A Spring Walk in Provence

by Archibald Marshall

"The young Honoré de Grimaldi, seeking the protection of Louis XIII, who had no desire to see the Spaniards conveniently planted between Genoa and Nice, so near to his own territories, arranged by the Treaty of Péronne for the independence of Monaco, and the protection of a French garrison, in 1641, together with sufficient lands in France to compensate for the loss of any Italian revenues confiscated by Spain. Grimaldi got the Spaniards out of Monaco by a cleverly audacious ruse, and was rewarded by lands in France which were called his Duchy of Valentinois; and in 1643 Les Baux was created a marquisate in the possession of the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco, and Dukes of Valentinois. The title that had been held by Diane de Poitiers, and by Cæsar Borgia, added perhaps the last touch of sinister romance that was needed to complete the history of Les Baux. A little country pleasure-house, beneath the ruins of the fort, was enough for the Grimaldis; and even that was knocked to pieces by the Revolution, which also cut down every forest on the mountain-slopes."[10]

This "Hôtel de Monte Carlo" used to be called "A la Chevelure d'Or."

Some years ago when the pavement of the church was undergoing repair there was found the body of a beautiful young girl, wrapped in a mantle of her own golden hair. It fell to dust when exposed, all but the long strands of hair which the innkeeper possessed himself of and displayed in his tavern. When he left Les Baux he took the "Cabelladuro d'Or" with him, but a tress of it is now in the Musée Arlaten at Arles. The rock beneath the church is honeycombed with graves of the knights and ladies of old time, and this fair girl is supposed to have been the Princess Strella of Florence, who came to Les Baux to marry the Reine Jeanne's seneschal, but died instead, and was buried beneath the stone on which she would have stood to be wedded. A sad little story, very real at the time, then forgotten for four hundred years, and now again real enough to touch the heart!

All that afternoon and evening I wandered about among the ruins of the deserted city. I call it deserted because the greater part of it is actually so, and the life of the part that is inhabited is so different from the life it once enshrined that it has little power to change the meaning of the old buildings in which it shelters.

The church is perhaps an exception, for so many churches as ancient as this have survived. But if you sit in its darkness and silence for a time the present drops away from you and you are back again in the days when it rang with the tread of mailed knights and rustled with the silks and satins of their ladies. It has been clumsily enough restored without, but inside it is much as it was centuries ago. The south aisle is the oldest, and it has three chapels, as well as an altar, scooped out of the living rock. Mr. Cook reminds us of Dumas' visit to it. "As he entered the little, cold, dark building (in the days before its restoration) he heard a sound of sorrow at the eastern end. Upon an open bier, before the high altar, lay the dead body of a little girl. Her two tiny sisters knelt on either side. Her mother sat crying in a corner, and continued sobbing after the good Alexandre had thrown her his whole purse. Her little brother tried to toll the bell for a service at which no priest was present. A dozen or so of beggars had looked in to see the sight. They comprised the whole population of Les Baux."

In front of the church is a terrace overlooking the valley in which is the garden with the pavilion. In one corner of it are the ruins of a chapel of the White Penitents. On the other side the rock rises sheer and steep, and in it is hollowed out a semi-circular cistern called the Deïmo. Into this the vassals of the Lords of Les Baux poured their tithes of wine and corn and olive oil.

One can picture this terrace on a sunny spring morning filled with the people who had just come out from hearing Mass in the church. They would linger awhile to gossip by the stone parapet, or round the steps of the cross in the middle of the little place, before they went off to their fine houses in the narrow streets. Les Baux was a favourite residence of the Provencal nobility in its more peaceful days. Hardly less interesting than the ruins of the castle and the older houses are those of the fifteenth and sixteenth century mansions, with their noble proportions and their rich decoration.

One of them, hard by the church, is still standing, and is used as a school. You can get permission to see its vaulted frescoed hall. It belonged to the noble family of the Porcelets, the origin of whose name is legendary.

A proud lady of the family drove away a beggar woman, rebuking her for bringing into the world more children than she could provide for. The beggar chanced to be a witch, as so frequently happened in such circumstances, and prophesied in return that the lady herself would bear as many children as there should be little pigs in the litter of a sow that was near them. The sow produced nine porcelets, and the lady as many children, who with their descendants were thenceforward called Porcelet.

If only one could catch just one glimpse of the place as it was in the days of high romance! It would be impossible to dip anywhere into the history of song and chivalry in the south during the Middle Ages without coming across mention of Les Baux. Some of its princes were noted Troubadours, knights and ladies thronged its Courts of Love, and the names of its queens ring musically through the poetry that was made there. Passe-Rose, Douce, Etiennette, Adélasie, Briande, Clairette, Barbe, Aybeline, Baussette—how sweet they sound! And there are stories to be told of all of them.