Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France Part 6

"What is it?" the traveller finally asked.

"Ah, Monsieur, to-morrow is the day of the First Communion. We all have just prayed, just confessed, in the church; and our parents are arranging their places. For to-morrow there will be crowds--everybody.

You too, Monsieur, are coming perhaps? The Ma.s.s is at half-past six."

Such was the living interest of the place that the traveller moved away without any very clear architectural impression of the Cathedral, except of the curiously narrow bell-turret and of the height of the dome.

He did not see the early Ma.s.s, but toward ten wandered again to the Cathedral and entered the cloister-door. It was a low-vaulted, sombre little Cloister which all the chattering, animated crowds could not brighten. Formerly two sides were gated off, and priests alone walked there. The other sides were public pa.s.sage-ways to the church. Now only the iron grooves of the gates of separation remain, and the four walks were thronged with people. Little girls in the white dresses of their First Communion, veiled and crowned with roses, were hurrying to their places; an old grandmother, with her arm around one of the little communicants, knelt by a column, gazing up to the Virgin of the cloister-close; proud and anxious parents led their children into church, and friends met and kissed on both cheeks. In one corner, an old woman was driving a busy trade in penny-worths of barley candy.

Diminutive altar-boys in white lace ca.s.socks and red, fur-trimmed capes, offered religious papers for sale. It was a harvest day for beggars, and "for the love of the good G.o.d" many a sou was given into feeble dirty hands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT WAS A LOW-VAULTED, SOMBRE LITTLE CLOISTER."

CAVAILLON.]

For a time the traveller walked about the Cloister, so tiny and worn a Cloister that on any other day it must have seemed melancholy indeed. So low a vaulting is not often found, ma.s.sive and rounded and seeming to press, lowering, above the head. The columns, which help to support its weight, are short and heavy and thick, so worn that their capitals are sometimes only suggestive and sometimes meaningless. On one side the carving is distinctly Corinthian; on another altogether lacking. Between the columns, one could glance into a close so small that ten paces would measure its length. It was a charming little spot, all filled with flowers and plants that told of some one's constant, tender care. From above the nodding flowers and leaves rose the statue of the Madonna and the Child.

The tolling bell called laggards to Ma.s.s. With them, the traveller entered the church, and found it so crowded that it was only after receiving many knocks from incoming children, and sundry blows on the head and shoulders from ladies who carried their chairs too carelessly, after minutes of time and a store of patience, that he finally reached a haven, a corner of the Chapel of Saint-Veran. There, under the care of the Cathedral's Patron, he escaped further injuries and a.s.sisted at a long, interesting ceremony.

Ma.s.s had already begun, but the voice of the priest and the answering organ were lost in the movement of excited friends, the murmur of questions, and the clatter of nailed shoes on the stone floor. A Suisse, halberd in hand, and gorgeous in tri-cornered hat and the red and gold of office, kept the aisle-ways open with firm but kind insistence; and the priests who were directing the children in the body of the church, were wise enough to overlook the disorder, which was not irreverence, but interest. For days, everybody had been thinking of this ceremony; everybody wanted "good places." But few found them. For the little nave of the church was chiefly given up to the communicants. They sat on long benches, facing each other. The boys, sixty or seventy of them, were nearest the Altar; the girls, even more numerous, nearest the door. A young priest walked between the rows of boys and the old, panting Father directed the girls.

The whole interior of the church, at whose consecration no less a prelate than Pope Innocent IV had presided, is small and its plan is essentially of the Provencal type. The high tunnel vault rests, like that of Orange, on double arches; and as the nave is very narrow and its light very dim, the church seems lofty, sombre, and impressive, with a very serious dignity which its detail fails to carry out. The chapels, which lie between the heavy b.u.t.tresses, are dim recesses which increase the darkened effect of the interior. Of the ten, only three differ essentially from the general plan; and although of the XVII century, their style is so severe and they are so ill-lighted that they do not greatly debase the church. The choir is entered from under a rounded archway, and its dome is loftier than the nave and much more beautiful than the semi-dome of the apse, whose roof, in these practical modern times, has been windowed.

That which almost destroys the effect of the church's fine lines and would be intolerable in a stronger light, is the ma.s.s of gilt and polychrome with which the interior is covered. The altars are monstrously showy, the walls and b.u.t.tresses are coloured, and even the interesting, sculptured figures beneath the corbels have been carefully tinted. The dead arise with appropriate mortuary pallor, the halo of Christ is pure gold, and all the draperies of G.o.d and His saints are in true, primary shadings.

