A Tour Through Old Provence

by A. S. Forrest

In the Place Royale there stands a curious obelisk found in the ancient Roman circus—a link with a still older civilisation. This Egyptian column was discovered towards the end of the seventeenth century, but was not placed in its present position till 1829.

It is only natural that Arles, which was probably the first town of any importance in Gaul to receive the Gospel, should be rich in Christian traditions and relics, and, if one can give credence to the legends of the city, it was, in the first century, about thirty years at most after the Crucifixion, closely in touch with the holy men and women, who are reputed to have landed at the point where the desolate little village of Les Saintes Maries still stands. This little town lies not more than twenty miles from Arles, and although most coastlines alter their contour and position in very short periods, geologists and scientists have asserted that the regions of the Camargue have not sensibly changed for twenty centuries. This fact, together with the recent discovery on the Camargue of a tomb of the first century, and the inscription found on the site of the Church of Les Maries, has somewhat revived belief in the ancient legend that King René popularised when he altered the name of the Church of St. Marie of the Boats, which dated from the sixth century, to Les Maries.

The interest that attaches to Christian Arles is deepened when we dip into the ancient traditions of the town. These old legends of the Saints period and the stones of Arles all speak of them, and keep alive many customs that a too prosaic common sense would soon allow to die.

Its population has diminished sadly since the Roman ramparts hemmed in and fortified the town, but the narrow streets and tightly packed houses seem hardly enough for the present population, which is barely one-third of what it was in its palmy days. Its curious twisting streets form a maze that is puzzling to the stranger, and the four principal places are replete with bewildering entrances and exits. The Place du Forum is small and almost modern, squeezed into the very heart of the town.

All that remains of the ancient forum are two pillars supporting a small entablature, so damaged and shorn of detail as to suggest the art of Egypt. In front of it stands the statue of Mistral, the poet of Provence, who

loved his country, its natural beauty, art, and legends with a passion that only a native can understand. His patriotism swelled so within him that he gave the Nobel prize of £4,000, awarded to him in 1904, to the Museum founded by him in Arles. He sang his country’s praises in hundreds of poems and verses, and many of them in the Provençal dialect. He was an enthusiast, whose ardour increased with advancing years. His statue stands in the busiest, or at least the most characteristic, part of the ancient town.

What there is of life centres in the Forum, noisy with the stamping of the fly-tormented cab horses, who stand round the little square waiting to be hired. Two hotels, four or five cafés and bars, two hairdresser’s shops, two newspaper and book shops, and one devoted to the sale of antique curios, make up the Place du Forum. Although the traffic in the town is small, it creates a deafening noise as it passes over the cobble-stoned streets.

So familiar are the inhabitants with classic beauty, daily before their eyes in dying monuments and living womenfolk, that they see no incongruity in the statuettes of the “Venus of Arles” or other classic figures being used by shopkeepers to illustrate the application of belts and surgical appliances and even modern clothing. Extremes meet in Arles; beauty and decay exist side by side; art and dirt ever did go hand in hand; and the loveliest women in the whole of France, perhaps in the world to-day, reek of the most obnoxious odour the nostril ever encountered, the pungent smell of garlic.