Excepting only Rome and its immediate neighbourhood, no part of Italy can exhibit so many remains of Roman antiquity as are to be found within a short distance of Avignon. The Romans seem to have united Provence to Italy, as the French have since united Piedmont to France. Our English travellers, who, according to the plan mentioned in the first chapter, pass one summer in going to Italy and another in returning from it, will do well to make Avignon their head quarters for some time, and visit the curiosities around. There is Nismes with the Pont du Gard, Arles, St. Remy, Orange, already mentioned, and other places. There is also the far-famed fountain of Vaucluse. A commission of antiquarian research is established within the department; at Nismes also much attention is paid to these objects, and with good reason; for no town in Europe, Rome excepted, possesses such precious remains.
In the beginning of the month of September of my second year, I hired a coach with three horses again, (for no god of them all is so fond of an uneven number as these coach-masters,) and, with part of my family, took the road to Vaucluse. It passes first over a fertile alluvial plain, formed, in remote ages, by the Rhone and Durance when they overflowed their banks, as the Oby and Tobol do now. Then we traversed a country of corn, wine, and oil, and descended to Lisle, a little town on the Sorgues, the river of Vaucluse, from whose fountain it is distant about four miles. For three of these four miles as far as the village, we were able to proceed in our carriage; but, from this point, the Naiad requires to be reverentially approached on foot. We ascended a gentle steep, the Sorgues on our right-hand,—a stream, which, even here, so near its head, has force to turn several mills that harmonise well with the landscape. Above the mills it began to assume more and more a torrent-like appearance; the rocks approached nearer on each side, and confined us within a still closer valley. Whither has the nymph of the stream retired? At length the termination of the valley appeared before us; a lofty curtain of rock, at half the height of which was seen a wide and dusky arch, overshadowed by a fig-tree growing out of the precipice above. Over a shelving rock, at the foot of this arch, the water throws itself.
But there was at this time no cascade; the fountain was more than ordinarily low; streams gushed through fissures at the foot and sides of the rock below the arch, and indicated their source. The shelf or lip, at the mouth of the cavern, forms a natural bridge over these streams: we ascended to this shelf, and went down into the cavern a considerable depth before we arrived at the water: here, a rock projecting into the water prevented us from going into a second cavern; but we could see, (for the opening above afforded sufficient light,) that this second cavern was the last.
I thought it very fortunate that the fountain was so low: had it been full, we should have seen a water-fall; but I had now seen the Helicon of Petrarch,—had penetrated to the source of his inspiration,
———atque sacri libamina palleo fontis,
as was written by a young man of genius at Oxford, in my time, whose name I do not remember, though I have not forgotten this striking and beautiful expression. In sober sadness, I think it an advantage to understand the nature and situation of the fountain better than I should have done had I seen only a picturesque cascade. I do not believe the immediate source of the fountain to be within the cavern, but that its waters are supplied in subterranean courses by the surrounding country: this is proved, I think, by their quantity being so much affected by rain or drought. St. Winifred's well at Holywell, in Flintshire,—a fountain as copious as that of the Sorgues,—is not at all increased or diminished by any change of the seasons.
We loitered for two hours on the bank of the tumbling torrent, sat under the shade of walnut trees, and eat of their fallen fruit; drank water from the fountain, talked about Petrarch and Laura, and refused, from incredulity, and on account of the heat of the sun, to mount a hill to a house which, we were assured, had been inhabited by the bard. At the village of Vaucluse, we took into our carriage some delicious grapes, and returned to Lisle, where we dined on eels and trout, the boasted fare of the place, prepared in three several ways. As the landlord at Lisle is said sometimes to over-charge, I will do his reputation the justice to observe that, for a déjeuné à la fourchette, and dinner for five persons, with good vin du pays, he demanded twenty-five francs,—perhaps ten sous a head too much. We got into our coach as the sun set and the moon rose, and our three horses took us back to Avignon in two hours.
In the very heart and centre of the romantic scenery of the Vallis Clausa, a little to the right of the cavern out of which issues the fountain, on the ledge over which it falls, is stuck a mean ugly pillar, put there by somebody to commemorate something. I mention this pillar only in the hope that good taste will command its demolition. Even if it were fine and rare, it would be there misplaced: "fortasse cupressum scis simulare," but what has that to do with a shipwreck?
My younger son had accompanied to Vaucluse the lady whose visit of fifteen days had so much astonished the Avignonais a few months before. Our excursion thither was made under the conduct of my elder son, and was rendered more agreeable by his frank manners and cheerful attentions. As the fate of this young man, now in his nineteenth year, is the occurrence the most important to me, and, I am persuaded, the subject most interesting to my readers in the contents of this narrative,—I will give some account of the infancy of this son, that he may be introduced to their acquaintance, and the last scene of his life in some sort prepared for. Alas! within two years, on the anniversary of our journey to Vaucluse, the delirium of his fever deprived me for the remainder of my life of the comfort of his society, excepting only one short and consoling conversation immediately before his death. I trust, in the divine mercy, to rejoin him in the abodes of the just.
His birth was announced to me at three o'clock in the morning of the 5th of May 1801. In anxious expectation of this news I had forborn to retire to rest. It was still necessary for me to wait some little time before I could be admitted to see my first-born. I then lived at Bath, in the west wing of Lansdown Crescent: behind each house of this building is a long strip of garden, of the breadth of the house. In the tumult of new affections I went out into my garden: the twilight of the morning was visible: I offered to God this child, who, by the ancient law, would have been consecrated to him, to serve at the altar, if such were the divine will; praying that, in whatever state, he might so live as to secure his own salvation, and contribute to the edification of others: that if he were not to fulfil this only worthy purpose of existence, he might now die in infancy; but that rather his days might be prolonged, if that were to the glory of God, and the increase of his own merit and reward. My prayer was heard: I returned into the house, and gave a father's blessing to the stranger.