The letters which I had expected reached me at Avignon, and the result of their perusal was the information, that my presence was necessary in America. I have not, however, contracted so much of the impertinence of a Frenchman by my tour in France, as to trouble the reader of my Notes with my domestic affairs. Suffice it therefore to say, that some family occurrences, of which I obtained some previous information, required my immediate departure from France, and that in consequence I resolved to embark at Marseilles.
With this resolution, therefore, I left Avignon for Marseilles, a distance of about seventy miles. We divided it therefore into two days; arranging so as to reach St. Canat on the first night, and Marseilles on the second.
The road to Orgon, where we dined, presented us with a great variety of scenery, though the surface was rather level. All the country was covered with olive and mulberry trees, and innumerable fruit-trees grew up wild in the fields, as likewise flowering shrubs in the hedges. The climate of this part of France is so delightful, that every thing here grows spontaneously which is raised only by the most laborious exertions in northern countries. The cottages which we passed on the road were picturesque to a degree: they were usually thatched, and vines or barberry trees, or honey-suckles, entirely enveloped the walls or casements. The peasantry, moreover, though without stockings, appeared happy; the women were singing, and the men, in the intervals of their work, playing with true French frivolity. We saw many women working in the fields: the French women are invariably industrious and active. It may be supposed that this labour and exposure to a southern sun is not very favourable to beauty. Accordingly, we saw few good-looking damsels, but many with good shapes and good eyes. How is it, that the French, so generally gallant, can suffer their women to take the fork and hoe, and work so laboriously in the fields?
Orgon had nothing which merits even mention; I believe, however, it was well known to the ancients, and is mentioned in some of the Latin itineraries. A convent, very picturesquely situated, is now converted into a manufacturing establishment. The town is surrounded by chalk-hills and quarries, from which is dug a free-stone, of the most delicate white. The town, on the whole, had an air of rusticity and recluseness which might have delighted a romantic imagination.
Between Orgon and St. Canat we travelled in a road occasionally bordered by almond trees. The country on each side was rather barren, but being an intermixture of rock and plain and being moreover new to us, it did not appear tedious or uninteresting. We passed several houses of the better sort, some in ruins, others evidently inhabited by a class of people for whom they were not intended. This is one of the effects of the Revolution. Where the proprietor emigrated, or was assassinated, the nearest tenant moved into the mansion-house, and if he distinguished himself by a violent and patriotic jacobinism, his possession, for a mere trifle to the national fund, was converted into a right. In this manner innumerable low ruffians have obtained the estates and houses of their lords; but, faithful to their old habits and early origin, they abuse only what they possess; live in the stables, and convert the castle into a barn, a granary, a brew-house, a manufactory, or sometimes dilapidate it brick by brick, as their convenience may require.
The inn at St. Canat will be long remembered by me, for the unusual circumstance of a most hearty welcome from a good-humoured host, a widower, and his two daughters. The eldest was the most beautiful brunette I have ever seen. She was as coquettish as if educated in Paris, and as easy, as familiar, as inclined to gallantry, as this description of ladies, in France at least, universally are. She had been married during the æra of jacobinism, and had divorced her husband, because they could not agree. "He was so triste, and withal very jealous, which was the more absurd, because he was old."—This young woman was tall, elegant, and with the most fascinating features; her age might be about four and twenty; her teeth were the whitest in the world, and her smile was a paradise of sweets. She had the fault, however, of all the French filles—a most invincible loquacity, and would not move from the chamber till repeatedly admonished to call me early in the morning.
I was awoke in the morning by a sweet-toned lark, which rising in the ethereal vault of Heaven, made his watch-tower, as the poet calls it, ring with his matin song. I know nothing more pleasing to a traveller than to pass a night at one of these provincial inns, provided he gets a good bed and clean blankets. The moon shines through his casement with a soft and clear splendor unparalleled in humid climates; and in the morning he is awoke by the singing of birds, whilst his senses are hailed by the perfume of flowers and by the freshness of a pure æther.
Having resumed our journey, we reached Aix at an early hour on the following day, and passed an hour very pleasantly in walking over the town and neighbourhood.
Aix, the capital of Provence, is very pleasantly situated in a valley, surrounded by hills, which give it an air of recluseness, and romantic retirement, without being so close as to prevent the due circulation of air. It is surrounded by a wall, but which, from long neglect, originating perhaps in its inutility, has become dilapidated, and interests only as an ancient ruin. In the former ages, when France was subdivided into dutchies and minor kingdoms, and when her neighbours were more powerful, such walls were a necessary defence to the town: a change in manners and government has now rendered them useless, and in few centuries they will wholly disappear all over Europe. The interior of the town very well corresponds with the importance of its first aspect. It is well paved, the houses are all fronted with white stone, and the air being clear, it always looks clean and sprightly. Many of them, moreover, have balconies, and some of them are upon a scale, both outside and inside, which is not excelled by Bath in England. Aix is almost the only town next to Tours, in which an English gentleman could fix a comfortable residence. The society is good, and to a stranger of genteel appearance, perfectly accessible either with or without introduction.
The cathedral of Aix is an immense edifice; the architecture is the oldest Gothic, and has all the strength, the substance, and I was going to add, all the tastelessness which characterizes that Order. The front is ornamented with figures of saints, prophets, and angels, grouped together in a manner the most absurd, and executed as if by the hands of a working bricklayer. The grand portal, however is very striking. On the side of the great altar is the magnificent tomb of the Counts of Provence; the figures here, however, are as ridiculous as the style itself is grand. The Gothic architects had better ideas of proportion than of delicacy or beauty; they seldom err on the former point, whilst their execution in the latter is contemptible in the extreme. Our Saviour, and the Virgin Mary, have always enough to do on every tomb in France; they are invariably introduced together, sometimes in a manner and with circumstances, which really shock any one of common piety. Several pictures, and some ancient jewellery, which have survived the Revolution, are still shewn to all strangers: amongst them is a golden rose, which Pope Innocent the Fourth gave to one of the Counts of Provence six hundred years since.