arrived at from scanty allusions by the ancients. The Carthaginians had succeeded to the trade of Tyre; but Carthage was a daughter of Tyre. At Marseilles have been found forty-seven little stone chapels or shrines of Melkarth, seated under an arch, either with his hands raised, sustaining the arch, or with them resting on his knees; and these are identical in character with others found at Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage. Nor is this all. An inscription has been unearthed, also at Marseilles, containing a veritable Levitical code for the worship of Baal, regulating the emoluments of his priests. In the year B.C. 542 a fleet of PhocÅans came from Asia Minor, flying from the Medes; and the citizens of PhocÅa, abandoning their ancient homes, settled along the coast of the Riviera. Arles, Marseilles, Niceâall the towns became Greek. It was they who introduced into the land of their adoption the vine and the olive. They acquired the trade of the Mediterranean after the fall of Carthage, B.C. 146. The Greeks of the coast kept on good terms with Rome. They it was who warned Rome of the approach of Hannibal; and when the Ambrons and Teutons poured down a mighty host with purpose to devastate Italy, the PhocÅan city of Marseilles furnished Marius with a contingent, and provisioned his camp at the junction of the Durance with the Rhone. The Romans were desirous of maintaining good relations with the Greek colonies, and when the native Ligurians menaced Nice and Antibes, they sent an army to their aid, and having defeated the barbarians, gave up the conquered territory to the Greeks. In B.C. 125, Lucius Sextius Calvinus attacked the native tribes in their fastness, defeated them, and founded the town of AquÃ¦ SextiÃ¦, about the hot springs that rise thereânow Aix. The Ligurians were driven to the mountains and not suffered to approach the sea coast, which was handed over entirely to the Greeks of Marseilles. So highly stood the credit of Marseilles, that when, after the conclusion of the Asiatic War, the Senate of Rome had decreed the destruction of PhocÅa, they listened to a deputation from Marseilles, pleading for the mother city, and revoked the sentence. Meanwhile, the Gauls had been pressing south, and the unfortunate Ligurians, limited to the stony plateaux and the slopes of the Alps, were nipped between them and the Greeks and Romans along the coast. They made terms with the Gauls and formed a Celto-Ligurian league. They were defeated, and the Senate of Rome decreed the annexation of all the territory from the Rhone to the Alps, to constitute thereof a province. Thenceforth the cities and slopes of the coast became places of residence for wealthy Romans, who had there villas and gardens. The towns were supplied with amphitheatres and baths. Theatres they possessed before, under the Greeks; but the brutal pleasures of the slaughter of men was an introduction by the Romans. The remains of these structures at NÃ®mes, Arles, FrÃ©jus, Cimiez, testify to the crowds that must have delighted in these horrible spectacles. That of NÃ®mes would contain from 17,000 to 23,000 spectators; that of Arles 25,000; that of FrÃ©jus an equal number. Wherever the Roman empire extended, there may be seen the same huge structures, almost invariable in plan, and all devoted to pleasure and luxury. The forum, the temples, sink into insignificance beside the amphitheatre, the baths, and the circus. Citizens of the empire lived for their ease and amusements, and concerned themselves little about public business. In the old days of the Republic, the interests, the contests, of the people were forensic. The forum was their place of assembly. But with the empire all was changed. Public transaction of business ceased, the despotic CÃ¦sar provided for, directed, governed all, Roman citizens and subject peoples alike. They were left with nothing to occupy them, and they rushed to orgies of blood. Thus these vast erections tell us, more than the words of any historian, how great was the depravity of the Roman character. But with the fifth century this condition of affairs came to an end. The last time that the circus of Arles was used for races was in 462. The theatre there was wrecked by a deacon called Cyril in 446. At the head of a mob he burst into it, and smashed the loveliest statues of the Greek chisel, and mutilated every article of decoration therein. The stage was garnished with elegant colonnets; all were thrown down and broken, except a few that were carried off to decorate churches. All the marble casing was ripped away, the bas-reliefs were broken up, and the fragments heaped in the pit. There was some excuse for this iconoclasm. The stage had become licentious to the last degree, and there was no drawing the people from the spectacles. âIf,â says Salvian, âas often happens, the public games coincide with a festival of the Church, where will the crowd be? In the house of God, or in the amphitheatre?