A Spring Walk in Provence

by Archibald Marshall

Salon and the Crau

Ever since I first saw Les Baux, on a motoring trip from the north to the south of France, I had wanted to get back to it. I saw Aix and Avignon and Nîmes and Arles at the same time, and I wanted to get back to them. But Les Baux was the bonne bouche. When I contemplated this spring walk it was what I was thinking of as the central point of interest of the whole expedition; and I was thinking of it all the time I was walking through the country during those first nine days.

For it sums up the whole past of Provence. It is connected with the Græco-Phœnician colonies that preceded the Roman occupation; with the Roman occupation itself, and especially with that stirring episode of the Marian defeat of the barbarian invaders; with the Christian Marian legends; almost more than any other place with the romantic era of the Troubadours; with every internal struggle of the many that disturbed the country during the Middle Ages; with the religious wars; and indeed with every movement of significance in Provence down to the time of the merging of the kingdom into that of France.

After that its importance dwindled, but did not expire until much later. When it did, its ruin was so complete that it acquired another sort of interest altogether. It arouses much the same feelings now as the one-time flourishing cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, for it is almost as dead as they, and its ruins tell as eloquently of the time when it was alive. Added to which, it is most romantically situated, in the very heart of the country that is most characteristic of Provence as it is today—the Provence that lives its rich, picturesque life with an eye kept always on its rich, picturesque past; the country of Mistral, and the scenes of that moving epic in which all the poetry and glamour of Provence is garnered up: "Mireille."

I shouldered my pack once more, but was in such a hurry now to get to Les Baux that I took the train early in the morning as far as Maussane. It was well that I did so, for the rain fell heavily when I reached Salon, where I had an hour to wait.

Nostradamus, who was born at Saint-Remy, lived at various times at Salon, and died there. Out of his thousand prophecies it is not surprising that a few hit the mark, and from them he gained an immense reputation. Exactly a hundred years after his death we find Pepys writing: "Amongst other discourse we talked much of Nostradamus, his prophecy of these times, and Sir George Cartaret did tell a story how at his death he did make the town (of Salon) swear that he should never be dug up or his tomb opened after he was buried; but that they did after sixty years do it, and upon his breast they found a plate of brasse saying what a wicked, unfaithful people the people of that place were, who after so many vows should disturb and open him such a day and year and hour, which, if true, is very strange." Probably it was not true, as to the time; but he would not have risked much if he had prophesied the fact. He did, however, prophesy that a new era would begin for France in the year 1792, which was a bold shot, as it was more than two hundred years after his death; and Napoleon is said to have seen predictions that concerned himself in his writings.

M. Mariéton tells of the fashion in which he seized his opportunity in the town of Salon.

Charles IX was making a solemn progress through Provence with his mother Catharine de' Medici and the little Prince Henry of Navarre. The town of Salon made elaborate preparations for their reception, and Nostradamus was asked where he would like to walk in the procession. He said that he proposed to have a little procession of his own. When the royal party appeared before the gates the queen mother looked anxiously about for the prophet, and when she saw him apart from the rest beckoned him to take up his position between herself and the king. He had been counting on something of this sort, for he had already been in Paris, and had gained a considerable ascendancy over Catharine. He was lodged in the castle during the royal visit, and invited to a solemn consultation on the subject of the stability of the royal line. Catharine wanted him to tell the fortune of Prince Henry. He was quite ready to do it, and ordered the child to be undressed, as a preliminary. The little prince thought he was going to be whipped, and filled the castle with his howls. When he had calmed down, Nostradamus boldly announced that he would come to be king.

If this story is true, it shows the prophet to have been a schemer rather above his kind. Catharine had three sons still alive, and could not have been expected to welcome the announcement. Nor would the young king have been particularly pleased with it. Indeed, it may be said to have been a prophecy not altogether free from risk to the man who was bold enough to make it. But he seems to have judged human nature aright. His reputation was vastly increased by the prediction, and Catharine summoned him to Paris for the second time, which was no doubt what he wanted.

The royal visit to Salon took place in the year 1564, and while the great humbug of the time was preparing for his own little private effect there must have been somewhere in the crowd that filled the streets strewn with rosemary and lavender and thyme a young man who deserved far better to be noticed. This was Adam de Craponne, who by that time had already begun his work of fertilizing the Great Crau.