From the contemplation of this misuse of paint, and of a sadly misplaced inner porch of the XVII century, the traveller's attention was recalled to the old priest. His hand was raised, the eye of every little girl was fixed on him and instantly, in their soft, shrill voices, they began the verse of a hymn. The traveller glanced down the nave. Every boy was on his feet, white ribbons hanging bravely from the right arm, the Crown of Thorns correctly held in one white-gloved hand, a Crucifix fastened with a bow of ribbon to the coat lapel. Every eye was on the young priest, who also raised his hand. Then they sang, as the girls had sung, and with a right l.u.s.ty will. And then, under the guiding hands, both boys and girls sang together. There was a silence when their voices died away, and from the altar a deep voice slowly chanted "Ite; missa est,"

and the High Ma.s.s of the First Communion Day was over.

Outside, little country carts stood near the church, and fathers and brothers in blue blouses were waiting for the little communicants who had had so long and so exciting a morning. Walking about with the crowds, the traveller saw an exterior whose facade was plainly commonplace and whose bare lateral walls were patched, and crowded by other walls. Finally he came upon the apse, the most interesting part of the church's exterior; and he leaned against a cafe wall and looked across the little square.

Externally, the apse of Saint-Veran has five sides, and each side seems supported by a channelled column. The capitals of these columns are carved with leaves or with leaves and grotesques; on them round arches rest; and above is a narrow foliated cornice. In relieving contrast to the artificial cla.s.sicism of the Renaissance of the interior, the feeling of this apse is quite truly ancient and pagan, and it is not less unique nor less charming because it is placed against a plain, uninteresting wall. The eye travelling upward, above the choir-dome, meets the lantern with its rounded windows and pointed roof, and by its side the high little bell-turret which completes a curious exterior; an exterior which is interesting and even beautiful in detail, but irregular and heterogeneous as a whole.

The Cathedral of Cavaillon is one of many possibilities. Although small like those of its Provencal kindred, it has more dignity than Orange, more simplicity of interior line than the present Avignon, and it is to be regretted that it should have suffered no less from restoration than from old age.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATHEDRAL'S TOWER AND TURRET.--CAVAILLON.]

[Sidenote: Apt.]

Few of the Cathedral-churches of the Midi are without holy relics, but none is more famous, more revered, and more authentic a place of pilgrimage than the Basilica of Apt. It came about in this way, says local history. When Martha, Lazarus, and the Holy Marys of the Gospels landed in France, they brought with them the venerated body of Saint Anne, the Virgin's Mother; and Lazarus, being a Bishop, kept the holy relic at his episcopal seat of Ma.r.s.eilles. Persecutions arose, and dangers innumerable; and for safety's sake the Bishop removed Saint Anne's body to Apt and sealed it secretly in the wall. For centuries, Christians met and prayed in the little church, unconscious of the wonder-working relic hidden so near them; and it was only through a miracle, in Charlemagne's time and some say in his presence, that the holy body was discovered. This is the history which a sacristan recites to curious pilgrims as he leads them to the sub-crypt.

The sub-crypt of Sainte-Anne, one of the earliest of Gallo-Roman "churches," is not more than a narrow aisle; its low vault seems to press over the head; the air is damp and chill; and the one little candle which the patient sacristan moves to this side and to that, shows the plain, un-ornamented stone-work and the undoubted masonry of Roman times. It was part of the Aqueduct which carried water to the Theatre in Imperial days, and had become a chapel in the primitive Christian era.

At the end which is curved as a choir is a heavy stone, used as an altar; and high in the wall is the niche where the body of the church's patron lay buried for those hundreds of years. It is a gloomy, cell-like place, most curious and most interesting; and as the traveller saw faith in the earnest gaze of some of his fellow-visitors, and doubt in the smiles of others, he wondered what ancient ceremonials, secret Ma.s.ses, or secret prayers had been said in this tiny chamber, and what rows of phantom-like wors.h.i.+ppers had filed in and out the dark corridor.

