Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

MUCH sentimental and historic interest centres around the world-famed ancient capital of Aix-en-Provence.

To-day its position, if subordinate to that of Marseilles in commercial matters, is still omnipotent, so far as concerns the affairs of society and state. To-day it is the chef-lieu of the Arrondissement of the same name in the Département des Bouches du Rhône; the seat of an archbishopric; of the Cour d’Appel; and of the Académie, with its faculties of law and letters.

Aix-en-Provence, Aix-la-Chapelle, and Aix-les-Bains are all confused in the minds of the readers of the Anglo-Parisian newspapers. There is little reason for this, but it is so. Aix-la-Chapelle is the shrine of Charlemagne; Aix-les-Bains, of the god of baccarat—and in a later day bridge and automobile-boat races; but Aix-en-Provence is still prominent as the brilliant capital of the beauty-loving court of the middle ages. The remains of this past existence are still numerous, and assuredly they appeal most profoundly to all who have ever once come within their spell, from that wonderfully ornate portal of the Église de St. Sauveur to King René’s “Book of Hours” in the Bibliothèque Méjanes.

Three times has Aix changed its location. The ancient ville gauloise, whose name appears to be lost in the darkness of the ages, was some three kilometres to the north, and the ville romaine of Aquæ-Sextiæ was some distance to the westward of the present city of Aix-en-Provence.

The part played in history by Aix-en-Provence was great and important, not only as regards its own career, but because of the aid which it gave to other cities of Provence. For the assistance which she gave Marseilles, when that city was besieged by the Spanish, Aix was given the right to bear upon her blazoned shield the arms of the Counts of Anjou (the quarterings of Anjou, Sicily, and Jerusalem). This accounts for the complex and familiar emblems seen to-day on the city arms.

René d’Anjou was much revered in Aix, in which town he made his residence. It was but natural that the city should in a later day honour him with a statue bearing the inscription, “Au bon roi René, dont la mémoire sera toujours chère aux Provençaux.”

There were times when sadness befell Aix, but on the whole its career was one of gladsome pleasure. To René, poet of imagination as well as king, was due the founding of the celebrated Fête-Dieu. In one form or another it was intermittently continued up to the middle of the nineteenth century. Originally it was a curious bizarre affair, with angels, apostles, disciples, and the whole list of Biblical characters personated by the citizens. The “Fête de la Reine de Saba,” the “Danse des Olivettes,” and the “Danse des Épées” were other processional fêtes which contributed not a little to the gay life here in the middle ages and account for the survival to-day of many local customs.

Nostradamus, the prophet of Salon, gives the following flattering picture of “Le Prince d’Amour,” the title given to the head of the mediæval Courts of Love which nowhere flourished so gorgeously as here:

“He marched always at the head of the parade, alone and richly clad. Behind were his lieutenants, his nobles, his standard-bearers, and a great escort of horsemen, all costumed at his expense.”

It was Louis XIV. who decided to suppress the function, and a royal declaration to that effect was made on the 16th June, 1668.