â During that fifth century the Visigoths and the Burgundians threatened Provence. When these entered Gaul they were the most humanised of the barbarians; they had acquired some aptitude for order, some love of the discipline of civil life. They did not devastate the cities, they suffered them to retain their old laws, their religion, and their customs. With the sixth century the domination of the Visigoths was transferred beyond the Pyrenees, and the Burgundians had ceased to be an independent nation; the Franks remained masters over almost the whole of Gaul. In 711 the Saracens, or Moors, crossed over at Gibraltar and invaded Spain. They possessed themselves as well of Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles. Not content with this, they cast covetous eyes on Gaul. They poured through the defiles of the Pyrenees and spread over the rich plains of Aquitaine and of Narbonne. Into this latter city the Calif Omar II. broke in 720, massacred every male, and reduced the women to slavery. BÃ©ziers, Saint Gilles, Arles, were devastated; NÃ®mes opened to them her gates. The horde mounted the valley of the Rhone and penetrated to the heart of France. Autun was taken and burnt in 725. All Provence to the Alps was theirs. Then in 732 came the most terrible of their invasions. More than 500,000 men, according to the chroniclers, led by Abdel-Raman, crossed the Pyrenees, took the road to Bordeaux, which they destroyed, and ascended the coast till they were met and annihilated by Charles Martel on the field of Poitiers. From this moment the struggle changed its character. The Christians assumed the offensive. Charles Martel pursued the retreating host, and took from them the port of Maguelonne; and when a crowd of refugees sought shelter in the amphitheatre of Arles, he set fire to it and hurled them back into the flames as they attempted to escape. Their last stronghold was Narbonne, where they held out for seven years, and then in 759 that also fell, and the Moorish power for evil in France was at an end; but all the south, from the Alps to the ocean, was strewn with ruins. They were not, however, wholly discouraged. Not again, indeed, did they venture across the Pyrenees in a great host; but they harassed the towns on the coast, and intercepted the trade. When the empire of Charlemagne was dismembered, Provence was separated from France and constituted a kingdom, under the administration of one Boso, who was crowned at Arles in 879. This was the point of departure of successive changes, which shall be touched on in the sequel. The German kings and emperors laid claim to Provence as a vassal state, and it was not till 1481 that it was annexed to the Crown of France. Avignon and the Venaissin were not united to France till 1791. In no part of Europe probably did pagan customs linger on with such persistence as in this favoured land of Provence, among a people of mixed bloodâLigurian, PhÅnician, Greek, Roman, Saracen. Each current of uniting blood brought with it some superstition, some vicious propensity, or some strain of fancy. In the very first mention we have of the Greek settlers, allusion is made to the Floral Games. The Battle of Flowers, that draws so many visitors to Nice, Mentone, and Cannes, is a direct descendant from them; but it has acquired a decent character comparatively recently. At Arles, the Feast of Pentecost was celebrated throughout the Middle Ages by games ending with races of girls, stark naked, and the city magistrates presided over them, and distributed the prizes, which were defrayed out of the town chest. It was not till the sixteenth century, owing to the remonstrances of a Capuchin friar, that the exhibition was discontinued. Precisely the same took place at Beaucaire. At Grasse, every Thursday in Lent saw the performance in the public _place_ of dances and obscene games, and these were not abolished till 1706 by the energy of the bishop, who threatened to excommunicate every person convicted of taking part in the disgusting exhibition of âLes Jouvines.