Directly above is the higher upper crypt of the church, a diminutive but true choir, with its tiny altar and ambulatory,--a jewel of the Romanesque, heavy and plain and beautifully proportioned, with columns and vaulting in perfect miniature. This, from its absolute purity of style, is the most interesting part of the church; and being a crypt, it is also the most difficult to see. In vain the sacristan ran from side to side with his little candle, in vain the traveller gazed and peered,--the little church was full of shadows and mysteries, dark and lost under the weight of the great choir above.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE MAIN BODY OF THE CHURCH."--APT.]

Even the main body of the church, above ground, is dimly lighted by small, rounded windows above the arches of the nave, and from the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel. Doubtless, on Sundays after High Ma.s.s, when the great doors are opened, the merry sun of Provence casts its cheerful rays far up the nave. But this is a church which is the better for its shadows. A Romanesque aisle of the IX or X century, built by that same Bishop Alphant who had seen the construction of the little crypt church, a central nave of the XI century, Romanesque in conception, and a north aisle of poor Provencal Gothic make a large but inharmonious interior. Restoration following restoration, chapels of the XVIII century, new vaultings, debased and conglomerate Gothic, and spectacular decorations of gilded wood have destroyed the architectural value and real beauty of the Cathedral's interior. Yet in the dim light, which is the light of its every-day life, the great height of the church and its sombre ma.s.siveness are not without impressiveness.

The exterior dominates the city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. The heavy arch which supports the clock tower forms an arcade across a narrow street and makes it picturesque without adding dignity to the church itself. The walls are unmeaning, often hidden by buildings, and there is not a portal worthy of description. There is the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel with a huge statue of the Patron, and the lantern of the central dome ending in a pointed roof; but each addition to the exterior seems only an ignorant or a spiteful accentuation of the general architectural confusion.

To the faithful Catholic, the interest of Sainte-Anne of Apt lies in its wonderful and glorious relics. Here are the bodies of Saint Eleazer and Sainte Delphine his wife, a couple so pious that every morning they dressed a Statue of the Infant Jesus, and every night they undressed it and laid it to rest in a cradle. There is also the rosary of Sainte Delphine whose every bead contained a relic; and before the Revolution there were other treasures innumerable. During many years Apt has been the pilgrim-shrine of the Faithful, and great and small offerings of many centuries have been laid before the miracle-working body of the Virgin's sainted Mother.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE VIRGIN AND SAINT ANNE. _By Benzoni._]

The most famous of those who came praying and bearing gifts was Anne of Austria, whose pet.i.tion for the gift of a son, an heir for France, was granted in the birth of Louis XIV. In grat.i.tude, the Queen enriched the church by vestments wrought in thread of gold and many sacred ornaments; and at length she commanded Mansart to replace the little chapel in which she had prayed, by a larger and more sumptuous one, a somewhat uninteresting structure in the showy style of the XVII century, which is now the resting-place of Saint Anne. In this chapel is the most beautiful of the church's treasures which, strange to say, is a piece of modern sculpture given by the present "Monseigneur of Avignon." It is small, and badly placed on a marble altar of discordant toning, with a draped curtain of red gilt-fringed velvet for its background. Yet in spite of these inartistic surroundings it has lost none of its tender charm. Seated, with a scroll on her knees, the aged mother is earnestly teaching the young Virgin who stands close by her side. The slender old hand with its raised forefinger emphasises the lesson, and the loving expression of the wrinkled, ascetic face, the attentiveness of the Virgin and her slim young figure, make a touching picture, and a beautiful example of the power of the modern chisel. Yet faith in shrines and miraculous power is not, in this XX century, as pure nor as universal as in the days of the past; and Faith, in Provencal Apt which possesses so large a part of the Saint's body, is not as simple, and therefore not as strong as in Breton Auray which has but a part of her finger. Republicanism in the south country is not too friendly to the Church, kings and queens no longer come with prodigal gifts, and Sainte-Anne of Apt has not the peasant strength of Sainte-Anne of Auray.

And in spite of the great feast-day of July, in spite of Aptoisian pride, in spite of the devotion and prayers of faithful wors.h.i.+ppers, the Cathedral of Apt is a church of past rather than of present glories.

[Sidenote: Riez.]

Just as the church-bells were chiming the morning Angelus, and the warm sun was rising on a day of the early fall, a traveller drove out of old Manosque. He had no gun,--therefore he had not come for the hunting; he had no bra.s.s-bound, black boxes, and therefore could not be a "Commis."

