THE CLOISTERS, NORTH WALK, ST. TROPHIME
The ancient church of St. Honorat, at the end of the avenue, is in a sad state of desolation, for its ruin went very far before what was left of it began to be cared for. I remember little of it but the octagonal domed belfry which gives it its character in the scene, the enormous round pillars of the interior, and a side chapel which interested me because it belonged to the Porcelets of Les Baux. St. Honorat was only one of nineteen churches and chapels within the Alyscamps when it was most famous. The translation of the body of St. Trophimus to the cathedral in 1152 took away something of its prestige. It was served by the monks of St. Victor of Marseilles until the middle of the fifteenth century, by which time the people of Arles seem to have realized that they had an almost inexhaustible supply of coveted Christian antiquities to dispose of, and ever since the sixteenth century the spoliation has been going on. There is nothing of much value left compared with what can be seen of the treasures of the Alyscamps elsewhere, and even the sacred ground has been whittled away by degrees, and the railway has set up workshops on the very spot where so many Christians of the first centuries were buried. One hears the clang of metal as one walks along the melancholy avenue, or stands in the empty ruined church. The glory has all departed, and most of the romance.
There are many other memories of the past in Arles, but they need not detain us. The ancient city has of late years been the centre of the Provençal revival of the Félibres, and we may take leave of it as well as of the charming land of Provence, with a glance at the Musée Arlaten, which owes its foundation to the patriotism and largely to the generosity of Mistral.
It is housed in a fine old mansion built round a courtyard in which have lately been discovered some valuable Roman remains. It fills all the rooms and passages of the first floor and is already an ethnological and local museum of great value. They call it the Palace of the Félibrige, and it aims to sum up all the life and traditions of Provence. "Art, letters, customs, manners, pottery, costumes, furniture," announces the catalogue, "all are there. The whole of Provence unfolds itself and lives again in all its aspects in these admirable galleries, masterpieces of patience as well as genius."
The patience as well as the genius have been mostly Mistral's. His neat, angular writing is to be seen on nearly all the labels, and up to the very week before his death he came regularly to the museum one day every week and worked there cataloguing and arranging. As I was waiting at Graveson station after visiting Saint-Michel de Frigolet, the station-master told me how much they should miss him. Every Thursday he would come over from Maillane, in the old diligence, and take the train to Arles. He talked a great deal about his museum. It was his pride and his chief interest of latter years.
One of the smaller rooms is called the Salo Mistralenco, or the Cabinet de Mistral. "The walls of this salle d'honneur are decorated with illustrations of Mireille, Nerte, Calendal, &c. On the chimneypiece a superb bust of the Master. In glass cases: the works of Mistral, things that have belonged to him, the 'original' of the great Nobel Prize adjudged to the poet, and a letter to the same from Roosevelt, President of the United States, etc. In the middle of the salle, a wonderful reliquary estimated at over 10,000 francs, the gift of M. Mistral-Bernard of Saint-Remy: it contains the hair, the christening robe and the cradle of the infant Mistral; in the cradle the manuscript of 'Mireille.'"
There may seem something a little odd to English ideas in this naïve acceptance of immortality, and preparation for the veneration of posterity, in a man's own lifetime. But Mistral's advanced years may excuse it, if excuse is needed. Long ago he saw his cause triumph, and it is a cause that looms big in Provence. He could hardly help knowing that he was its central figure, and from the very first he has laid all the fame that it brought him at the feet of his beloved country. In any case the slight anachronism will soon disappear. It was already beginning to fade away when I was there in the week after his death, and saw the chamber darkened and the pathetic reminders of his infancy all swathed and wreathed in black.