â A native of Tours visited Provence in the seventeenth century, and was so scandalised at what he saw there, that he wrote, in 1645, a letter of remonstrance to his friend Gassendi. Here is what he says of the manner in which the festival of S. Lazarus was celebrated at Marseilles:â âThe town celebrates this feast by dances that have the appearance of theatrical representations, through the multitude and variety of the figures performed. All the inhabitants assemble, men and women alike, wear grotesque masks, and go through extravagant capers. One would think they were satyrs fooling with nymphs. They hold hands, and race through the town, preceded by flutes and violins. They form an unbroken chain, which winds and wriggles in and out among the streets, and this they call _le Grand Branle_. But why this should be done in honour of S. Lazarus is a mystery to me, as indeed are a host of other extravagances of which Provence is full, and to which the people are so attached, that if any one refuses to take part in them, they will devastate his crops and his belongings.â The carnival and micarÃªme have taken the place of this exhibition; and no one who has seen the revelries at these by night can say that this sort of fooling is nearing its end. Now these exhibitions have become a source of profit to the towns, as drawing foreigners to them, and enormous sums are lavished by the municipalities upon them annually. The people of the place enter into them with as much zest as in the centuries that have gone by. Dancing in churches and churchyards lasted throughout the Middle Ages. The clergy in vain attempted to put it down, and, unable to effect this, preceded these choric performances by a sermon, to deter the people from falling into excesses of extravagance and vice. At Limoges, not indeed in Provence, the congregation was wont to intervene in the celebration of the feast of their apostle, S. Martial, by breaking out into song in the psalms, âSaint Martial pray for us, and we will dance for you!â Whereupon they joined hands and spun round in the church.[2] This leads to the mention of what is of no small interest in the history of the origin of part-singing. Anyone familiar with vespers, as performed in French churches, is aware that psalms and canticles are sung in one or other fashion: either alternate verses alone are chanted, and the gap is filled in by the organ going through astounding musical frolics; or else one verse is chanted in plain-song, and the next in _fauxbourdon_âthat is to say, the tenor holds on to the plain-song, whilst treble and alto gambol at a higher strain a melody different, but harmonious with the plain-song. In Provence at high mass the Gloria and Credo are divided into paragraphs, and in like manner are sung alternately in plain-song and _fauxbourdon_. The origin of this part-singing is very curious. The congregation, loving to hear their own voices, and not particularly interested in, or knowing the Latin words, broke out into folk-song at intervals, in the same âmodeâ as that of the tone sung by the clergy. They chirped out some love ballad or dance tune, whilst the officiants in the choir droned the Latin of the liturgy. Even so late as 1645, the ProvenÃ§als at Christmas were wont to sing in the _Magnificat_ a vulgar songâ âQue ne vous requinquez-vous, Vielle, Que ne vous requinquez, donc?â which may be renderedâ âWhy do you trick yourself out, old woman? O why do you trick yourself so?â In order to stop this sort of thing the clergy had recourse to âfarcingâ the canticles, _i.e._ translating each verse into the vernacular, and interlarding the Latin with the translation, in hopes that the people, if sing they would, would adopt these words; but the farced canticles were not to the popular taste, and they continued to roar out lustily their folk-songs, often indelicate, always unsuitable. This came to such a pass that either the organ was introduced to bellow the people down, or else the system was accepted and regulated; and to this is due the _fauxbourdon_. But in Italy and in the South of France it passed for a while beyond regulation. The musicians accepted it, and actually composed masses, in which the tenor alone sang the sacred words and the other parts performed folk-songs. As Mr. Addington Symonds says:â âThe singers were allowed innumerable licences. Whilst the tenor sustained the Gregorian melody, the other voices indulged in extempore descant, regardless of the style of the main composition, violating time, and setting even the fundamental tone at defiance. The composers, to advance another step in the analysis of this strange medley, took particular delight in combining different sets of words, melodies of widely diverse character, antagonistic rhythms, and divergent systems of accentuation, in a single piece. They