A Book of the Pyrenees

In 1610 all Catalonia was in revolt against Philip IV, and the county of Roussillon followed the example of Barcelona. The King of Spain sent troops to Perpignan and massacred the citizens. Those who survived the carnage appealed to Louis XIII, who sent an army into the county, and in 1642 the French, entering Perpignan, were hailed as deliverers. In 1659 the Treaty of the Pyrenees finally assured to France the possession of Roussillon and half of Cerdagne, and since then these have formed an integral portion of France.

But before all this for a while Perpignan was the capital of the short-lived kingdom of Majorca. James I, King of Aragon, in 1229 had expelled the Moors from that island, and in 1238 from Valencia; and to the title King of Aragon he added those of King of Majorca and Valencia, Count of Barcelona and of Roussillon and Urgel, and Seigneur of Montpellier. To his eldest son Peter he left Aragon, and to the younger, James, he gave the rest.

James I of Majorca was succeeded by his son Sanchez, who died without issue in 1324, and the next and last king was James II, son of Ferdinand, the brother of Sanchez. James married his cousin Constance, sister of Peter IV of Aragon.

Peter was an ambitious man and insatiate in his greed. He resolved on the destruction of his cousin and brother-in-law, and the annexation of his dominions. James had made himself unpopular by his tyranny, and the islanders complained to the Aragonese king. This was precisely what Peter wanted; he summoned James to meet him in conference at Barcelona, arrested his sister Constance, and would have done the same by his brother-in-law had not James found means to escape. In the impotence of his resentment he declared war against Aragon, and thereby sealed his own fate. In 1343 Peter landed in Majorca, and was at once joined by the islanders. Then he turned his attention to Roussillon and overran it.

The unfortunate James now solicited a safe conduct, and throwing himself at the feet of the victor, implored forgiveness in consideration of kinship. He might as well have appealed to a rock. He was informed that if he would surrender Perpignan, that still held out for him, he would experience his brother-in-law’s clemency. He consented; but no sooner was Peter in possession that he declared Roussillon annexed in perpetuity to Aragon. The estates met, and offered James a miserable indemnity of 10,000 French crowns. He indignantly refused the offer. The Pope so far interfered as to obtain the release from prison of his wife Constance, and of James his eldest son. Unable to bear adversity with patience, in 1349 he sold to the French king his lordship of Montpellier, and with the money received raised 3000 foot soldiers and 300 horsemen, in the wild hope of reconquering his kingdom. With this small force he embarked, and made a descent on Majorca, but was deserted by the mercenaries when his funds gave out, and in a battle against great odds was killed, and his son James was wounded and taken prisoner. This prince had been married to Joanna I, Queen of Naples, who had murdered her first husband. Fearing to meet with the same fate, and disgusted with her levity, he had left Naples and had thrown in his lot with his father. For twelve years he languished in prison, effected his escape in 1362, and died of chagrin in 1375.

Roussillon takes its name from Ruscino, the ancient capital, which was destroyed by the Northmen in 859. The site is now occupied by a tower and a Romanesque chapel, a couple of miles from Perpignan. The name of Ruscino appears for the first time B.C. 218, when Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees on his march into Italy. The Roman Senate sent ambassadors to the people of Ruscino to urge them to oppose the progress of the great Carthaginian. They met where is now this castle, but were listened to with impatient murmurs. The tower, that dates from the twelfth century, is all that remains of the castle of the counts of Roussillon. No one has as yet undertaken serious exploration of the site, which infallibly would surrender very important relics of the ancient capital of the Rusceni, one of the Nine Peoples, and where in all probability the Phœnicians had a mercantile station; the plough, or mattock, has repeatedly turned up Iberian, Greek, Punic, Roman, and Arabic coins.

