‘Thibaut is a strong, muscular man, who worked as a docker, and could carry 140 kilos of wool on his shoulders from six o’clock to twelve o’clock without taking rest. He was an inveterate drunkard, and had on one occasion swallowed thirty-five glasses of absinthe, raw, in a day. For thirty years he had never set foot in a church, and his wife had died from the effects of his ill-treatment. Once, in a fit of drunkenness, he threw all that was left of furniture in their miserable home into the street, including the stove, which was alight, and on which their bit of dinner was cooking. He dragged his wife when ill from her bed by her hair, and threw her into the street. The day of her death he was found drunk in a public-house, and he followed the remains to the grave reeling. He lived in the famous “Grand Salon,” in a miserable hut of planks, the most filthy hovel imaginable. Thibaut was not over-scrupulous as to how he got the drink, without which he could not exist. There are many ways in which a docker can steal from the cargoes he discharges without being found out. For instance, there is a way of letting fall a case of wine or cognac, so as to break one bottle, the contents of which then can be quickly absorbed. Like most French workmen, he wore trousers very baggy at the top, and tied round the ankles. Such trousers can be made to hold about four pounds of tea or coffee, or such like, and many a time Thibaut has walked past the searchers at the dock-gates with his stock of groceries, and has never been detected.’
He was nearly falling a victim to his drunken habits more than once. They are now rejoicing over him at Marseilles, for he that was dead is now alive again. The lost one is found.
If the traveller has time to spare, let him by all means pay Arles a visit, where there is a fine Roman amphitheatre, or rather the remains of one. Very early Arles became distinguished in Church history—I was going to say Christian history; but, alas, at that time the bitter disputes and dissensions in the Church bore little traces of the teachings or the example of Christ. In a.d. 314, when, as Gibbon writes, Constantine was the protector, rather than the proselyte of Christianity, he referred the African controversy to the Council of Arles, in which the Bishops of York, of Treves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and brethren to debate, in their native tongue, on the common interests of the Latin or Western Church. One ancient writer says there were 600 bishops there, but this is probably an exaggerated account of their number. The subject, of course, was the nature of the Trinity, the discussions on which, inflamed with passion, had filled the Churches with fury, and sedition, and schism—a fury which excites the wonder of the modern less heated Christian Church.
It was at Arles, at a later period, Constantine repaired to celebrate in its palace, with intemperate luxury, a vain and ostentatious triumph—his military success against the Goths. It was at Arles, the seat at that time of government and commerce, a.d. 418, that the Emperor Honorius, in a solemn address, filled with the strongest assurances of that paternal affection which, as Gibbon writes, sovereigns so often express but rarely feel, convened an annual assembly consisting of the Pretorian Prefect of the Gauls; of seven provincial governors, one consular and six presidents; of the magistrates, and perhaps the bishops, of sixty cities; and of an indefinite number of leading landed proprietors. They were empowered to interpret the laws of their sovereign, to expose the wishes and grievances of their constituents, to moderate the excessive or unequal weight of taxes, and to deliberate on every subject of local and national importance that would tend to the restoration of peace and prosperity to the seven provinces. It was a step in the right direction. It was a step that might have tended, if universally followed, at any rate, to retard the decay and decline of the Roman Empire. But the Emperor found that the people were not ready to accept the proffered boon. A fine of three, or even five, ounces of gold was imposed on the absent representatives. Honorius was in advance of his age—in politics as great a blunder as being behind it. It was not till centuries of oppression and misgovernment that the rights of man were practically won for France, and that Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity became the watchwords of the people.
Arles was very early peopled by a colony from Central Italy, and very remarkable is the physique of its inhabitants. The late Lord Malmesbury, Lord Derby’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, writes: ‘The women are remarkably handsome, but entirely of the Etruscan type, with magnificent dark hair and eyes, good teeth, and fair complexions. They have beautiful round throats, set on fine shoulders and busts, but their legs are much too short for their general build.’ I am, of course, not a judge of such matters, and I prefer to copy from Lord Malmesbury, who, as a Foreign Minister and a frequent guest both at the Courts of England and France, and a high-born aristocrat as well, had opportunities for the pleasing study of woman far superior to any possessed by an ordinary scribe. He had a good opportunity of seeing the population, as it was a fête day when he favoured the city with his presence. He continues: ‘There were games in the square, such as climbing a greased pole for a leg of mutton placed at the top, which no one succeeded in winning. The women were all in costume, with black veils, worn like the mantilla. I noticed that the men were remarkably plain, sallow, under-sized and narrow-chested—in every way a remarkable contrast to the women.’ As indeed they are, or ought to be, all the world over.
In the neighbourhood is a hermit’s cell, very curiously contrived in the rock, where there was a secret way of escaping to the deeper recesses and hiding in case of danger. There was the stone bed of the hermit who is said to have been the first to introduce Christianity into the province. His name is held in high esteem and a church is dedicated to his memory. It was upon the plains adjoining that Charles Martel gained his final victory over the Saracens. The Roman amphitheatre in Arles is in a fine state of preservation, with towers added in the Middle Ages.
Soldiers have a mission hall to themselves in Marseilles, which is full of them, and to the hall many come for peace and light. The aggregate attendance is set down at nearly 6,000. The hall offers them a warm, comfortable room, well lighted, with books, games, newspapers, and other conveniences. A lady gives them elementary lessons in French, arithmetic, reading, and writing. When the soldiers sailed to Madagascar they took with them, in spite of the priests, 3,000 copies of the New Testament. The labours of the agents of the McAll Mission are numerous and persevering. Last year they held about 500 meetings for adults. They have five schools for children, besides two sewing schools for girls. There are three mothers’ meetings, with a fair attendance, and a mission choir does good work.
Of more recent formation, and perhaps less well known, is the Society of Christian Endeavour. It has given proof of its existence in various ways. It was the Endeavourers who organized four series of lectures, of three each, which were given in the halls of the Grand Chemin de Toulon and the Boulevard de Strasbourg. Friends were much encouraged to see each time a large and attentive audience; the lectures had been announced by means of handbills distributed in profusion throughout the district. The society takes charge also of the visitation of the sick, and the distribution of tracts in the suburbs, at the gates of the factories and workshops, etc. Some of the sisters have taken to heart the work among fallen women, and in one case, at least, they have been able to snatch one of these poor creatures from her life of sin, and place her in a neighbouring refuge. And so good work gets done, quietly and unobtrusively.
There were put in circulation last year through the Librairie Evangélique 12,000 almanacks, 4,500 Bibles and Testaments, 1,000 tracts, 1,000 books of various kinds, and 600 copies of the Relévement. Open Bibles and Testaments are constantly displayed also in the large shop-window, where the passers-by can stop and read at their leisure—a thing which a goodly number of them do not fail to do. Nor are the Italians, of whom there are many in the town, overlooked. But I pass on
‘To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign,
I turn, and France displays her bright domain;
Gay, sprightly land of mirth and social ease,
Pleased with thyself whom all the world can please.’