Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

The remains of this great aqueduct of other days prove conclusively the great regard and hope which the Romans must have had for the Forum Julii of Julius Cæsar, for all, without question, attribute the foundation of Fréjus to the conqueror of the Gauls.

The evolution of the name of Fréjus is readily enough followed, though the present name, coming down through Forojuliens and Frejules, is a sad corruption. Of this evolution the authorities are not very certain, and call it “une tradition et non un fait historiquement prouvé.” It is satisfying enough to most, however, so let it stand; and anyway we have the words of Tacitus, who said that his brother-in-law, Agricola, was born at “the ancient and illustrious colony of Forojuliens.”

Fréjus is prolific in quaint customs and legends too numerous to mention, though two, at least, stand out so plainly in the memory of the writer that they are here recounted.

On a certain occasion in August,—not the usual season for tourists, but genuine travel-lovers, having no season, go anywhere at any time,—as the town was entered by the highroad, our automobile was abruptly stopped at the barrière by a motley crew clad in all manner of military costumes, like the armies of the South American republics. Firearms, too, were there, and when a grenadier of the time of Louis-Philippe let off a smoky charge of gunpowder under our very noses, it was a signal for a general feu-de-joie which might have rivalled a Fourth of July celebration in the United States, for the disaster which it bid fair to bring in its wake. As a matter of fact, nothing happened, and we were allowed to proceed in peace, though the sleep-destroying cannonade was kept up throughout the night.

The occasion was nothing but the annual celebration of “Les Bravadeurs,” a survival of the days of Louis XIV., when the town, being left without a garrison, raised a motley army of its own to serve in place of the troops of the king.

There is a legend, too, concerning the landing of St. François de Paule here, which the native is fond of telling the stranger, but which needs something more than the proverbial grain of salt to go with it, because St. François is claimed to have first put foot on shore at various other points along the coast.

The story is to the effect that the ship which bore the holy man from the East having foundered, or not having been sufficiently sea-worthy to continue the voyage, St. François stepped overboard and walked ashore on the waves. He did not walk on the waves themselves in this case, but laid his mantle upon them and walked on that. What he did when he came to the edge of his mantle tradition does not state.

The ecclesiastical and political history of Fréjus is most interesting, though it cannot be epitomized here. Two significant Napoleonic events of the early nineteenth century stand out so strongly, however, that they perforce must be mentioned.

In 1809 Pope Pius VII. stopped at Fréjus when he was making his way to Fontainebleau, more or less unwillingly, as history tells. Five years later the Holy Father again stopped at Fréjus on his return to Italy, and Napoleon himself, on the 27th of the following April, awaiting the moment of his departure for Elba, occupied the very apartment that had received the pontiff.

Of the architectural and historical monuments of Fréjus one must at least take cognizance of the Baptistery, one of the few of its class out of Italy and dating from some period previous to the tenth century. Architecturally it is not a great structure, neither is it such in size; but its very existence here, well over into Gaul, marks a distinct era in the Christianizing and church-building efforts of those early times. The cathedral at Fréjus is by no means of equal archæological importance to this tiny Baptistery, though the bishopric itself was founded as early as the fourth century, and at least one of its early bishops became a Pope (Jean XXII., 1316-34).