One cannot quit Castell-Rossello, as the tower is now called, without mention of William de Cabestang, who was châtelain of the neighbouring village of Cabestang. Taken with the charms of Sirmonde, the wife of Raimond, Count of Roussillon, he celebrated her in song. The husband, transported with jealousy, had him waylaid and murdered, then tore out his heart, had it roasted, and served at table. After Sirmonde had partaken of the dish he revealed to her what she had eaten. Then said she, “This meat has been to me so good and savoury that no other shall pass my lips.” The Count at this drew his sword, and Sirmonde threw herself from the window and perished by the fall. Alphonso II of Aragon went to the place, ordered the arrest of the Count, and the burial of the troubadour and the Countess before the western entrance of the church of S. Jean at Perpignan.

A few lines from one of his sirventes in her honour may be quoted: —

“Before my mind’s eye, lady fair,
I see thy form, thy flowing hair,
Thy face, thy iv’ry brow.
My path to Paradise were sure
Were love to God in me as pure
As mine to thee, I trow.

“Perchance thou wilt not bend an ear,
Perchance not shed for me a tear,
For me, who in my prayer
To Mary Mother ever plead,
To stead thee in thy hour of need,
Sweet lady, passing fair.

“Together from first childish days,
As playfellows, I knew thy ways;
I served thee when a child.
Permit me but thy glove to kiss,
That, that will be supremest bliss.
Will still my pulses wild.”

Perpignan, with its vast and huge citadel, cramped within fortifications planned by Vauban, was formerly a fortress of the first order. To-day, under changed systems of defence and attack, citadel and bastions have lost their value, and the walls and earthworks that gird the town about are now being levelled, and the moat filled to form a boulevard. When that red belt of bricks is completely demolished, Perpignan will expand in all directions.

The little river Basse divides the town into two unequal parts: the New Town, which is the ancient faubourg of the Tanneries, was included within the circuit of the fortifications by Vauban; and the Old Town, on the right bank of the river, comprises the hills of S. Jacques and de la Réal; and in this the streets are narrow and tortuous. In 1859 the medieval wall of defence along the river front was demolished and the Place Arago was made; a Palais de Justice and a Prefecture were erected on its site. The citadel is on high ground above the town, and contains the palace of the kings of Majorca. It is well to ascend the belvedere that surmounts the palace chapel to obtain a good view of the plain of Roussillon to the bald limestone range of the Corbières, to the soaring mass of Canigou, and the Pyrenean range – here called les Albères – and to the Mediterranean, blue as a peacock’s neck, and the lagoons that lie along the coast. For what Perpignan sorely lacks is a high terrace that would give a view of the surrounding country and of the mountains.

Alphonso II, King of Aragon, to whom the last Count of Roussillon bequeathed his county in 1172, did much for the place. As a considerable part of the town lay low in marshy and unhealthy ground, he desired to move it up the height, at the foot of which was a leper hospital, and which for this reason is called the Puig des Lépreux. But he met with opposition from the inhabitants, and abandoned his intention. Nevertheless the Puig became peopled by artisans, and this portion was soldered on to the Old Town, and included later within the ramparts.

The Place de la Loge is the centre of animation to the town, the forum of the capital of Roussillon. It derives its name from the Loge de la Mer, a court for naval and mercantile affairs. This dates from 1397, but was reconstructed in 1540; it is richly carved, but is somewhat weak in design, and however elaborate is the ornamentation is not effective. From the upper story is suspended a diminutive ship with all its appointments. The lower story is given up to be a café. Before this all the rollicking and fun of the carnival takes place, not, as elsewhere, on Shrove Tuesday, but on Ash Wednesday. Before this pass the fantastic cars bearing maskers representing various trades or else allegorical groups. Here goes on the battle of the dragées, when every one not masked, down to the baby in arms, wears a wire vizor over his face, such as is employed by fencers, as a protection against the dragées, which are as large as beans and as hard as pebbles.

It is somewhat startling to note the contrast presented on Ash Wednesday between the scene in the cathedral, when the whole congregation goes to the altar rails to have a cross of ashes marked on each brow, with the words: “Remember, O man, that dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return!” and that in the Place de la Loge in the afternoon, when fun runs fast and furious, and every one is playing the fool.

The cathedral was begun in 1324, and terminated in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Externally it promises little, but the interior is overwhelmingly beautiful. The church is built of tiles rather than bricks, each 17 inches long by 1½ inches thick and 8 inches wide; with bands of these tiles alternate belts of cobble-stones arranged in herring-bone fashion.

