Part III — The Rhône Valley
I Introductory
The knowledge of the geographer Ptolemy, who wrote in the second century with regard to the Rhône, was not so greatly at fault as with respect to other topographical features, such as coasts and boundaries.
Perhaps the fact that Gaul had for so long been under Roman dominion had somewhat to do with this.
He gives, therefore, a tolerably correct account as to this mighty river, placing its sources in the Alps, and tracing its flow through the lake Lemannus (Leman) to Lugdunum (Lyon); whence, turning sharply to the southward, it enters the Mediterranean south of Arles. Likewise, he correctly adds that the upper river is joined with the combined flow of the Doubs and Saône, but commits the error of describing their source to be also in the Alps.
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, who knew these parts well,—his home was near Autun,—has described the confluence of the Saône and Rhône thus:
“The width and depth of the two rivers are equal, but the swift-flowing Rhône discharges twice the volume of water of the slow-running Saône. They also differ remarkably in colour. The Saône is emerald-green and the Rhône blue-green. Here the minor river loses its name and character, and, by an unusual process, the slowest and most navigable stream in Europe joins the swiftest and least navigable. The Flumen Araris ceases and becomes the Rhodanus.”
The volume of water which yearly courses down the Rhône is perhaps greater than would first appear, when, at certain seasons of the year, one sees a somewhat thin film of water gliding over a wide expanse of yellow sand and shingle.
Throughout, however, it is of generous width and at times rises in a true torrential manner: this when the spring freshets and melting Alpine snows are directed thither toward their natural outlet to the sea. “Rivers,” said Blaise Pascal, “are the roads that move.” Along the great river valleys of the Rhône, the Loire, the Seine, and the Rhine were made the first Roman roads, the prototypes of the present-day means of communication.
The development of civilization and the arts along these great pathways was rapid and extensive. Two of them, at least, gave birth to architectural styles quite differing from other neighbouring types: the Romain-Germanique—bordering along the Rhine and extending to Alsace and the Vosges; and the Romain-Bourguignon, which followed the valley of the Rhône from Bourgogne to the Mediterranean and the Italian frontier, including all Provence.
The true source of the Rhône is in the Pennine Alps, where, in consort with three other streams, the Aar, the Reuss, and the Ticino, it rises in a cloven valley close to the lake of Brienz, amid that huge jumble of mountain-tops, which differs so greatly from the popular conception of a mountain range.
Dauphiné and Savoie are to-day comparatively unknown by parlour-car travellers. Dauphiné, with its great historical associations, the wealth and beauty of its architecture, the magnificence of its scenery, has always had great attractions for the historian, the archæologist, and the scholar; to the tourist, however, even to the French tourist, it remained for many years a terra incognita. Yet no country could present the traveller with a more wonderful succession of ever-changing scenery, such a rich variety of landscape, ranging from verdant plain to mountain glacier, from the gay and picturesque to the sublime and terrible. Planted in the very heart of the French Alps, rising terrace above terrace from the lowlands of the Rhône to the most stupendous heights, Dauphiné may with reason claim to be the worthy rival of Switzerland.
The romantic associations of “La Grande Chartreuse”; of the charming valley towns of Sion and Aoste, famed alike in the history of Church and State; and of the more splendidly appointed cities of Grenoble and Chambéry, will make a new leaf in the books of most peoples’ experiences.
The rivers Durance, Isère, and Drôme drain the region into the more ample basin of the Rhône, and the first of the three—for sheer beauty and romantic picturesqueness—will perhaps rank first in all the world.
The chief associations of the Rhône valley with the Church are centred around Lyon, Vienne, Avignon, and Arles. The associations of history—a splendid and a varied past—stand foremost at Orange, Nîmes, Aix, and Marseilles. It is not possible to deal here with the many pays et pagi of the basin of the Rhône.
Of all, Provence—that golden land—stands foremost and compels attention. One might praise it ad infinitum in all its splendid attributes and its glorious past, but one could not then do it justice; better far that one should sum it up in two words—“Mistral’s world.”
The popes and the troubadours combined to cast a glamour over the “fair land of Provence” which is irresistible. Here were architectural monuments, arches, bridges, aqueducts, and arenas as great and as splendid as the world has ever known. Aix-en-Provence, in King René’s time, was the gayest capital of Europe, and the influence of its arts and literature spread to all parts.
To the south came first the Visigoths, then the conflicting and repelling Ostrogoths; between them soon to supplant the Gallo-Roman cultivation which had here grown so vigorously.
