In Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc Part 3

Following a path that leads along the ancient mole one reaches a quadrangular tower of Roman masonry with a stone conical roof, which goes by the name of the Lantern of Augustus, and is supposed to have served as lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour, but the height is too insignificant for this purpose, it is not over thirty-five feet, and there is no indication of any contrivance whereby it could have been utilised for the purpose of a pharos. In the Torlonia Museum at Rome is a bas-relief representing the port of Ostia, with its pharos; that is a structure of several stages, each receding as it is superposed on the other, and the topmost sustains the ever-burning fire--quite a different sort of building from this tower at Frejus.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lantern of Augustus.]

Frejus is a cathedral city, though numbering only 3,500 inhabitants, but it is an ancient see, dating from about 374, when it was an important maritime place. Its fortunes had gone down in the Middle Ages, and the citizens and prelates were never in a position to build much of a cathedral. The present church is of the eleventh century, both small and plain. It contains little of interest save a fine painting on gold ground of S. Margaret and other saints, brought from the ancient Monastery of Lerins. The organ gallery is supported on granite pillars, Cla.s.sic, found among the ruins of the amphitheatre. The baptistery is surrounded by eight porphyry columns with Corinthian capitals taken from a pagan temple.

The carved doors of the cathedral deserve to be seen, they are of rich Renaissance work. In the north aisle of the cathedral to the west is the tomb of two bishops of the seventeenth century, Bartholomew and Peter de Camelin, kneeling; and at the east end are two alabaster monuments of bishops three centuries earlier. The cloisters are of the usual Provencal type, the arcade resting on double columns, but walls have been erected blocking up the s.p.a.ces, and the interior yard is turned into the bishop's fowl-house.

But--is not that sufficient? I am not writing a guide book; and I enter into these details here solely because the guide books pa.s.s over the cathedral very slightingly, and concern themselves chiefly with the Roman antiquities. Of these latter, besides what I have mentioned, there is the Porte Doree, one arcade only of what was formerly a n.o.ble portico facing the harbour; also a fine amphitheatre, now traversed by a highway, not however as perfect as those of Nimes and Arles. Fragments also remain of the ancient theatre, but they are unimportant.

Hard by the Hotel de Ville is a beautiful red porphyry figure of a boy and a dolphin which one would have taken to have been Renaissance work, but that the Renaissance artists would hardly have taken the pains to sculpture such intractable material as porphyry for a petty town of the size of Frejus. The group recalls that very odd story told by Pliny in one of his letters, which, as it may not be familiar to many of my readers, I will venture here to repeat. He says that the story "was related to him at table by a person of unsuspected veracity." At Hippo, in Africa, when the boys were playing in the lake that communicates with the sea, and the lads were contending together which could swim furthest, one boy found a dolphin play about him as he swam, and he ventured to climb on the back of the fish. The dolphin was not alarmed, but conveyed the little fellow on his back to the sh.o.r.e. The fame of this remarkable event spread through the town, and crowds came down to the water's edge to see the boy and ask him questions.

Next day he went into the water again, and once more the dolphin appeared, played round him, and again took him on his back. This happened several times, and the circ.u.mstance was bruited throughout the neighbourhood, so that great numbers of people came in from the countryside to see the fish play in the water with the children, and carry them on its back. At last the authorities of the town, annoyed at the concourse of the curious, destroyed the playful dolphin, a bit of barbarity that excites Pliny's wrath.

To the south-west of Frejus lies the Chaine des Maures, the outline of which is by no means so bold as that of the porphyry Esterel, but the mountains rise in sweeping lines from a broad and fertile plain covered and silvered with olives, growing out of rich red soil, like the old red sandstone of Devonshire. The red sandstone rocks through which the line pa.s.ses are ploughed with rains. On the right appears the wonderfully picturesque little town of La Pauline, with an extensive ruined castle, and the walls and towers of the town in tolerable condition. Above it rises a stately peak capped with the white limestone that forms the mountains about Toulon and Ma.r.s.eilles, and having all the appearance of a flake of snow.

