Alexandre Dumas has written of Arles: "Roman monuments form the soil; and about them, at their feet, in their shadow, in their crevasses, a second Gothic city has sprung—one knows not how—by the vegetative force of the religious civilisation of Saint Louis. Arles is the Mecca of archæologists.” It is also the Mecca of those who love to study people and customs, for, in spite of the railroad, and the consequent influx of “foreign French,” it has preserved the old græco-roman-saracenic type which has made its beautiful women so justly famous, and, underneath its Provençal gaieties, their classic origins may easily be traced. One should see the Roman Theatre, the solitary Aliscamps, by moonlight, the busy market in the early day, the Cathedral at a Mass, and a fête at any time,—for
“When the fête-days come, farewell the swath and labour,
And welcome revels underneath the trees,
And orgies in the vaulted hostelries,
Bull-baitings, never-ending dances, and sweet pleasures.”
Entrevaux.
The most celebrated fortified town in France is the Cité of Carcassonne, yet, even in the days of its practical strength, it was scarcely a type. It was rather a marvel, a wonder,—the “fairest Maid of Languedoc,” “the Invincible.” And now the citadel is almost deserted. The inhabitants are so few that weeds grow in their streets, and one who walks there in the still mid-day feels that all this completion of architecture, these walls, perfect in every stone, may be an enchanted vision, a mirage; he more than half believes that the cool of the sunset will dispel the illusion, and he will find himself on a pleasant little hill of Languedoc, looking down upon the commonplace “Lower City” of Carcassonne.
At Entrevaux there is no suggestion of illusion. This is not a show-place that once was real; it is one of a hundred little agglomerations of the French Middle Ages. They had no great name to uphold; no riches to expend in impregnable walls and towers. They clung fearfully together for self-preservation, built ramparts that were as strong as might be, and dared not laugh at the “fortunes of war.” Except that there is safety outside the walls, and a tiny post and telegraph office within, they are now as they were in those dangerous days. The fortress of Carcassonne is dead; but in the back country of Provence, Entrevaux is living, and scarcely a jot or tittle of its Mediævalism is lost. Among high rocks that close around it on every side, where, according to the season, the Chalvagne trickles or plunges into the river Var, and dominated by a fort that perches on a sharp peak, is the strangest of old Provençal towns.
“THE GOTHIC WALK, CLOISTER.”—ARLES. [To List]
The founding of the tiny episcopal city was after this wise. Toward the close of the XIV century, in a time of plagues, Jewish persecutions, the growth of heresies, and the uncurbed ravages of free-booters, the city of Glandèves, seat of an ancient Bishopric, was destroyed. The living remnant abandoned its desolate ruins. Searching for a stronger, safer home, they chose a site on the left bank of the Var, and commenced the building of Entrevaux. The Bishop accompanied his flock, and although he retained the old title of Glandèves, in memory of the antiquity of the See and its lost city, the Cathedral-church was established at Entrevaux.