assigned these several ingredients to several parts, and for the further exhibition of their perverse skill, went even to the length of coupling themes in the major and the minor. The most obvious result of such practice was that it became impossible to understand what was being sung, and that instead of concord and order in the choir, a confused discord and anarchy of dinning sounds prevailed. What made the matter, from an ecclesiastical point of view, still worse, was that these scholastically artificial compositions were frequently based on trivial and vulgar tunes, suggesting the tavern, the dancing-room, or even worse places, to worshippers assembled for the celebration of a Sacrament. Masses bore titles adopted from the popular airs on which they were founded; such, for example, as _Adieu, mes amours_, _Ã lâombre dâun buissonnet_, _Baise moi_, _Le vilain jaloux_. Even the words of love ditties and obscene ballads were being squalled out by the tenor (treble?) while the bass (tenor?) gave utterance to an _Agnus Dei_ or a _Benedictus_, and the soprano (alto?) was engaged upon the verses of a Latin hymn. Baini, who examined hundreds of the masses and motetts in MS., says that the words imported into them from vulgar sources âmake oneâs flesh creep, and oneâs hair stand on end.â He does not venture to do more than indicate a few of the more decent of these interloping verses. As an augmentation of this indecency, numbers from a mass which started with the grave rhythm of a Gregorian tone were brought to their conclusion on the dance measure of a popular _ballata_, so that _Incarnatus est_ or _Kyrie eleison_ went jigging off into suggestions of Masetto and Zerlina at a village ball.â[3] The musicians who composed these masses simply accepted what was customary, and all they did was to endeavour to reduce the hideous discords to harmony. But it was this superposing of folk-songs on Gregorian tones that gave the start to polyphonic singing. The state of confusion into which ecclesiastical music had fallen by this means rendered it necessary that a reformation should be undertaken, and the Council of Trent (Sept. 17, 1562) enjoined on the Ordinaries to âexclude from churches all such music as, whether through the organ or the singing, introduces anything impure or lascivious, in order that the house of God may truly be seen to answer to its name, A House of Prayer.â Indeed, all concerted and part music was like to have been wholly banished from the service of the church, had not Palestrina saved it by the composition of the âMass of Pope Marcellus.â A visitor to Provence will look almost in vain for churches in the Gothic style. A good many were built after Lombard models. There remained too many relics of Roman structures for the ProvenÃ§als to take kindly to the pointed arch. The sun had not to be invited to pour into the naves, but was excluded as much as might be, consequently the richly traceried windows of northern France find no place here. The only purely Gothic church of any size is that of S. Maximin in Var. That having been a conventual church, imported its architects from the north. One curious and indeed unique feature is found in the ProvenÃ§al cathedral churches: the choir for the bishop and chapter is at the west end, in the gallery, over the narthex or porch. This was so at Grasse; it remains intact at Vence. CHAPTER II LE GAI SABER The formation of the ProvenÃ§al tongueâVernacular ballads and songs: brought into churchâRecitative and formal musicâRhythmic music of the people: traces of it in ancient times: S. Ambrose writes hymns to itâPeople sing folk-songs in churchâHymns composed to folk-airsâThe language made literary by the TroubadoursâPosition of womenâThe ideal loveâIdeal love and marriage could not co-existâWilliam de BalaunâGeofrey RudelâPoem of Pierre de BarjacâBoccaccio scouts the Chivalric and Troubadour ideals. WHAT the language of the Ligurians was we do not know. Among them came the PhÅnicians, then the Greeks, next the Romans. The Roman soldiery and slaves and commercials did not talk the stilted Latin of Cicero, but a simple vernacular. Next came the Visigoths and the Saracens. What a jumble of peoples and tongues! And out of these tongues fused together the Langue dâoc was evolved. It is remarkable how readily some subjugated peoples acquire the language of their conquerors. The Gauls came to speak Latin. The Welshâthe bulk of the population was not British at all; dark-haired and dark-eyed, they were conquered by the Cymri and adopted their tongue. So in Provence, although there is a strong strain of Ligurian blood, the