Lyons is populous without being lively, and stately without being imposing. We took a close carriage next morning, and drove about for nearly four hours to see what could be seen—almost the whole of which time was occupied in visiting the junction of the rivers and ascending Fourvières, a steep hill on the right bank of the Saone, from which an extensive panoramic view is in clear weather obtained, and Mont Blanc, about 130 miles distant, is sometimes seen—its visibility being a circumstance symptomatic of approaching wet weather, as we found did happen on a subsequent occasion, when the white mountain was seen as we were nearing Lyons from Geneva. Lyons at this season was looking very dreary, and the cold necessitated our burning fires in the bedrooms. On a former visit, in summer, the heat had been almost unendurable. In the evening of the second day, we found the large central hall of the hotel—which was lighted from the roof, and afforded access by encircling corridors and concealed stairs to the different floors—was covered in by an awning, and the salle à manger was laid for a magnificent dinner. It turned out that the principal rooms were engaged for a wedding party (noces), the ordinary guests being conducted to other rooms. It was, however, a very quiet, solemn-looking affair; although the number assembled was large, they made no noisy demonstrations. At breakfast-time next morning the waiters seemed but half aroused.
We left Lyons by train at 11 o’clock forenoon. Our through tickets required to be vise’d at the booking-office before they would admit us to the salle-d’attente. The route from Lyons southward is very interesting. The railway skirts the Rhone nearly the whole way. The river has been said to vary in width from a quarter of a mile to two miles, although from the railway it does not appear to be so wide. In the sunshine everything looked beautiful. The farther south we got, the foliage became fresher, and it was very charming to see the river rolling softly on, fringed by trees, and through valleys, from which rise the vine-clad hills. We passed the Côtes d’Or, and other regions, where the famous Burgundy wines are grown. Some of the mountain ranges are lofty. We thought how much more beautiful would the river appear during summer months, and our wish as regards time was actually fulfilled the following September; but, alas! it was then obscured by clouds and rain.
The railway to Marseilles passes several interesting places, and among others, the towns of Orange, Avignon, and Arles, which all contain relics of Roman occupation. On occasion of our going south in September 1877, we stopped at Avignon, which is 230 kilometres, or about 140 miles, from Lyons,[16] the train taking about six hours. When one can manage it, Avignon is a place well worth stopping to see. Leaving the station, we drove through some narrow dirty streets till we reached the Hotel de l’Europe, the situation of which is not at first inviting; but it is considered the best hotel, and our rooms were very comfortable. It was kept by a young landlady, who spoke English, and was very attentive. On the following morning we took a cab to drive about and see the town, and, inter alia, saw the Calvi Museum, which contains many paintings, some of which are good, and a large collection of coins and books. Then we went to the cathedral, which is well worth a visit. Here are the tombs of several popes. The construction of the gallery of the church is peculiar. I desired to have a photograph of the interior at a shop, but they had it not. Photographs, however, were sold outside the cathedral, and possibly I might have procured it there; but we had so often found photographs sold at the show places themselves so dear, that I had not asked for them at the cathedral door. It does, however, sometimes happen, as probably it did here, that they can only be had at the place itself; and when time is limited, it is better to secure what may be wanted, especially interiors, at once. The pope’s old palace adjoins the cathedral. This is a large building with very massive walls 100 feet high. It is now occupied as a caserne or barrack for French soldiers. The lofty rooms, for greater accommodation, have had a floor interposed. The rooms, fitted up with beds and filled with the soldiery, are in a very different condition from what they must at one time have been when this was the papal residence. One of the rooms into which we were shown, was the upper interposed half of what had formerly been the chamber of torture of the Inquisition. There was nothing very special now to be seen in this dismal unoccupied apartment, which at one time echoed with the groans and cries of the tortured.
In the Place de l’Hotel de Ville, in the centre of the town, are a handsome-looking theatre and other public buildings; but one of the most interesting objects in Avignon is the old Roman bridge across the river. Avignon was a fortified city, and is still surrounded by walls having many gates, and in our drive we passed outside the walls till we reached the Roman bridge. Only part of it is now standing, the remainder having, I presume, been swept away by floods. The river is now crossed by a good modern bridge, not far from the site of the old one, and conducts to a town upon the other bank of the river which forms a suburb to Avignon.