What he might be, he well knew, was troubling the brain of the broad-backed man sitting before him, who, with many a long-drawn "Ou-ou-u-u-" was driving a fat little horse. But native courtesy conquered natural curiosity and they drove in silence to the long, fine bridge that spans the river of evil repute:

"Parliament, Mistral, and Durance Are the three scourges of Provence."

At that time of year, however, the Durance usually looks peaceable and harmless enough; half its great bed is dry and pebbly, and the water that rushes under the big arches of the bridge is not great in volume.

But the size and strength of the bridge itself and certain huge rocks, placed for a long distance on either side of the road, are significant of floods and of the spring awakening of the monstrous river that, like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has two lives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SAINT-MARTIN-DE-BRoMES WITH ITS HIGH, SLIM TOWER."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE FORTIFIED MONASTERY OF THE TEMPLARS."--(NEAR GReOUX).]

The road wound about the low hills of the Alps, past a ma.s.sive, fortified monastery of the Templars whose windows gape in ruin; past Saint-Martin-de-Bromes with its high, slim, crenellated watch-tower; past many quiet little villages where in the old times, Taine says, "Good people lived as in an eagle's nest, happy as long as they were not slain--that was the luxury of the feudal times." Between these villages lay vast groves of the grey-green olive-trees, large flouris.h.i.+ng farms, and, further still, the bleak mountains of the Lower Alps. It was toward them the driver was turning, for rising above a smiling little valley, surrounded by fields of ripened grain, lay Riez. A donjon stands above a broken wall, on the hillside houses cl.u.s.ter around a church's spire, and alone, on the top of the hill, stands the little Chapel of Saint-Maxime, the only relic of the Great Seminary that was destroyed by the Revolutionists of '89. Here, after the destruction of one of the several Cathedrals of Riez, the Bishop celebrated Ma.s.ses, but the little chapel was never consecrated a Cathedral. It has been recently restored and re-built in an uninteresting style,--the exterior is bare to ugliness, the interior so painted that the six old Roman columns which support the choir are overwhelmed by the ba.n.a.lity of their surroundings. The plateau on which the chapel is built is now almost bare; olive-trees grow to its edges and there is no trace of the Seminary that was once so full of active life. The traveller, sitting in the shade of the few pine-trees, looked over the broad view toward the peaks whose bare rocks rise with awful sternness, and the little hills that stand between them and the valley, till finally his eyes wandered to the town beneath, and the firm, broad roads which approach it from every direction. For Riez, although in the lost depths of Provence, far from railways and tourists, is a bee-hive of industry, largely supplying the necessities of these secluded little towns. Its hat-making, rope factories, and tanneries are quite important; the shops of its main streets are not without a tempting attractiveness, and there is all the provincial stateliness of Saint-Remy with much less stagnancy.

Riez was the Albece Reiorum Apollinarium in the Colonia Julia Reiorum of the Romans, but there are very few traces of the city with this high-sounding name. The whole atmosphere of the little town is XII century. Two of its old gates, part of the wall, and the crenellated tower still stand, with ruined convents and monasteries of Capuchins, Cordeliers, and Ursulines; and it may be inferred from the remains of the Bishop's Palace and the broad promenade which was one of its avenues, and from the episcopal chateau at Montagnac, that ecclesiastical state was not less worthily upheld at Riez than in the other Sees of the South of France.

Many difficulties, however, had beset the Cathedral-building prelates.

Their first church, Notre-Dame-du-Siege, dating partly from the foundation of the See in the IV century, partly from the X and XII centuries, was destroyed by storm and flood, and its site near the treacherous little river being considered too perilous, a new Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Siege and Saint-Maxime was begun; and it was then that the Bishops celebrated temporarily at Saint-Maxime's on the hill.

During the Revolution the See was suppressed; the church has been much re-built and changed; so that only a tower which is part of the present Notre-Dame-du-Siege, and the traces of the earliest foundation near the little Colostre, remain to tell of the different Cathedrals of Riez.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE TOWER OF NOTRE-DAME-DU-SIeGE."--RIEZ.]

