A Tour Through Old Provence

by A. S. Forrest

In the Middle Ages this stronghold of Les Baux was the capital of one of the most powerful lordships in the whole county of Provence, and the independent sovereignty of its rulers was unquestioned by neighbouring and distant nobles alike. It was an important and celebrated town, its name familiar wherever the minstrel sang his song or the troubadour his lay. Its population mustered more than four thousand strong; but that was long ago, in the days when a highway connected it with Orgon and Arles. Year by year, ever since this was abandoned, the town’s prosperity has declined; its churches, convents, and castle have lost heart, for their inhabitants have fled. The wind howls through its abandoned ramparts, and the sun’s rays penetrate into once gloomy dungeons. Yesterday four hundred souls possessed the town; to-day there are scarce a hundred who find shelter among its ruins; to-morrow Nature will again take possession, and man’s architectural efforts will have crumbled away.

Throughout all the many changes that Provence has experienced in its rulers, the ancient family of Des Baux clung tenaciously to their rock fortress, and their name was held in high esteem. Their coat of arms, a star with sixteen rays, can still be seen along with several others within the ruined Chapel of St. Claude. It occurs also in other parts of Provence, and typifies the proud claim of the Des Baux to a direct descent from one of the Kings who, guided by a star, came from the East to lay rich gifts before the Infant Christ lying in the manger at Bethlehem. The descendants of the Oriental King, proud of their origin, added to their titles of Princes of Baux those of Princes of Orange, Viscounts of Marseilles, Counts of Provence, Kings of Arles and Vienne, Seneschals of Piedmont, Podestas of Milan, Counts of Milan, along with many others.

To follow the fortunes of the Des Baux family, the feudal chiefs of the surrounding country, is to dip deep into the history of Provence, for their names are constantly cropping up over divisions of land and inheritance by marriage with neighbouring and distant families. Suffice it to say that from the time of Count Leibulfe, who founded the house and lived probably in the eighth century, to that of Honoré Camille de Grimaldi, from whom the marquisate of Baux was taken by force during the Revolution, its princes have been related to nearly every great family in Europe. The Château, which has resisted many a siege, is of almost monolithic construction; its ramparts, towers, staircases, banqueting halls carved out of the rocks. The builders have made use of the natural foundations, and the result of the natural and artificial construction is one of the most fantastic castles that ever existed.

When René succeeded to the Barony of Baux the town was in a thriving condition, and in 1444 he set about putting the castle, much battered by successive sieges, into repair, restoring the ramparts and towers; and, internally furnishing it with all the resources the period could command, made it over to his second wife Jean de Laval for her lifetime. Old King René, artist, poet, and musician, found in Baux an ideal spot after his own heart. For nearly three centuries Baux had been a favourite rallying-place for the Troubadours and the ancient “Court of Love.”

The records of the numerous wars and forays in which the Lords of Baux and their retainers were engaged have not, however, aroused the curious interest of later times so much as have the town’s romantic associations with the literature of the dark ages, written in the dialect of the Langue d’Oc, better known as Provençal.

This language, which still lingers in the South of France, arose gradually out of the corrupted Roman dialects of the first centuries, throughout the colonies occupied by the conquering Empire of the West. The particular variety of dialect known as Provençal gained a wider celebrity than that spoken in Iberia, or in the districts north of the Loire. It was developed from the old Romance language, and about the eleventh or twelfth century was extensively in vogue among the cultured classes throughout Europe.

A crop of poets sprang up in amazing profusion in the valley of the Rhone, and all who had pretensions to learning and refinement wrote in the language of Romance until well on into the fifteenth century, when a decay set in and other languages developed into more permanent and literary forms. The Provençal language, with its smooth and pleasant sounds, seemed eminently adapted to the feelings and voluptuous thoughts of a people who delighted in song, music, and the dance.

The Troubadours, or finders (inventors), sprang from all classes of the people, and the admiration which was accorded their productions, combined with the flattery and praise bestowed upon the authors, tended to awaken latent vanity and draw thousands into the field of poetry. Princes and Knights, the aristocracy of the country, entered into this domain; and lays, thousands of verses long, recounted the adventures of the Brave Knights who fought for the Cross, and incidentally for themselves, against Saracens and Turks. The lack of any other literature, unless among a few obscure monastic students, gave a great impetus to these lays, written by the Troubadours and sung sometimes by themselves, but more often by the strolling minstrel who learnt by heart the long-winded romances.