A Spring Walk in Provence

by Archibald Marshall

"He bids the convalescent Bishop of Viterbo find health of body and serenity of mind in the soft and balmy air of Vaucluse. There in the warm sun, by the crystal fountain, in umbrageous woods and green pastures, he shall experience the delights of Paradise as described by theologians, or the charms of the Elysian fields as sang by poets; a good supply of books and the society of faithful friends shall not be lacking."[24]

That is a picture worthy to be put beside those that one makes for oneself of Horace enjoying his Sabine retreat, and indeed, if one were to leave Laura out of consideration, there is an almost exact parallel in the retirement of the two poets. If one could have read Petrarch, as one reads Horace, there would have been a constant series of little discoveries and recognitions to be made all about Vaucluse. Even as it was, wandering about the pleasant quiet place as I did that afternoon and evening, with the music of its many waters always in my ears, I gained an impression that comes back to me now as among the best that that land of many memories afforded me. It was only the "fountain" itself in which I was a little disappointed. The rest was as sylvan and poetic and peaceful as one would wish such a place to be, and the shade of the courtly nature-loving poet seemed to brood over it all, so little has it changed in essentials.

I made my way up through the olive gardens to the ruins of the castle, of which there are enough left to provide a most picturesque feature, but hardly enough to enable one to picture it as it was when Petrarch visited his friend there. One sees the pool and the cliff from it, and the river running over its stones below, the curious cave dwellings high up in the rocks opposite, and the pleasant fertile valley opening out on the other side. It must have been a delightful country retreat, and in that remote spot fairly safe from the disturbances that were apt to centre round such dwellings, although it was strongly built and fortified.

The next morning I set out early to walk back to L'Isle by a roundabout way which took me over the hills to Saumane, where I had heard that there was an ancient castle still inhabited.

I found a hill village, very picturesque, as is the way of such villages in Provence, and walked round the walls that guarded the château from the gaze of the vulgar, but found it more inaccessible to curiosity than is usual with such places. So I went down again to the village and into the auberge to refresh myself, and found a friendly postman also refreshing himself at a table in the kitchen, who conversed with me on many subjects but particularly on that of dogs. He seemed to take an occasional bite as something in the ordinary way of his rounds, and only showed apprehension in the case of the dog that bit him being "malade." I am bound to confess that this possibility gave me something of a chill. I had seen the teeth of so many dogs, which seem to be of a particularly unfriendly disposition in that country, and although I had always managed to drive them off, my accident at Les Baux had made me nervous about them. But I had not considered the chance of hydrophobia, which an Englishman is apt to forget all about. However, I suffered nothing further, except an occasional scare; but whenever I approached a farm and heard the bark of a dog, I went past very gingerly.

Both the postman and the woman of the inn gave me to understand that, although the château was kept strictly closed against unauthorized visitors, something might possibly be done for me if I called at a certain cottage with a large rose over the porch and rattled the coins in my pocket. Which I did, and was sent up the road hopefully. On it I met a man leading a donkey laden with fagots, who promised to join me at the entrance when he had disposed of his load.

Parts of the château date back to the twelfth century, but the dull square front is of the seventeenth. It is magnificently situated on a point of rock above the village, and commands splendid views. Or rather, the terraces do, for a grove of ilexes has been planted all along the front—I suppose for shade, and shelter from the wind—and nothing can be seen from those windows.

I had exhausted the interest of the gardens, and the immediate surroundings of the château long before the man with the ass reappeared. There was an untidy "pièce d'eau" on the sandy square in front of the house, and some dejected-looking peacocks in a cage, and over all the rest was that air of makeshift and economy which marks so strange a contrast between the châteaux of France and the lavishly kept-up country houses of England. Nor was the impression altered when I was taken inside, as far as the appointments of the rooms were concerned. I have never been inside any of the great French provincial châteaux, but I have seen a good many of the size of an ordinary English country house, and never one that was not full of rubbish, or that had gardens kept up except with the bare minimum of labour. They have the air of places to which their owners occasionally retire for a sort of picnic existence, and I suppose that is what they are generally used for—as appanages to some fine house in a city.

But all the rubbishy furniture and decoration of this château could not detract from its interest. It had belonged to the Marquises of Sade. I do not know whether the infamous eighteenth century marquis ever owned or lived in it, but it was the property of the Sades when Petrarch was at Vaucluse, and even if Laura had not married into the family, as it is generally supposed that she did, Petrarch must have visited it. The vaulted dining-hall, with its curious echo, can have changed but little since his time, and one can say almost with certainty that his feet trod the stones upon which one stands today, or at least that he knew the room as one sees it.

The appalling dungeon cells, most of them too dark and inconvenient to be used now even as storerooms, show that this castle was equipped with all the conveniences of the middle ages. One could more easily imagine a nobleman of those days doing without his dungeons than a modern one without his bathrooms or garage. But the owners of this château seem to have been more enterprising in making economic use of their prisoners than most of their fellows. They ran an illicit mint. There are the stone trough and table in one of the maze of cells underground. Nobody could have been indelicate enough to pry into the domestic arrangements of a gentleman's dungeons, and the coiners were no doubt as safe from detection there as anywhere. Nor was it probable that any of them would give away the secret. They did not mix with the outside world, and were not likely to do so again when once they had been initiated into their new trade.