‘At Narbonne have been found “monumental stones” with small caps carved upon them. When a Roman left in his will that certain of his slaves should be liberated, a cap was carved upon their tombs, and so it has become “the cap of liberty,” the symbol of a freedom greater than the freest Roman ever dreamt of.’ (Mona Caird.)
From Narbonne to Béziers the road crosses the flat alluvial ground to the little wine town of Coursan, on the Aude, which has a fifteenth-century bridge. The rest of the way is through a slightly undulating country, with scarcely more than a village on the road.
BÉZIERS
is one of the busiest centres of the great wine industry of the Midi, and has been famous for its wines from Roman times until now. It was the scene of considerable excitement and rioting during
Town Plan No. 19.—Béziers.
the crisis in the trade depression of two or three years ago. The site is a raised plateau, with steep ascents from the River Orb, and during the feudal period it was a place of great strength, first under its own lords, and then under the Viscounts of Carcassonne. In the latter period the town was besieged by Simon de Montfort, and was taken in July, 1209, a large proportion of the inhabitants being massacred, the lowest figures of those who perished being given as 20,000. Although Béziers has a healthy site and a wide, tree-shaded promenade named after Pierre-Paul Riquet, who was born in the town in 1604, and was the creator of the Canal du Midi, between Toulouse and Cette, yet the streets as a whole are narrow, and the atmosphere one breathes in passing through them is generally very unwholesome.
There is a thirteenth-century bridge of seventeen arches, which should be seen, and four churches, of which St. Nazaire, formerly the cathedral, is the most important. It was burnt in the siege of 1209, so that there are only slight remains of the early building. The transepts belong to the thirteenth century, and the choir, apse, and nave to the next. The façade has a fine rose-window, and in the choir the fourteenth-century windows are protected externally by wrought-iron grilles. The cloister, also of the fourteenth century, is a beautiful piece of work.
The other churches are—(1) St. Jacques, with a beautiful twelfth-century apse: (2) La Madelaine, where many of the townsfolk were killed in 1209, is a Romanesque building, altered and restored in the eighteenth century; (3) St. Aphrodise belongs to the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, and has a Romanesque crypt. The font at the west end is an early sarcophagus of marble, with a bas-relief, showing two infuriated beasts in combat.
The Canal du Midi crosses the Orb at Béziers on a big aqueduct, and considering that it was built as long ago as 1668, it should be looked upon with the deepest respect. Arthur Young, who was inclined to run down most of the things he saw in the South of France, grew enthusiastic over the Canal du Midi. ‘The Canal of Languedoc,’ he says, ‘is the capital feature of all this country.... Nine sluice-gates let the water down the hill to join the river at the town—a noble work! The port is broad enough for four large vessels to lie abreast.... This is the best sight I have seen in France.’