The interior consists of one vast nave 56 feet wide, in seven bays and with transepts. The whole ends in a magnificent apse. Between the buttresses are chapels, 17 feet deep, in each of which is a three-light window most of these blocked by retables, and this renders the church unnecessarily dark. The high altar-piece of white marble, of the seventeenth century, is an admirable composition, purely Renaissance in character, executed by Bartholomew Soler, of Barcelona. In the niches are statues of the Virgin, S. John, and SS. Julia and Eulalia, patronesses of Elne. Particularly noticeable is a superb carved oak and gilded reredos in the north transept, of the fifteenth century, representing scenes of the Passion in eight compartments. Another, enclosing fine paintings in place of sculpture, is in the south transept. The huge organ-case is a splendid bit of work of the sixteenth century.

In the south of Languedoc a taste prevailed for churches comprising huge naves without side aisles – in fact, immense halls. At Carcassonne such is the type; but there, in the two churches in the New Town, the effect is unsatisfactory, as the chancels, or apses, bud out of the flat east wall in an ungainly manner. Here in Perpignan we have the hall interior, but leading up to and ending in an apse of the full width of the nave.

On the south side of the church is a chapel with a highly favoured crucifix in it, and Pope Leo XIII accorded plenary indulgence with remission of all sins to such as should worship before it and pray for the extermination of heresies, i.e. heretics on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

The other churches of S. Mathieu and La Réal deserve a visit. Built on the same lines as the cathedral, they have been sadly spoiled by tasteless additions in the Barroque period. Over the high altar at La Réal, as in a side chapel at S. Mathieu, are groups of coloured statuary, on which light is also made to fall from above; and as the churches are profoundly dark, this is in its way effective.

The ancient Palais de Justice, much purer in style than the Loge, adjoins it, separated from it only by the old house of the consuls, now the Hôtel de Ville. The old Palais has beautiful windows, with trefoil heads cut in the block, unmoulded, supported by dainty columns. But the most strikingly picturesque edifice of Perpignan is the Castelet, erected between 1367 and 1369, with the town gate of Notre Dame (1481) at one side of it, all constructed of tiles like the cathedral. The bold projecting machicolations, and the octagonal turret surmounted by a small cupola, have a pronounced Spanish character.

When one passes out of the Porte Notre Dame the Promenade des Platanes is reached, a boulevard shaded by magnificent plane trees, but all inclined from the north, from the terrible Tramontane wind, which is the scourge of the plain of Roussillon. Here on Shrove Tuesday evening hundreds of maskers dance under the leafless branches, and sometimes in spite of the cutting wind and dropping rain. The promenade is then railed in, and soldiers are stationed to act as sentinels to prevent the crowd entering and interfering with the dancers. But the waltz music is too exhilarating to allow these sentinels to soberly pace their distances, and I have seen them holding their rifles and pirouetting up and down their beats with them as if their firearms were lovely partners.

Beyond the Basse, where it flows into the Tet, is the faubourg Notre Dame, very animated and peopled in part with gipsies, or gitanos. They speak a language of their own, a mixture of Arabic, Castillian, and Catalan. They are first mentioned in Roussillon in an ordinance of 1512, that required them to be cudgelled out of the country. It does not seem that this order produced the effect desired, for they have been found, and still are found, throughout the department, mainly engaged in selling mules.

The first station out of Perpignan on the line to Barcelona is Elne, long the seat of a bishop. It was the ancient Illiberis. The name tells its origin. It derives from the Iberian, and signifies the New City; and shows that it was a town founded by these people before they were expelled or subjugated by the Celts, who invaded the country in the fourth century before Christ. When Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees he planted his headquarters here, and hither came the heads of the Gaulish tribe to make terms with him against Rome. At the same time they made complaint of the conduct of some of his Carthaginian soldiery. Hannibal listened to their grievances, and decided that in any further cases of misconduct by his soldiers these should be tried by a court composed of the wives of the Gauls.