When we reach the basin between Aubaine and Camp-Major we are surrounded by these barren white ranges, so white that they look as if a miller had shaken his flour-bag over them.

But I have not quite done with Frejus yet. I fear the reader will think I have given him a dull chapter of antiquarian and historical detail, so I will here add an anecdote, to spice it, concerning a worthy of Frejus, Desaugiers, one of the liveliest of French poets. He was born at Frejus in 1772. One day he was invited to preside at the annual banquet of the pork-butchers. At dessert everyone present was expected to p.r.o.nounce an epigram or sing a song; and when the turn came to Desaugiers, he rose, cleared his throat, looked around with a twinkle in his eye, and thundered forth "Des Cochons, des Cochons."

The pork-butchers bridled up, grew red about the cheeks and temples, believing that an insult was intended, when Desaugiers proceeded with his song:--

"Decochons les traits de la satire."

Sieyes was another native of Frejus, that renegade priest, to whom is attributed the ferocious saying, when called on to give his vote on the condemnation of Louis XVI., "La mort--sans phrases." Some few years after the Directory sent Sieyes as amba.s.sador to Berlin. He invited a prince of the blood royal of Prussia to dine at the emba.s.sy with him; but the prince took the invitation and scored across it his answer:--

"Non--sans phrases."

Napoleon as national recompense to Sieyes for the services he had rendered to France, and to himself personally, gave him the estate of Crosne. This gave rise to the epigram--

"Bonaparte a Sieyes a fait present de Crosne, Sieyes a Bonaparte a fait present du trone."

But after all, it is chiefly as the birthplace of Agricola, that true model of a Roman soldier of the best description, that Frejus interests us most.

His father, Julius Graecinus, had fallen a victim to Caligula, because he refused to undertake the prosecution of a man the Emperor was determined to destroy, and there is some reason to suspect that Agricola himself was sacrificed to the suspicions and envy of Domitian. Like most good and honourable men, he had a good mother, whose virtues Tacitus records.

When Agricola was proconsul of Britain, his rule was mild, and he took pains to win the confidence of the provincials. He it was who drew a chain of forts from sea to sea between the Tyne and Solway, to protect the reclaimed subjects of the southern valleys from the untamed barbarians who roved the Cheviots and the Pentlands. He was not merely a conqueror, but an explorer and discoverer, in Scotland. In A.D. 83 he pa.s.sed beyond the Frith and fought a great battle with the Caledonians near Stirling. The Roman entrenchments still remaining in Fife and Angus were thrown up by him.

In 84 he fought another battle on the Grampians, and sent his fleet to circ.u.mnavigate Britain. The Roman vessels at all events for the first time entered the Pentland Frith; examined the Orkney islands, and perhaps gained a glimpse of the Shetlands.

It was interesting to tread the soil where the childhood was pa.s.sed of a man who left such permanent marks in Britain, and to whom we are indebted for our first knowledge of Scotland.

CHAPTER IV.

Ma.r.s.eILLES.

The three islands Phoenice, Phila, Iturium--Ma.r.s.eilles first a Phoenician colony--The tariff of fees exacted by the priests of Baal--The arrival of the Ionians--The legend of Protis and Gyptis--Second colony of Ionians--The voyages of Pytheas and Euthymenes--Capture of Ma.r.s.eilles by Trebonius--Position of the Greek city--The Acropolis--Greek inscriptions--The lady who never "jawed" her husband--The tomb of the sailor-boy--Hotel des Negociants--Menu--Entry of the President of the Republic--Entry of Francis I.--The church of S. Vincent--The Cathedral--Notre Dame de la Garde--The abbey of S. Victor--Catacombs--The fable of S. Lazarus.

The traveller approaching Ma.r.s.eilles from the sea observes three islets of bare limestone rock that are apparently a prolongation of that rocky promontory now crowned by the fortress of S. Nicolas, and that act as a natural breakwater against wave and storm from the S.E. They go by the names of Pomegue, Ratonneau, and Chateau d'If. But the cla.s.sic geographers called the group the Little Stoechades, and named these islets Phoenice, Phila, and Iturium; and these three appellations give us in a compact form the story of ancient Ma.r.s.eilles, founded by the Phoenicians, refounded by the Greeks, and then made a dependency under the Roman empire.

