We walked and talked together for about a mile, and although she must have been getting on for seventy, and carried a heavy basket, her steady pace was just a trifle faster than my usual one at the beginning of a long day's walk. I could not for shame suggest that I should drop back; besides, she would have offered to walk more slowly. So when we had exhausted the first burst of conversation, I drew myself together, lifted my hat, and with a word of apology, forged on ahead with all the air of a Marathon racer.
She chased me for miles. Whenever I looked back I saw her plodding form on the straight road across the marsh. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn't keep it up. The walk to Saint-Gilles was only to be the beginning of my day. At a wide turn of the road I took what looked to be an easy short cut across the marsh. If it had been easy, of course she would have taken it too, and the end of it was that when I came out on to the road again after my windings there was her black determined figure a quarter of a mile ahead of me. So I let her take her pace, and I took mine, and she crossed the great suspension bridge into Saint-Gilles nearly half an hour before I did. I saw her the whole way, and she never looked round. I hope she thought I was ahead of her.
Scarcely any of its original importance is left to Saint-Gilles, which dates from the earliest dawn of Provençal history. It was the Phœnician Heraktra. In those days the branch of the Rhône upon which it stands was an open trade route. The Phœnician traders came to it from their expeditions to Britain, by way of the Seine valley and the Rhône. Early in the twelfth century the building of one of the noblest churches in Provence was begun here; and its remains, in spite of the successive destructions and mutilations it has received, make it still well worth a visit.
All that is left in its original state is the wonderful carved façade, which is finer even than the famous one, of about the same date, of St. Trophimus at Arles, and takes in three portals instead of one. It is in its original state only as far as its main structure is concerned, for its figures have been sadly mutilated by successive generations of enraged Protestants. But one can be thankful to them for sparing it at all, instead of treating it as they did the church behind it.
The story of St. Gilles is charmingly told by M. J. Charles-Roux, in his "Légendes de Provence."
He was a Greek, of royal lineage. In all the country there was not to be found a man richer than his father, or a woman more chaste and charitable than his mother. He was baptized with great rejoicing, and from an early age his parents sought to bring him up in their faith. At seven years of age he was taught his letters, and thus early he devoted himself to study and the service of God. Modest and of fine address, he grew into the flower of his country's youth; his hair was fair and curling, his skin as white as milk, he had a delicate nose and ears, white teeth and a sweet mouth.
The day came when God was ready to show His designs concerning him. He was on his way to school, when he saw crouching in the gutter a poor cripple, pale, hideous and horrible. The child addressed him, and he replied, "Sir, hunger is killing and cold overwhelming me; death is near, and I only want to die." Gilles's eyes filled with tears, and as he had neither silver nor gold he gave the poor wretch his coat, and he at once arose cured and thanked God with such fervour that presently more than a hundred persons appeared on the scene.
The fame of Gilles's holiness began to spread, and soon afterward he healed a man bitten by a venomous snake.
After his father and mother died he was pressed to marry by his vassals, who wished him to continue his royal race, but he begged a respite. He was much troubled by the crowd that besieged his doors—crippled, dumb, blind, lame,—who besought him to heal them. He was willing to do so, but dreaded the worldly fame that was beginning to attach itself to his name. He wished to seek a road that would bring him nearer to God, and he determined to go to Rome.
He ordered a great feast in his palace, and at night, when all were sleeping, overcome with the fumes of wine, after praying for a long time he left his chamber softly, and made his escape from the battlements, hidden in a fog. He was never seen there again.