Ligurian tongue is gone past recall. The prevailing language is Romance; that is to say, the vernacular Latin. _Verna_ means a slave; it was the gabble of the lower classes, mainly a bastard Latin, but holding in suspense drift words from Greek and Gaulish and Saracen. In substance it was the vulgar talk of the Latins. Of this we have curious evidence in 813. In his old age Charlemagne concerned himself much with Church matters, and he convoked five Councils in five quarters of his empire to regulate Church matters. These Councils met in Mainz, Rheims, ChÃ¢lons, Tours, and Arles. It was expressly laid down in all of these, save only in that of Arles, that the clergy should catechise and preach in the vulgar tongue; where there were Franks, in German; where there were Gauls, in the Romance. But no such rule was laid down in the Council of Arles, for the very reason that Latin was still the common language of the people, the simple Latin of the gospels, such as was perfectly understood by the people when addressed in it. The liturgy was not fixed and uniform. In many secondary points each Church had its own use. Where most liberty and variety existed was in the hymns. The singing of hymns was not formally introduced into the offices of the Church till the tenth century; but every church had its collection of hymns, sung by the people at vigils, in processions, intercalated in the offices. In Normandy it was a matter of complaint that whilst the choir took breath the women broke in with unsuitable songs, _nugacis cantalenis_. At funerals such coarse ballads were sung that Charlemagne had to issue orders that where the mourners did not know any psalm they were to shout _Kyrie eleison_, and nothing else. Agobard, Bishop of Lyons, A.D. 814-840, says that when he entered on his functions he found in use in the church an antiphonary compiled by the choir bishop, Amalric, consisting of songs so secular, and many of them so indecent, that, to use the expression of the pious bishop, they could not be read without mantling the brow with shame. One of these early antiphonaries exists, a MS. of the eleventh century belonging to the church of S. Martial. Among many wholly unobjectionable hymns occurs a ballad of the tale of Judith; another is frankly an invocation to the nightingale, a springtide song; a third is a dialogue between a lover and his lass. It is in the ecclesiastical hymns, religious lessons, and legends couched in the form of ballads, coming into use in the eighth and ninth centuries, that we have the germs, the rudiments, of a new literature; not only so, but also the introduction of formal music gradually displacing music that is recitative. Of melodies there are two kinds, the first used as a handmaid to poetry; in it there is nothing formal. A musical phrase may be repeated or may not, as required to give force to the words employed. This was the music of the Greek and Roman theatre. The lyrics of Horace and Tibullus could be sung to no other. This, and this alone, was the music adopted by the Church, and which we have still in the Nicene Creed, Gloria, Sanctus, and Pater Noster. But this never could have been the music of the peopleâit could not be used by soldiers to march to, nor by the peasants as dance tunes. Did rhythmic music exist among the ancients side by side with recitative? Almost certainly it did, utterly despised by the cultured. When Julius CÃ¦sar was celebrating his triumph at Rome after his Gaulish victories, we are informed that the soldiery marched singing out:â âGallias CÃ¦sar subegit Mithridates CÃ¦sarem. Ecce CÃ¦sar nunc triumphat, Qui subegit Gallias, Nicomedes non triumphat, Qui subegit CÃ¦sarem.â This must have been sung to a formal melody, to which the soldiers tramped in time. So also CÃ¦sar, in B.C. 49, like a liberal-minded man, desired to admit the principal men of Cisalpine Gaul into the Senate. This roused Roman prejudice and mockery. Prejudice, because the Gauls were esteemed barbarians; mockery, because of their peculiar costumeâtheir baggy trousers. So the Roman rabble composed and sang verses, â_illa vulgo canebantur_.â These may be rendered in the same metre:â âCÃ¦sar led the Gauls in triumph, Then to Senate-house admits. First must they pull off their trousers, Ere the laticlavus fits.â Now, it may be noted that in both instances the rhythm is not at all that of the scientifically constructed metric lines of Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, but is neither more nor less than our
{'title': 'A Book of the Riviera by S. Baring-Gould', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}