THE SORCERESS OF THE ALPILLES
Music in a dead city!
We stopped abruptly. Out of the deepening stillness there grew slowly, solemnly, the muffled, mournful trembling of an organ issuing from the closed doors of the church on the platform. The sound swelled, ebbed, fell into low troubled mutterings, then swelled again; never was any strain more plaintive, solitary shadowed: all in subdued undertone, but heart-breaking.
Surely a human soul despairing and unable to find expression!
In this wild scene it was unearthly in its intensity of mournfulness. Looking back we saw the figure of a nun crossing the space from the house of the Porcelets to enter the church, and as the doors opened, the sound poured out in fuller volume, but always in that strange, tense undertone.
The city seemed to be steeped in melancholy, as if a grey mist of grief had fallen upon it.
We commenced our homeward journey on foot, making a little circuit to visit the "Pavillon de la Reine Jeanne" in the gorge below, leaving our vehicle to follow.
La Reine Jeanne was the famous and beautiful Queen Joan of Naples, heiress of Provence, whose father on his death-bed counselled her to hand the country over to the Pope, then at Avignon. He in his turn bestowed it on the Count of Anjou, and thus Provence came to belong to that powerful family.
The Queen is said to have often visited Les Baux, and to have held Courts of Love and various revelries in the now weed-grown enclosure where the Pavilion sadly stands in the corner of what was once a garden; a fine, highly-bred little piece of architecture well fitted for its purpose.
On our way to rejoin our trap we were overtaken by two wayfarers: a young man and woman somewhat poorly clad and carrying bundles. They were looking about them intelligently as if interested in the scene.