Perhaps there is not, on any part of the Continent, a city or town which has been so frequently sacked by foreign invaders, nor so deeply stained with human blood, by civil and religious wars, as this: every street and ancient building within its walls still exhibit many strong marks of the excesses committed by the hands of domestic as well as foreign barbarians, except only the Temple now called, and so called from its form, the Maison Carree, which has stood near eighteen hundred years, without receiving any other injuries than the injuries of time; and time has given it rather the face of age, than that of ruins, for it still stands firm and upright; and though not quite perfect in every part, yet it preserves all its due proportions, and enough of its original and lesser beauties, to astonish and delight every beholder, and that too in a very particular manner. It is said, and I have felt the truth of it in part, that there does not exist, at this day, any building, ancient or modern, which conveys so secret a pleasure, not only to the connoisseur, but to the clown also, whenever, or how often soever they approach it. The proportions and beauties of the whole building are so intimately united, that they may be compared to good breeding in men; it is what every body perceives, and is captivated with, but what few can define. That it has an irresistible beauty which delights men of sense, and which charms the eyes of the vulgar, I think must be admitted; for no other possible reason can be assigned why this building alone, standing in the very centre of a city, wherein every excess which religious fury could inspire, or barbarous manners could suggest, has stood so many ages the only uninsulted monument of antiquity, either within or without the walls; especially, as a very few men might, with very little labour, soon tumble it into a heap of rubbish.
The Amphitheatre has a thousand marks of violences committed upon it, by fire, sledges, battering rams, &c. which its great solidity and strength alone resisted.
The Temple of Diana is so nearly destroyed, that, in an age or two more no vestige of it will remain; but the Maison Carree is still so perfect and beautiful, that when Cardinal Alberoni first saw it, he said it wanted only une boete d'or pour le defendre des injures de l'air; and it certainly has received no other, than such as rain, and wind, and heat, and cold, have made upon it; and those are rather marks of dignity, than deformity. What reason else, then, can be assigned for its preservation to this day; but that the savage and the saint have been equally awed by its superlative beauty.
Having said thus much of the perfections of this edifice, I must however confess, it is not, nor ever was, perfect, for it has some original blemishes, but such as escape the observation of most men, who have not time to examine the parts separately, and with a critical eye. There are, for example, thirty modillions on the cornice, on one side and thirty-two on the other; there are sixty-two on the west side, and only fifty-four on the east; with some other little faults which its aged beauty justifies my omitting; for they are such perhaps as, if removed, would not add any thing to the general proportions of the whole. No-body objected to the moles on Lady Coventry's face; those specks were too trifling, where the tout ensemble was so perfect.
Cardinal Richlieu, I am assured, had several consultations with builders of eminence, and architects of genius, to consider whether it was practicable to remove all the parts of this edifice, and re-erect it at Versailles: and, I have no doubt, but Lewis the 14th might have raised this monument to his fame there, for half the money he expended in murdering and driving out of that province sixty thousand of his faithful and ingenious subjects, merely on the score of Religion; an act, which is now equally abhorred by Catholics, as well as Protestants. But, Lord Chesterfield justly observes, that there is no brute so fierce, no criminal so guilty, as the creature called a Sovereign, whether King, Sultan, or Sophy; who thinks himself, either by divine or human right, vested with absolute power of destroying his fellow-creatures.
Louis the XIth of France caused the Duke of Nemours, a descendant of King Clovis, to be executed at Paris, and placed his children under the scaffold, that the blood of their father might run upon their heads; in which bloody condition they were returned to the Bastile, and there shut up in iron cages: and a King of Siam, having lost his daughter, and fancying she was poisoned, put most of his court, young and old, to death, by the most exquisite torture; by this horrid act of cruelty, near two thousand of the principal courtiers suffered the most dreadful deaths; the great Mandarins, their wives, and children, being all scorched with fire, and mangled with knives, before they were admitted to his last favour,—that of being thrown to the elephants.
