Chapter I: Preface

The following pages owe a considerable debt to what others who have been over the same ground have written. Mr. T. A. Cook's[1] "Old Provence" (London: Rivington's, 2 vols.) is a most valuable record of the history of the country as it attaches to the innumerable places of interest to be visited, and his taste and knowledge when brought to bear upon its architectural remains have greatly enhanced my own appreciation of those rich treasures. I know of no book, either in French or English, from which a visitor to Provence could get so much to supplement his own observation, and I have made constant use of it. To Mr. Thomas Okey's[2] "Avignon" in Dent's "Mediæval Towns" series, I also owe a great debt of gratitude. The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould's "In Troubadour Land" (London: W. H. Allen), though slighter than those two works, contains much interesting information. Mistral's "Mes Origines" (Paris: Libraire Plon), translated from the Provençal, is of course invaluable for its pictures of Provençal life, and from that book and from M. Paul Mariéton's "La Terre Provençale" (Paris: Ollendorf) one can get the best information about the movement of the Félibrige, which has done so much to revivify the old life of Provence. A good deal of desultory information is afforded by M. Louis de Laincel's "La Provence" (Paris: Oudin), and some of the stories that linger on Provençal soil are well told in M. Charles-Roux's "Légendes de Provence" (Paris: Bloud). These books, and the French translation of Mistral's "Mirèio," which is a mine of Provençal lore, besides being a noble poem, have been my chief "authorities," but they have been very usefully supplemented by the various pamphlets to be picked up locally. Some of these have been excellent, and I have made mention of their authors in the following pages.

The photographs are of my own taking, except those very kindly given to me by Mr. Hope Macey, whom I was fortunate enough to come across in Avignon in the course of an expedition that coincided with mine at many points. The one of Mistral's birthplace I bought at Arles, and those of the picture and tapestry at Aix in Paris.[3]

This account of my spring journey has been finished under the shadow of the great war, which might have caused me to look upon the _jours de conscription_ with which I fell in on the early days of the walk in a light much sadder, if I could have foreseen it. I left Provence in a train full of young soldiers going to their homes in various distant parts of France for their Easter furlough. Of those who crowded the carriage in which I travelled from Arles to Lyons the faces come before me as clearly as if I saw them in the flesh, and I can hear their songs and jokes and laughter. They seemed to have been drawn from all classes, but to mix in the readiest frankest comradeship. Whenever I read now of the French in action I think of those light-hearted boys in their holiday mood, and wonder what they are doing, and how many of them are still alive. One has somewhat changed one's view of the toll that France has taken of her manhood since those days that now seem so far off.

CHATEAU D'OEX, _August, 1914_.

* * * * *

The world has changed since this book was written, but I hope that the record of an expedition made in the happy days before the war may still be read with pleasure, now that the great shadow is in part removed. I have been over the manuscript again and made a few alterations here and there, but have altered nothing that shows it to have been written five years ago.

BURLEY, HANTS, _August, 1919_.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. HILLS AND OLIVES 1

II. FLOWERS AND SCENTS 18

III. IN OLD PROVENCE 31

IV. DRAGUIGNAN AND SAINT-MAXIMIN 48

V. THE CHURCH OF SAINT-MAXIMIN 68

VI. CAIUS MARIUS AND THE GREAT BATTLE 85

VII. AIX 97

VIII. SALON AND THE CRAU 116

IX. LES BAUX 127

X. LES BAUX (_Continued_) 143

XI. MISTRAL 158

XII. SAINT-REMY 168

XIII. AVIGNON 175

XIV. THE PALACE OF THE POPES 190

XV. VAUCLUSE 209

XVI. NIMES AND THE PONT DU GARD 227

XVII. AIGUES-MORTES AND THE CAMARGUE 239

XVIII. SAINTES-MARIES DE LA MER 252

XIX. SAINT-GILLES AND MONTMAJOUR 266

XX. THE LAST WALK. ST. MICHEL DE FRIGOLET 282

XXI. VILLENEUVE-SUR-AVIGNON 301

XXII. ARLES 311

ILLUSTRATIONS

Evening among the olives _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE

The road downhill "looks just like a temperature chart" 10

I "posed" him among the ruins 11

A Provençal shepherd 44

Fayence could be seen on its own hillside 44

How they prune the plane-trees 45

The dolmen near Draguignan 45

Altar of the Crucifixion, Saint-Maximin 74

The Field of the Great Battle, with Mount Olympus in the background 75

The Canterbury Tapestry 106

The famous "Tarasque" 107

Le Buisson Ardent 110

Porte d'Eyguières 111

The Castle Ruins, Les Baux 130

The Castle Dovecot, Les Baux 131

Pavillon de la Reine Jeanne 140

Huguenot Chapel in Les Baux 141

Les Baux from the Castle Ruins 150

One of the beauties of Les Baux 151

Mistral's birthplace, Mas du Juge 160

Fresco in the Palace of the Popes at Avignon 161

The Mausoleum, Saint-Remy 170

The Triumphal Arch, Saint-Remy 171

Sixteenth century doors and Virgin and Child of
Eighteenth Century, St. Pierre, Avignon 182

The Pont Benezet 183

The Cathedral, Avignon 194

"The Popes' Palace is most like those almost
brutally strong buildings that the Romans left" 195

The "fountain," Vaucluse 212

The caves above the "fountain" 213

The Pont du Gard 228

The Fountains, Nîmes 229

The Maison Carrée 234

The Amphitheatre, Nîmes 235

Aigues-Mortes, the Ramparts 244

"Looked away to the desolate salt marshes" 245

Saintes-Maries, the Fortress Church 256

Saint-Gilles, the Central Porch 257

The Maison-Romaine 276

The staircase in the farmyard at Montmajour 277

Saint-Michel de Frigolet 284

The Coronation of the Virgin, Villeneuve-Sur-Avignon 285

A courtyard in Villeneuve 308

The Rotunda at Villeneuve 309

The Arena at Arles 312

The Greek Theatre, Arles 313

The Cloisters, South walk, St. Trophime 316

The Cloisters, North walk, St. Trophime 317

Arles, the Alyscamps 320

Boy's head in marble, Musée Lapidaire, Arles 321

A SPRING WALK IN PROVENCE

A SPRING WALK IN PROVENCE