We did not, in November 1876, stop at Avignon; but being then desirous of seeing the old Roman city of Nismes, we procured through the guard, when stopping at the station of Valence, supplementary tickets enabling us to change at Tarascon, which we reached in the dusk about five o’clock. Here we had to change carriages, and cross the platform, and enter a dingy station or salle-d’attente, and to wait wearily for nearly an hour till the train proceeded to Nismes. It was cold, and we had, as usual, no assistance from porters with our petits bagages. Nismes is about an hour’s journey by rail from Tarascon. The mistral was blowing, and it was bitterly cold. The coldness of this wind is, I believe, greatly produced by the cutting down of the trees on the mountains in the south of France; and if so, the sooner they are replanted the better. It is piercingly felt all over the south of France, even Mentone, at its extreme east point, not being wholly sheltered from its influence. I fancy that in the Roman times, when such places as Nismes, Avignon, and Arles were selected for habitation, the mistral was not felt, at least to the extent it is now. It prevented our invalid from leaving the house while at Nismes on this occasion.
Nismes, as a capital city of a department of France, is a town of importance. It is the seat of the departmental courts, and it possesses various educational establishments as well as a variety of manufactures. It is beautifully situated in a fertile district. The town itself is attractive. The principal streets are wide and clean, and the Boulevards are pleasant; but it is as an ancient city, full of vestiges of old Roman occupation, that it possesses charms to attract the stranger.
The most famous of these Roman remains is the Arena, and attention is naturally drawn to it from being situated fronting a large open space in the heart of the town, called the Esplanade. It was the first of the Roman amphitheatres we had at that time seen. Exposed to the mistral, it was then intensely cold; and one could hardly suppose that it would have been built on that site if it had not been at the time a place to which the people could go without fear of colds (for, odd though it may sound, I fancy the grand old Roman nose did suffer occasionally from colds). However, an arena seems to have been then as necessary an appendage to a Roman town as a church is to an English village. The building is oval in shape, and is 412 feet long by 306 feet in breadth, and rises in upwards of 30 massive tiers from the centre to the circumference, resting on strong stone arches, and containing perfect means of ingress and egress—every separate external arch having been, no doubt, a separate vomitory. The building is computed to have accommodated 32,000 persons. The arena, though in part ruinous, is still in a very fair state of preservation, but is undergoing a process of restoration by the insertion of new stones in place of the old ones, to strengthen the structure, which, as the old stone is grey with age and the new stone is a beautiful pearly white, looks most incongruous. One could almost wish that the building were let alone, although it is to be hoped that in the course of years the new stone will assume a colour in keeping with the rest. Perhaps it might be stained to bring it into harmony. Of this same kind of stone, two beautiful churches have recently been built: one of them, St. Perpetué, is completed and in use; the other, a very large one,—I presume to be occupied as a cathedral, with a double spire far in advance when we saw it first,—was in the following year not yet finished. The designs of these churches, particularly in their spires, are remarkably graceful. There is another very elegant modern building adjoining the Arena, the Courts of Justice, which also fronts the Esplanade, in the centre of which open space has been erected a very handsome modern marble fountain at a cost of £10,000.
Leaving the Arena and passing up the Boulevard St. Antoine, we arrive at the Maison Carrée, or the Square House—a small but beautiful temple, with a peristyle of the Corinthian order, in admirable preservation. It is situated in a space enclosed by railings, and is occupied as a museum and picture gallery, for which it affords but limited room. From the Maison Carrée the visitor proceeds through public gardens to the Roman Baths, which are in wonderful condition, although the marble statues have nearly all lost their noses, the common fate of all marble statues long exposed to the weather. These baths are very elegant enclosures of water, now looking very stagnant and green. Upon the west side are the ruins of what has been termed a temple of Diana, in which are preserved many of the antiquities found in the vicinity of it. To the south issues, through an elegant iron rail and gateway, a very long wide avenue or boulevard called Cours Neuf, on a straight line, flanked by trees which, when completed, will extend, I think, a full mile in length. The north extremity is terminated by a hill, reached by magnificent stairs, and commanding a fine view of the Baths or fountains, of the long wide avenue beyond and the surrounding country. This hill is surmounted by the Tour Magne, the ruin of a building the object of which has not been definitely ascertained.
Nismes in summer in fine weather is very hot, but is a charming residence for a few days. We stayed two nights on this occasion at the Hotel Luxembourg, which is recommended to English travellers. The men-servants here, who are also the femmes-de-chambres, had quite an Italian look and cut, and were in their morning attire very comically dressed in a short jacket, somewhat like those schoolboys used to wear.
We returned en route for Marseilles by Tarascon, passing by the way several stone quarries and fields in which olive trees had been planted by way of experiment. These were the first olive trees we had seen. They were young and short, and were disappointing, as in fact are all olive trees, however large or old they be, to those who, like ourselves, having read of sitting under the olive tree as a species of luxurious enjoyment, found them very different from our expectations, being in leaf like the willow. But their existence indicated approach to a warmer climate.