In Troubadour-Land: A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc

by S. Baring-Gould

Aucassin was the son of the Count of Beaucaire. He was fair of face, with light curled hair and grey eyes. Now there was a viscount in the town who had bought of the Saracens a little maid, and he taught her the Christian faith, and had her baptised and called Nicolette.

Then said the Count of Beaucaire to his son Aucassin that he should go to battle and win his spurs and be dubbed a knight. Aucassin replied that he had no wish to be a knight, unless his father would give him Nicolette "ma douce mie" to wife. The count is indignant. He says that his son must marry the daughter of a king or of a count; but Aucassin replies that were an empress offered him he would refuse her for Nicolette. Thereat the count goes to the viscount and bids him give up the little maid that he may burn her as a witch. The viscount hesitates, and promises he will put her out of reach of Aucassin. Thereupon he shuts her up in a tower, along with her nurse, where there is but a single window. And the count promises his son that he shall have his "douce mie" if he will go to fight against the mortal enemy of their house, the Count of Vallence. Aucassin believes his father; goes and captures the count. Then the father refuses to fulfil his promise. Aucassin in a rage releases the Count of Vallence, and the Count of Beaucaire imprisons his son in a tower of the castle.

One moonlight night, when her nurse is asleep, Nicolette ties the bedclothes together and lets herself down out of the window, escapes from the town, and goes under the castle, where she hears Aucassin lamenting in his prison. She speaks to him and he replies.

But (as it is ascertained that she has escaped) the guard are sent forth in search of her, with orders to run her through the body if found. However, the chief officer of the guard is a merciful man, and so, as he goes about, he sings a song to warn her, and she hides in the shadow of the tower till the watch is gone by and then flies away into the forest land. There she builds herself a hut. When no tidings of Nicolette are heard, the Count of Beaucaire lets his son forth from prison. One day, as Aucassin rides in the forest, he lights on the cabin of his dear Nicolette, and they resolve to fly together. So they take a boat on the Rhone and they are washed down towards the sea, captured by Saracen pirates and separated. Aucassin is ransomed and returns home. Nicolette stains her face, makes her escape, obtains a vielle, and travels about Provence, singing ballads. She comes to Beaucaire, where Aucassin is now count, his father having died, and sings to her hurdy-gurdy the song of her adventures. The tears run down his cheeks, and he promises her rich gifts if she will tell him more. Then she goes to the viscountess—the viscount is dead—washes off the walnut juice, dresses in best array, is seen and recognised by Aucassin, they are married with great pomp, and are happy ever after. A dear little innocent story, fresh and sweet with the springtime bloom of early literature, withal full of curious pictures of the feelings of the time relative to chivalry, monachism, and religion.

[Illustration: Beaucaire Castle from Tarascon.—Sunset.]

CHAPTER XV.

NIMES.

The right spelling of Nimes—Derivation of name—The fountain—Throwing coins into springs—Collecting coins—Symbol of Agrippa—Character of Agrippa—What he did for Nimes—The Maison Carrée—Different idea of worship in the Heathen world from what prevails in Christendom—S. Baudille—Vespers—Activity of the Church in France—Behaviour of the Clergy in Italy to the King and Queen—The Revolution a blessing to the Church in France—Church services in Italy and in France—The Tourmagne—Uncertainty as to its use—Cathedral of Nimes—Other churches—A canary lottery—Altars to the Sun—The sun-wheel—The Cross of Constantine—Anecdote of Fléchier.

I pray the reader to observe how I spell the name of Nimes, with neither an s nor a circumflex, neither as Nismes, nor as Nîmes, for both are wrong. Nimes is Nemausus, and there is no s to be sounded or suppressed in the ancient name of the place, which comes from the Keltic naimh, a fountain or spring. And in very truth no other name could better suit it, for here under a limestone hill wells up the river in one large flood sufficient for boats to go on it at once. This great green spring, ever flowing, mysterious even nowadays, is the great feature of Nimes, and this fountain certainly awoke the veneration of the old Gauls, who believed it to be a direct gift of the gods. One follows up a canal between streets planted with trees, and looks down into the pure water like liquid green glass, then suddenly reaches a garden. Above rises a wooded hill, thick with pines, syringa, Judas tree of brilliant pink lake, laburnum with its chains of gold, forming an arc of flowers, and sees before one a wide enclosed pool, walled round, of the shape of the figure 8, heaving with cold pure water that flows away under the terrace and falls with a roar to the lower level of the canal. On one side are ruins—of a temple to the Nymphs; but one cannot at first look at that, the volume of water engages one—a lake lifting itself up by its own strength out of the earth, always, night and day, inexhaustible, hardly varying in volume, coming no one knows whence, deep and green, with no visible bottom, without a bubble, without a ruffle—it is indeed wonderful. I have seen the spring of the Danube at Donaueschingen: it is nothing to this; the fountain of Vaucluse one can understand—it breaks out from a cave in the mountainside, like scores of others; this is otherwise—a river rising with no fuss, no display, no noise, without even a ripple.

It does not gush, it does not boil up. It is simply one glassy surface, and looking at it you cannot conceive that it is a river rising vertically and sliding away under your feet. Pliny says of the source of the Clitumnus: "At the foot of a little hill covered with venerable and shady trees, a spring issues which, gushing out in different and unequal streams, forms itself, after several windings, into a spacious basin, so extremely clear that you may see the pebbles, and the little pieces of money that are thrown into it, as they lie at the bottom." I have quoted this passage, not because the source of the Clitumnus at all resembles that of the river at Nimes, but because of the mention of the coins thrown in. Suetonius speaks of this same practice in his life of Augustus. Now this fountain at Nimes has yielded, and yields still, an almost inexhaustible supply of Roman and Gaulish and Gallo-Greek coins that have been thus thrown in as oblations to the nymphs in remote times; and these coins are now in the museums of Nimes and Paris, and in those of private collectors. The same custom still remains, but instead of coins, pins are now cast into springs.