Near the site of the oldest church is one of the few monuments of a very early Christianity which have escaped the perils of time. It is of unknown date, and although it is said to have been part of the Cathedral which stood between it and the river, it appears to have been always an independent and separate building. The peasants say that in the memory of their forefathers it was used as a chapel, they call it indefinitely "the Pantheon," "the Temple," or "the Chapel of Saint-Clair," but it was almost certainly a baptistery of that curious and beautiful type which was abandoned so early in the evolution of Christian architecture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "NOTHING COULD BE MORE QUAINTLY OLD AND MODEST THAN THE BAPTISTERY."--RIEZ.]

Following the road which his innkeeper pointed out, the traveller became so absorbed in the busy movement of the communal thres.h.i.+ng-ground, the arrival of the yellow grain, the women who were wielding pitchforks, and the horses moving in circles, with solemn rhythm, that he nearly pa.s.sed a low building, the object of his search. Nothing could be more quaintly old and modest than the baptistery of Riez. It is a small square building of rough cemented stone whose stucco has worn away. The roof is tiled, and from out a flattened dome, blades of gra.s.s sprout spa.r.s.ely. A tiny bell-turret and an arch in the front wall complete the ornamentation of this humble, diminutive bit of architecture, and except that it is different from the usual Provencal manner of construction, one would pa.s.s many times without noticing it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BETWEEN THE COLUMNS AN ALTAR HAS BEEN PLACED."--BAPTISTERY, RIEZ.]

Walking down the steps which mark the differences that time has made in the levels of the ground and entering a small octagonal hall, one of the most interesting interiors of Provence meets the eye. "Each of its four sides," writes Jules de Lauriere, "which correspond to the angles of the outer square, has a semicircular apse built in the walls themselves. The eight columns, placed in a circle about the centre of the edifice, divide it into a circular nave and a central rotunda, and support eight arches which, in turn, support an octagonal drum, and above this is the dome." This room is of simple and charming architectural conception, and even in melancholy ruin, it has much beauty. It gains in comparison with the re-constructed baptisteries of Provence, for something of a primitive character has been preserved to which such modern altars and XVII century trappings as those of Aix and Frejus are fatal. Under the heavy dust there is visible an unhappy coating of whitewash, traces of a fire still blacken the walls, fragments of Roman sculpture are scattered about, and between the columns a pagan altar has been placed for safe-keeping. The columns themselves are of pagan construction, and as they differ somewhat in size and capitals, it is not improbable that they came from the ruins of several of the great public buildings of Riez. At the time of the baptistery's construction, the barbaric invasion had begun, and these Roman monuments may have been in ruins; but in any case, it was a pious and justifiable custom of Christians to take from pagan structures, standing or fallen, stones and pillars that would serve for building churches to the "one, true G.o.d." The pillars procured for this laudable purpose at Riez, with their beautiful, carved capitals, gave the little baptistery its one decoration, and far from disturbing the simplicity of its style, they add a slenderness and height and harmony to a room which, without them, would be too stiffly bare. In the rotunda which they form, excavations have brought to light a baptismal pool, and conduits which brought to it sufficient quant.i.ties of water for the immersion--whole or partial--that was part of the baptismal service of the early Church. But the archaeological work has abruptly ceased, and it is to be deeply regretted that here, in this deserted place, where the Church desires no present restorations in accordance with particular rites or modern styles of architecture, there should not be a complete rehabilitation, a baptistery restored to the actual state of its own era.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BEAUTIFUL GRANITE COLUMNS."--RIEZ.]

Wandering across the fields, with the re-constructive mania strong upon him, the traveller came across the beautiful granite columns which with their capitals, bases, and architraves of marble, are the last standing monument of Riez's Roman greatness. Fragments of sculpture, bits of stone set in her walls, exist in numbers; but they are too isolated, too vague, to suggest the lost beauty and grandeur which these lonely columns express. He gazed at them in wonder. Was he stepping where once had been a grand and busy Forum, was he looking at the Temple of some great Roman G.o.d? The voices of the threshers sounded cheerily, the Provencal sun shone bright and warm, but one of the greatest of mysteries was before him,--the silent mystery of a dead past that had once been a living present. He sat by the river, and tossed pebbles into its shallow waters; the slanting rays of the sun gave the columns delicate tints, old yellows and greys and violets, and at length, as evening fell, they seemed to grow higher and whiter in the paler light, until they looked like lonely funereal shafts, recalling to the memory of forgetful man, Riez's long-dead greatness.

[Sidenote: Senez.]