The Cathedrals of Southern France

by M. F. Mansfield

To the south came first the Visigoths, then the conflicting and repelling Ostrogoths; between them soon to supplant the Gallo-Roman cultivation which had here grown so vigorously.

It was as late as the sixth century when the Ostrogoths held the brilliant sunlit city of Arles; when follows a history—applicable as well to most of all southern France—of many dreary centuries of discordant races, of varying religious faiths, and adherence now to one lord and master, and then to another.

Monuments of various eras remain; so numerously that one can rebuild for themselves much that has disappeared for ever: palaces as at Avignon, castles as at Tarascon and Beaucaire, and walled cities as at Aigues-Morte. What limitless suggestion is in the thought of the assembled throngs who peopled the tiers of the arenas and theatres of Arles and Nîmes in days gone by. The sensation is mostly to be derived, however, from thought and conjecture. The painful and nullifying "spectacles" and "courses des taureaux," which periodically hold forth to-day in these noble arenas, are mere travesties on their splendid functions of the past. Much more satisfying—and withal more artistic—are the theatrical representations in that magnificent outdoor theatre at Orange; where so recently as the autumn of 1903 was given a grand representation of dramatic art, with Madame Bernhardt, Coquelin, and others of the galaxy which grace the French stage to-day, taking part therein.

Provençal literature is a vast and varied subject, and the women of Arles—the true Arlesians of the poet and romancer—are astonishingly beautiful. Each of these subjects—to do them justice—would require much ink and paper. Daudet, in "Tartarin," has these opening words, as if no others were necessary in order to lead the way into a new world: "It was September and it was Provence." Frederic Mistral, in "Mirèio," has written the great modern epic of Provence, which depicts the life as well as the literature of the ancient troubadours. The "Fountain of Vaucluse" will carry one back still further in the ancient Provençal atmosphere; to the days of Petrarch and Laura, and the "little fish of Sorgues."

What the Romance language really was, authorities—if they be authorities—differ. Hence it were perhaps well that no attempt should be made here to define what others have failed to place, beyond this observation, which is gathered from a source now lost to recollection, but dating from a century ago at least:

"The southern or Romance language, the tongue of all the people who obeyed Charlemagne in the south of Europe, proceeded from the parent-vitiated Latin.

"The Provençaux assert, and the Spaniards deny, that the Spanish tongue is derived from the original Romance, though neither the Italians nor the French are willing to owe much to it as a parent, in spite of the fact that Petrarch eulogized it, and the troubadours as well.

"The Toulousans roundly assert that the Provençal is the root of all other dialects whatever (vide Cazeneuve). Most Spanish writers on the other hand insist that the Provençal is derived from the Spanish (vide Coleccion de Poesias Castellanas; Madrid, 1779)."

At all events the idiom, from whatever it may have sprung, took root, propagated and flourished in the land of the Provençal troubadours.

Whatever may have been the real extent of the influences which went out from Provence, it is certain that the marriage of Robert with Constance—daughter of the first Count of Provence, about the year 1000—was the period of a great change in manners and customs throughout the kingdom. Some even have asserted that this princess brought in her train the troubadours who spread the taste for poetry and its accompaniments throughout the north of France.