The Romans, when they occupied the land, neglected Illiberis, and planted a colony at Ruscino. The town dwindled to insignificance till Constantine refounded it and called it after the name of his mother, Helena; and this is the name it now bears, transformed into Elne. It was the scene of the assassination of Constans, the son of the great Constantine. He was an indolent, weak, and debauched prince, monarch of the West. Whilst hunting in Gaul he received tidings of the revolt of Magnentius, that the soldiers had mutinied, and that emissaries had been dispatched to kill him. He fled to Illiberis, but was overtaken here and put to death in 350, in the thirtieth year of his reign.

Devastated by the Arabs, we do not hear of a bishop of Elne till 783. After that the lordship of Elne was shared between the bishop and the chapter. The seat of the bishop was removed to Perpignan in 1602.

Elne occupies a sandstone rock, about which this town is built, and is divided into the upper and the lower town. It is a dull and sleepy place, that wakens into life only on the festival of SS. Eulalia and Julia, when there is much merry-making with processions, music, and dancing. Portions of the walls and some of the gates remain; but the great object of interest is the cathedral, with its superb cloisters of white marble. The exact date of the rebuilding is not known, but the church was complete in 1069. Externally it is constructed of rubble stone in herring-bone, set in mortar. The west front has a crenellated gable between two towers of unequal size and height. The loftiest is a bold structure that has had buttresses added to it much later, in 1415. The western doorway is unornamented. The plan of the church is a nave with side aisles and no transepts. It is very plain within as without, with huge piers supporting round-headed arches and vault. The high altar was of silver, and dated from 1069, but was sent to the mint at Perpignan to be coined into money in 1721. The new altar-piece is as Prosper Mérimée described it – “a masterpiece of meanness and bad taste.”

The original choir stalls were fine. A writer in 1787 says of the woodwork: “It is grand, and remarkable for the beauty of the stall-work covered with sculpture of the end of the thirteenth century, as is known by an inscription on one of the stalls.” All this has disappeared.

In the sacristy is preserved a little bell with the date on it, 1554, ornamented with a figure of Apollo playing on the rebec, a monkey doing the same, and dancing bears, an eagle, a rabbit, and a boar.

But the great glory of Elne is its cloister raised on a terrace of the ancient acropolis of Illiberis, on the north side of the cathedral. Entrance to it is obtained by a doorway, which for the purity of its style and the sobriety of its ornamentation deserves notice. The arch is pointed, and of marble, alternatively white and red, and dates from the fourteenth century. The ironwork of the door is simple but graceful. Alart, the historian and antiquary says: “Without dispute, from the point of view of art, and from the historic reminiscences attached to it, the cloister is the most remarkable and precious relic that remains of Roussellonnaise architecture.” It was begun in the twelfth century, but was continued and retouched in the fourteenth, so that whereas some of the capitals and columns are of Byzantine or Romanesque design, others have Gothic ornament. All is in white marble, and the sculpture is of exquisite delicacy: foliage, figures of every description are there in lavish profusion. The pillars are coupled, some twisted, some plain. The very bases are enriched with ornament.

“In the morning, in summer, when the sun lights up the galleries to north and west, all the details come out with extraordinary brilliancy. In the afternoon the eastern gallery is burnt by the solar rays that have turned the marble yellow.” – P. Vidal.

In the lateral wall on the north side open two doorways, one of which must be entered with precaution, or one may fall below, for the stair that led from it has disappeared. Underneath are two large vaulted chambers paved with bricks, communicating one with another by a small opening. Traces of fresco painting may be noticed. The popular opinion is that these were the dungeons of the Inquisition, but actually they were an old chapel dedicated to S. Laurence. The other door gives access to a spiral staircase leading to a terrace, from which a magnificent view is obtained of the plain, the Albères, and Canigou.

Arles-sur-Mer is a watering-place by the sea. Near it is the more interesting port of Collioure, an Iberian name signifying the port of the New Town; and Iberian coins have been found there. The fortress of S. Elne was built by Charles V. The streets are narrow, the houses dilapidated, and occupied mainly by fishermen and their families.