It was as late as the sixth century when the Ostrogoths held the brilliant sunlit city of Arles; when follows a history—applicable as well to most of all southern France—of many dreary centuries of discordant races, of varying religious faiths, and adherence now to one lord and master, and then to another.
Monuments of various eras remain; so numerously that one can rebuild for themselves much that has disappeared for ever: palaces as at Avignon, castles as at Tarascon and Beaucaire, and walled cities as at Aigues-Morte. What limitless suggestion is in the thought of the assembled throngs who peopled the tiers of the arenas and theatres of Arles and Nîmes in days gone by. The sensation is mostly to be derived, however, from thought and conjecture. The painful and nullifying “spectacles” and “courses des taureaux,” which periodically hold forth to-day in these noble arenas, are mere travesties on their splendid functions of the past. Much more satisfying—and withal more artistic—are the theatrical representations in that magnificent outdoor theatre at Orange; where so recently as the autumn of 1903 was given a grand representation of dramatic art, with Madame Bernhardt, Coquelin, and others of the galaxy which grace the French stage to-day, taking part therein.
Provençal literature is a vast and varied subject, and the women of Arles—the true Arlesians of the poet and romancer—are astonishingly beautiful. Each of these subjects—to do them justice—would require much ink and paper. Daudet, in “Tartarin,” has these opening words, as if no others were necessary in order to lead the way into a new world: “It was September and it was Provence.” Frederic Mistral, in “Mirèio,” has written the great modern epic of Provence, which depicts the life as well as the literature of the ancient troubadours. The “Fountain of Vaucluse” will carry one back still further in the ancient Provençal atmosphere; to the days of Petrarch and Laura, and the “little fish of Sorgues.”
What the Romance language really was, authorities—if they be authorities—differ. Hence it were perhaps well that no attempt should be made here to define what others have failed to place, beyond this observation, which is gathered from a source now lost to recollection, but dating from a century ago at least:
“The southern or Romance language, the tongue of all the people who obeyed Charlemagne in the south of Europe, proceeded from the parent-vitiated Latin.
“The Provençaux assert, and the Spaniards deny, that the Spanish tongue is derived from the original Romance, though neither the Italians nor the French are willing to owe much to it as a parent, in spite of the fact that Petrarch eulogized it, and the troubadours as well.
“The Toulousans roundly assert that the Provençal is the root of all other dialects whatever (vide Cazeneuve). Most Spanish writers on the other hand insist that the Provençal is derived from the Spanish (vide Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas; Madrid, 1779).”
At all events the idiom, from whatever it may have sprung, took root, propagated and flourished in the land of the Provençal troubadours.
Whatever may have been the real extent of the influences which went out from Provence, it is certain that the marriage of Robert with Constance—daughter of the first Count of Provence, about the year 1000—was the period of a great change in manners and customs throughout the kingdom. Some even have asserted that this princess brought in her train the troubadours who spread the taste for poetry and its accompaniments throughout the north of France.
The “Provence rose,” so celebrated in legend and literature, can hardly be dismissed without a word; though, in truth, the casual traveller will hardly know of its existence, unless he may have a sweet recollection of some rural maid, who, with sleeves carefully rolled up, stood before her favourite rose-tree, tenderly examining it, and driving away a buzzing fly or a droning wasp.
These firstlings of the season are tended with great pride. The distinctive “rose of Provence” is smaller, redder, and more elastic and concentric than the centifoliæ of the north, and for this reason, likely, it appears the more charming to the eye of the native of the north, who, if we are to believe the romanticists, is made a child again by the mere contemplation of this lovely flower.
The glory of this rich red “Provence rose” is in dispute between Provence and Provins, the ancient capital of La Brie; but the weight of the argument appears to favour the former.
Below Arles and Nîmes the Rhône broadens out into a many-fingered estuary, and mingles its Alpine flood with the blue waters of the Mediterranean.
The delta has been formed by the activity and energy of the river itself, from the fourth century—when it is known that Arles lay sixteen miles from the sea—till to-day, when it is something like thirty. This ceaseless carrying and filling has resulted in a new coast-line, which not only has changed the topography of the region considerably, but may be supposed to have actually worked to the commercial disadvantage of the country round about.
The annual prolongation of the shores—the reclaimed water-front—is about one hundred and sixty-four feet, hence some considerable gain is accounted for, but whether to the nation or the “squatter” statistics do not say.
The delta of the Rhône has been described by an expansive French writer as: “Something quite separate from the rest of France. It is a wedge of Greece and of the East thrust into Gaul. It came north a hundred (or more) years ago and killed the Monarchy. It caught the value in, and created the great war-song of the Republic.”
There is a deal of subtlety in these few lines, and they are given here because of their truth and applicability.