That Ma.r.s.eilles was a Phoenician colony before the Phoceans settled there is shown by the monuments that have been exhumed from the foundations of the modern houses, and are now collected in the museum. There are some curious images of Melkarth and Melita, the Hercules and Venus of these Asiatic traders, known also to us through the Bible as Baal and Ashtaroth.

But most curious of all is a long Phoenician table of charges made by the priests of Baal for the various sacrifices and oblations offered by the people. This tariff of charges was found in 1845. It consists of twenty-one lines, and begins:--

"The Temple of Baal.--This is the regulation relative to the dues legally established by Italis-Baal, the suffete, son of Bod-tanith, son of Bod-Milcarth, and by Italis-Baal.

"For an entire ox, the ordinary sacrifice, the priests are to receive ten shekels. At the sacrifice, in addition, three hundred mishekels of flesh.

"Item. For the ordinary sacrifice, of cereals and flour of wheat, also the hide, the entrails, and the feet of the victim. All the rest of the flesh goes to the master of the sacrifice."

So it continues to regulate the fees for a calf, a ram, a bird; also for cakes, and for offerings made by lepers and by common people. The table of fees is extremely curious and is, I believe, unique.

The Phoenician colony at Ma.r.s.eilles was probably in decline when, in B.C.

599, a Greek fleet left the port of Phocaea, one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor, seeking new homes in the West. The colony was under the command of an adventurer named Protis. Attracted by the Bay of Ma.r.s.eilles, and the basin surrounded by hills that lay in its lap, the Greek colony disembarked.

And now for a legend.

The first measure taken by the new arrivals was to send a deputation to the King of the Segobrigae, a Keltic race occupying what is now called Provence.

The king was at Arles, which was his capital; his name was Nannos. By a happy coincidence the emba.s.sy arrived on the day upon which Nannos had a.s.sembled the warriors of his tribe, for his daughter, Gyptis, to choose a husband among them.

The arrival of the young Greek, Protis, in the midst of this banquet was a veritable _coup-de-theatre_; he took his place at the board. His natural grace, his easy and polished manners, the n.o.bleness and elegance of his person and features, contrasted strangely with the savagery and coa.r.s.eness of the Gaulish warriors.

Free to choose whom she would, Gyptis rose from the table, filled a cup, and made the circuit of the board. Every eye was fixed on her; he was to be her choice to whom she offered the bowl. She did not hesitate for a moment, she went to the Greek stranger and extended it to him. Protis put the goblet to his lips, and the alliance was concluded.

The example of Gyptis was followed by some of her maidens. The Gauls agreed to receive the Greeks, and suffer them to colonise the basin of Ma.r.s.eilles.

But the chiefs who had been set aside by the fair Gyptis bore a grudge against the new-comers. The growing prosperity and rapid development of the new settlement aroused their jealousy, which was probably augmented by the defection of some of their wives and daughters. Profiting by the Feast of Flora in May, they presented themselves at the gates of Ma.r.s.eilles in attendance on some waggons laden with green boughs, under which were their arms concealed. But love, that had founded the Ionian colony, was destined to save it. A young Gaulish woman revealed the plot to her h.e.l.lenic lover, and the Greeks laid their hands on the arms that were to have been employed against them, turned them against the intrusive Gauls, and ma.s.sacred them to a man.

But having thus saved themselves from one danger they felt that they had incurred another. They had provoked the deadly animosity of the whole tribe of the Segobrigae. They therefore appealed to their countrymen in Ionia to come to their aid. The appeal met with a ready response, a second fleet of colonists arrived. Ma.r.s.eilles was encompa.s.sed with walls on the land side, and thus made secure against the a.s.saults of undisciplined barbarians.