“On the sea-coast these men enter into very hot discussions, use expressions somewhat rough and coarse, but rarely come to blows. Few scandals occur here, and they marry young. It is worthy of remark that among these good folk so free of tongue and freer still in opinion, these solid republicans, the religious sentiment is very developed. They pray to God and go to Mass; but they also go to the ball. The three last days of carnival are given up by the whole population to a wild frenzy. They cling to this poor carnival as though it would never return. Every café has its ball at night; if weather permit there is a general ball in the public square.”

A few yards from the beach on a rock stands a chapel dedicated to S. Vincent, who is traditionally held to have been born at Collioure. He was martyred at Valencia in Spain, 304. But Huesca also claims the honour of his birth. His name is included in the English Church calendar on 22 January. From the rock of S. Vincent on 16 August, annually, at nine o’clock in the evening, starts a procession of boats that brings the relics of the saint to the town. The sailing-boats and fishing-vessels richly decked and illuminated with coloured lamps are reflected in the still sea. An immense crowd is gathered about the harbour, that is lighted by a bonfire made of vine twigs and barrels of tar.

As soon as the vessel bearing the relics arrives at the quay, the harbour-master calls out, “What boat is that?” To which the captain replies, “A boat of Saint Vincent.” “Whence come you?” “From Saint Vincent-de-l’Ile.” “With what are you laden?” “With the relics of the Saint Vincent, of Saint Marinus, and of Saint Liberada.” “Are there passengers, and are they according to rule?” “There are passengers, and they are all according to rule.” “What do you require?” “To be allowed to disembark.” “In the name of God, do so.”

Then the whole crowd shouts, “Sant Vincens béneit!” Whereupon the boat is hauled ashore and dragged through the town. The crowd that separated to allow of the passage then unites and follows in a dense mass, elbowing one another. The boat halts before the “Vierge des quatres coins,” the relics are removed from it, and carried processionally to the church. The bonfire and the coloured lamps go out, and the scene of movement is transferred from the harbour to the Place, where the joglars, installed on an improvized platform, sound their instruments to lively melodies, and all, young and old, in two minutes are in full swing of a dance, that lasts from ten o’clock to midnight. “Si réellement,” says a French writer, “la danse est un amusement, nulle part au monde ou ne s’amuse autant qu’ ici.”

The train, as it traverses the flats and athwart arms of the lagoons that lie along the coast, skirts a place called Salses, and if the traveller be looking out of the window on the right hand, he catches a glimpse of a rusty mass of building with towers, and wonders what it is. This is the fortress of Salses, erected in 1497 by a Spanish engineer named Ramirez, and it is sufficiently curious to merit a study, for it was built at a time when the use of cannon was materially altering the conditions of warfare, especially of sieges. The château, though often menaced with destruction, indeed repeatedly ordered to be levelled, has remained almost intact to the present day. It forms a rectangle with a tower at each angle. These towers give evidence of the hesitation of the engineer. He was hampered by tradition, and had to introduce them without knowing exactly that they had a purpose any longer. But, on the other hand, he adopted an innovation, destined to revolutionize the defence of fortresses, by creating bastions isolated and in advance of the walls, like the demi-lunes of modern citadels. As far as we know, this was the first instance of their being employed. The castle was of some strategic importance, as commanding the passage between the vast Lagoon of Leucate and the barren ridge of the Corbières.

The last governor of the fortress was a nephew of Voltaire, named La Houlière, who grew vines and made wine on his wife’s estate; he sent a cask of the latter to his illustrious uncle, and entreated him to obtain a market for his wines in Russia. To which Voltaire replied, “I am sorry not to be able to be of use to you in this matter, but the Empress at this moment is too much occupied with the Turks who drink no wine, and with the Germans who drink too much, to be able to turn her attention to your generous liquor.”

When La Houlière, who commanded at Perpignan in April, 1793, learned the defeat of the French troops by the Spaniards, he was so depressed that he blew out his brains.

Throughout the plain of Roussillon vines grow, and the wine they produce is excellent. The canals of irrigation bordered by trees traverse the plain; and, thanks to this semi-aquatic condition, the vineyards do not present the monotony of those of Narbonne and Beziers.