But to have done with sad subjects.—It was not till the year 1758 that it was certainly known at what time, or for what purpose, the Maison Carree was erected; but fortunately, the same town which produced the building so many ages ago, produced in the latter end of the last, a Gentleman, of whom it may be justly said, he left no stone unturned to come at the truth. This is Mons. Seguier, whose long life has been employed in collecting a cabinet of Roman antiquities, and natural curiosities, and whose penetrating genius alone could have discovered, by the means he did, an inscription, of which not a single letter has been seen for many ages; but this habile observateur, perceiving a great number of irregular holes upon the frontal and frize of this edifice, concluded that they were the cramp-holes which had formerly held an inscription, and which, according to the practice of the Romans, were often composed of single letters of bronze. Mons. Seguier therefore erected scaffolding, and took off on paper the distances and situation of the several holes, and after nicely examining the disposition of them, and being assisted by a few faint traces of some of the letters, which had been impressed on the stones, brought forth, to the full satisfaction of every body, the original inscription, which was laid before l'Academie des Inscriptions & de Belles Lettres de Paris of which he is a member, and from whom he received their public thanks; having unanimously agreed that there was not a doubt remained but that he had produced the true reading: which is as follows:
TAUROBOLIO MATRIS DEUM MAGNÆ IDÆÆ
QUOD FACTUM EST EX IMPERIO
MATRIS IDÆÆ DEUM
PRO SALUTE IMPERATORIS CÆSARIS
TITI ÆLII
ADRIANI ANTONINI AUGUSTI PII PATRIS PATRIÆ
LIBERORUMQUE EJUS
ET STATUS COLONIÆ LUGDUNENSIS
LUCIUS ÆMILIUS CARPUS SEXTUMVIS
AUGUSTALIS ITEM DENDROPHORUS
VIRES EXCEPIT ET A VATICANO
TRANSTULIT ARAMET BUCRANIUM
SUO IMPENDIO CONSECRAVIT
SACERDOTE
QUINTO SAMMIO SECUNDO AB QUINDECEMVIRIS
OCCABO ET CORONA EXORNATO
CUI SANCTISSIMUS ORDO LUGDUNENSIS
PERPETUITATEM SACERDOTIS DECREVIT
APPIO ANNIA ATILIO BRADUA TITO
CLODIO VIBIO VARO CONSULIBUS
LOCUS DATUS DECRETO DECURIONUM.
The Maison Carree is not however, quite square, being something more in length than breadth; it is eighty-two feet long and thirty-seven and a half high, exclusive of the square socle on which it stands, and which is, at this time, six feet above the surface; it is divided into two parts, one enclosed, the other open; the facade is adorned with six fluted pillars of the Corinthian order, and the cornice and front are decorated with all the beauties of architecture. The frize is quite plain, and without any of those bas-reliefs or ornaments which are on the sides, where the foliage of the olive leaf is exquisitely finished. On each side over the door, which opens into the enclosed part, two large stones, like the but-ends of joists, project about three feet, and these stones are pierced through with two large mortices, six inches long, and three wide; they are a striking blemish, and must therefore have been fixed, for some very necessary purpose—for what, I will not risque my opinion; it is enough to have mentioned them to you. As to the inside, little need be said; but, that, being now consecrated to the service of GOD, and the use of the order of Augustines, it is filled up with altars, ex votos, statues, &c. but such as we may reasonably conclude, have not, exclusive of a religious consideration, all those beauties which were once placed within a Temple, the outward structure of which was so highly finished.
Truth and concern compel me to conclude this account of the Maison Carree, in lamenting, that the inhabitants of Nismes (who are in general a very respectable body of people) suffer this noble edifice to be defiled by every species of filth that poverty and neglect can occasion. The approach to it is through an old ragged kind of barn door: it is surrounded with mean houses, and disgraced on every side with filth, and the offerings of the nearest inhabitants. I know not any part of London but what would be a better situation for it, than where it now stands: I will not except even Rag-fair, nor Hockly in the Hole.