Such is the graceful legend of the origin of Ma.r.s.eilles. It is only so far historical that it gives us in poetic and romantic form the main facts, that the first colony settled at Ma.r.s.eilles without opposition, that after a while it got embroiled with the Gaulish tribes of the neighbourhood, and that a second Ionian colony came to strengthen the first. But this second colony arrived B.C. 542, fifty-seven years after the first, and was due to the taking of Phocaea by the Medes and Persians.

As a Greek mercantile colony Ma.r.s.eilles flourished, and sent forth other colonies, that formed settlements along the Ligurian coast, as a Literal crown from Ampurias and Rhode in Catalonia to the confines of Etruria.

Free, rich, protected by the Roman legions, these Greek settlements cultivated the arts and sciences with ardour, as well as carrying on the trade of the Mediterranean.

In the year B.C. 350 two of her most ill.u.s.trious citizens, Pytheas and Euthymenes, explored the northern and southern Atlantic. Pytheas was charged to make a voyage of discovery towards the north. He coasted Spain, Portugal, Aquitania, Brittany, discovered Great Britain, coasted it, and reached Thule, which some have supposed to be Iceland, but others the Orkney Isles. In a second voyage he penetrated the Baltic by the Cattegat and Sound, and reached the mouths of the Dwina or the Vistula. On his return he composed two works, records of his discoveries, of which precious fragments have been preserved by Pliny and Strabo. Thanks to his labours, Ma.r.s.eilles was the first town whose lat.i.tude was determined with some precision.

About the same time, Euthymenes was commissioned to make explorations in the opposite direction. He sailed south-west, traced the western coast of Africa, and penetrated the mouths of the Senegal, whence he brought back gold dust.

Ma.r.s.eilles was taken, B.C. 49, by Trebonius, the lieutenant of Julius Caesar. Two naval battles ruined her fleet; and, but for the clemency of Caesar, the doom of the city would have been sealed. She had enthusiastically taken the part of Pompey, and had resisted Caesar with unusual determination. But he appreciated the importance of the colony and the mercantile energy of her inhabitants, and he did not lay his hand in retribution too severely upon her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Ma.s.silia.]

The old Greek city of Ma.s.silia occupied the promontory which is still old Ma.r.s.eilles, cl.u.s.tered on the b.u.t.te St. Laurent and b.u.t.te des Moulins, where was the Acropolis, with the temples of Apollo and Diana, and the b.u.t.te des Cannes. The harbour was the natural fiord, which is now the Vieux port; and the modern splendid street Canebiere runs along the site of the old shipbuilding-docks of the Greeks. Here was found a few years ago an ancient galley with keel and ribs of cedar, and coins in her of the date of Julius Caesar. She is now in the museum. To the south of the old port was a marsh; the rectangular ca.n.a.l and the Ba.s.sin du Carenage mark the position of this marsh, now built over--a marsh that reached to the base of the limestone hills that rise to the peak now occupied by Notre Dame de la Garde.

The old Greek walls of Ma.s.silia ran in a sweep along where is now the Boulevard des Dames, Rue d'Aix, and reached the Vieux port at the Bourse.

Considering the importance of the Greek city, its wealth and splendour, it is surprising to find nowhere in Ma.r.s.eilles any ruins of its ancient founders. But Ma.r.s.eilles has traversed every historic period, in the midst of storm; and after a voyage of three thousand years through history, she has been plundered of every fragment of her ancient treasures. In Rome the Colosseum and the tomb of Augustus were robbed of their materials for the construction of houses; and in Ma.r.s.eilles every stone of her ancient temples and acropolis have been appropriated for baser purposes. She has pa.s.sed through twenty fires, and as many sieges. Taken, sacked, decimated, she has been rebuilt over and over again, always hurriedly, consequently always with material taken where nearest at hand, without respect for her monuments and historic recollections. The disturbed soil of Ma.r.s.eilles is not even a heap of ruins, for every stone found in the soil has been utilised as material for construction. Nevertheless some traces of the Greek founders remain in the beautiful coins of the colony, and in inscriptions that have been picked out of the walls or foundations of mediaeval houses. The coins, stamped with cla.s.sic beauty, are well-known to numismatists.