Romantic Cities of Provence

by Mona Caird

If happiness is a will-o'-the-wisp, is it so because of the eternal nature of things, or because, as Carlyle frankly insists, men are mostly fools? Would not every desired object assume an elusive character if as soon as we came in touch with it, we flew off on the hunt for something else? On this principle we must go through life unpossessed of our own fortunes, strangers and pilgrims in our own kingdom. Barbara and I agreed that we would not forget to gather the roses in our Provençal garden for the illusive sake of other roses further afield.

In this little mediæval pleasure city it seemed natural to speculate about the life of the Middle Ages, and we wondered if part of the sad secret of those times lay in that inveterate habit of the human mind to look for the Earthly Paradise round the next corner. For then, possibly, there was only a sage here and there who had learnt the folly of it through long and footsore wanderings in the desert which stretches unremittingly between the traveller and his mirage Eden. The restless barbarous manners of the age must have made the truth harder to understand than it need be to us who have many centuries of growing experience behind us, both as a hereditary influence and as an object-lesson in the conduct of life.

Incessant war and struggle, with no great results, but only further struggle, further war as the fruit of the lifelong contest: such was the mediæval life, and no one saw its absurdity. Not a trace of the old Greek spirit remained; not a vestige of the philosophies of the East, except perhaps in the cloister, and even here, at its best, the religion partook of the objective character of the general life, and placed the site of "heaven" for the saint, as the sinner placed his happiness,—round the next corner.

In those mad, picturesque, mediæval days St. Remy used to be the country retreat of the Counts of Provence. They here retired from the excitements of their capital at Aix, the learned little city a few leagues to the northeast, beyond the Alpilles. We afterwards visited Aix, and found another larger town of plane-avenues, more dignified, more important, but almost as silent and forgotten as St. Remy itself. One could not but wonder what the Counts had found of country joys at St. Remy that they could not have commanded at the old city of Sextius with its shady ways and gardens.

ROMAN MONUMENTS, ST. REMY.
By E. M. Synge.

But, in fact, the human mind seeks not merely a change from excitement to repose; it demands a change of scene and a change of thought-atmosphere for its own sake.

During the whole of our stay at St. Remy we lived in an atmosphere of roses. We could not gather enough of them to please our host; and we used to have great bunches in our rooms placed on the window-sill, so that the sunlight filtered through their petals; and over them we could see the garden of their birth and the pale mountains beyond. Our very dreams were of roses and rose-gardens!

One evening, inspired by their loveliness, I arranged a wreath of them in Barbara's hair, added a creamy shawl flowing to her feet, and stood back to admire the result. It was something to be proud of! Our dull, discreet régime of ladylike nonentities had disappeared, and there was the poetry, the unapologetic grace of the classic world.