A Book of The Riviera

Now, it may be noted that in both instances the rhythm is not at all that of the scientifically constructed metric lines of Horace, Tibullus, and Catullus, but is neither more nor less than our familiar 8.7. time. The first piece of six lines in 8.7. is precisely that of “Lo! He comes in clouds descending.” The second of four lines is that of the familiar Latin hymn, Tantum ergo, and is indeed that also of our hymn, “Hark! the sound of holy voices.”[4 - So Virgil speaks of the soldiers singing as they marched, according to rhythmic music —“With measured pace they march along,And make their monarch’s deeds their song.”Æneid, viii., 698-9.]

Nor is this all. Under Cæsar’s statue were scribbled the lines of a lampoon; that also was in 8.7. Suetonius gives us another snatch of a popular song relative to Cæsar, in the same measure. Surely this goes to establish the fact that the Roman populace had their own folk-music, which was rhythmic, with tonal accent, distinct from the fashionable music of the theatre.

Now, it is quite true that in Latin plays there was singing, and, what is more, songs introduced. For instance, in the Captivi of Plautus, in the third act, Hegio comes on the stage singing —

“Quid est suavius quam
Bene rem gerere bono publico, sicut feci
Ego heri, quum eius hosce homines, ubi quisque
Vident me hodie,” etc.

But I defy any musician to set his song to anything else but recitative; the metre is intricate and varied.

Now of rhythmic melody we have nothing more till the year A.D. 386, when, at Milan, the Empress Justina ordered that a church should be taken from the Catholics and be delivered over to the Arians.

Thereupon S. Ambrose, the bishop, took up his abode within the sacred building, that was also crowded by the faithful, who held it as a garrison for some days. To occupy the people Ambrose hastily scribbled down some hymns – not at all in the old classic metres, but in rhythmic measure – and set them to sing these, no doubt whatever, to familiar folk-airs. Thirteen of the hymns of S. Ambrose remain. His favourite metre is —

“Te lucis ante terminum,”

our English Long Measure. And what is more, the traditional tunes to which he set these hymns have been handed down, so that in these we probably possess the only ascertainable relics of Roman folk-airs of the fourth century, and who can tell of how much earlier?

Now, in ancient days the people were wont to crowd to church on the vigils of festivals and spend the night in or outside the churches in singing and dancing. To drive out the profane and indelicate songs, the clergy composed hymns and set them to the folk-airs then in vogue. These hymns came into use more and more, and at length simply forced their way into the services of the Church – but were not recognised as forming a legitimate part of it till the tenth century.

The ecclesiastical hymns for the people, after having been composed in barbarous Latin, led by a second step to the vernacular Romance. The transition was easy, and was, indeed, inevitable. And in music, recitative fell into disfavour, and formal music, to which poetry is the handmaid, came into popular usage exclusively; recitative lingering on only in the liturgy of the Church. The Provençal language was now on its way to becoming fixed and homogeneous; the many local variations found in the several districts tending to effacement.

Then came the golden age of the Troubadours, who did more than any before to fix the tongue. In the twelfth century the little courts of the Provençal nobles were renowned for gallantry. In fact, the knights and barons and counts of the South plumed themselves on setting the fashion to Christendom. In the South there was none of that rivalry existing elsewhere between the knights in their castles and the citizens in the towns. In every other part of Western Europe the line of demarcation was sharp between the chivalry and the bourgeoisie. Knighthood could only be conferred on one who was noble and who owned land. It was otherwise in the South; the nobility and the commercial class were on the best of terms, and one great factor in this fusion was the Troubadour, who might spring from behind a counter as well as from a knightly castle.

The chivalry of the South, and the Troubadour, evolved the strange and, to our ideas, repulsive theory of love, which was, for a time, universally accepted. What originated it was this:

In the south of France women could possess fiefs and all the authority and power attaching to them. From this political capacity of women it followed that marriages were contracted most ordinarily by nobles with an eye to the increase of their domains. Ambition was the dominant passion, and to that morality, sentiment, inclination, had to give way and pass outside their matrimonial plans. Consequently, in the feudal caste, marriages founded on such considerations were regarded as commercial contracts only, and led to a most curious moral and social phenomenon.

The idea was formed of love as a sentiment, from which every sensual idea was excluded, in which, on the woman’s side, all was condescension and compassion, on the man’s all submission and homage. Every lady must have her devoted knight or minstrel – her lover, in fact, who could not and must not be her husband; and every man who aspired to be courteous must have his mistress.

“There are,” says a Troubadour, “four degrees in Love: the first is hesitancy, the second is suppliancy, the third is acceptance, and the fourth is friendship. He who would love a lady and goes to court her, but does not venture on addressing her, is in the stage of Hesitancy. But if the lady gives him any encouragement, and he ventures to tell her of his pains, then he has advanced to the stage of Suppliant. And if, after speaking to his lady and praying her, she retains him as her knight, by the gift of ribbons, gloves, or girdle, then he enters on the grade of Acceptance. And if, finally, it pleases the lady to accord to her loyal accepted lover so much as a kiss, then she has elevated him to Friendship.”

In the life of a knight the contracting of such an union was a most solemn moment. The ceremony by which it was sealed was formulated on that in which a vassal takes oath of fealty to a sovereign. Kneeling before the lady, with his hands joined between hers, the knight devoted himself and all his powers to her, swore to serve her faithfully to death, and to defend her to the utmost of his power from harm and insult. The lady, on her side, accepted these services, promised in return the tenderest affections of her heart, put a gold ring on his finger as pledge of union, and then raising him gave him a kiss, always the first, and often the only one he was to receive from her. An incident in the Provençal romance of Gerard de Roussillon shows us just what were the ideas prevalent as to marriage and love at this time. Gerard was desperately in love with a lady, but she was moved by ambition to accept in his place Charles Martel, whom the author makes into an Emperor. Accordingly Gerard marries the sister of the Empress on the same day. No sooner is the double ceremonial complete than, —

“Gerard led the queen aside under a tree, and with her came two counts and her sister (Gerard’s just-acquired wife). Gerard spoke and said, ‘What will you say to me now, O wife of an Emperor, as to the exchange I have made of you for a very inferior article?’ ‘Do not say that,’ answered the Queen; ‘say a worthy object, of high value, Sir. But it is true that through you I am become Queen, and that out of love for me you have taken my sister to wife. Be you my witnesses, Counts Gervais and Bertelais, and you also, my sister, and confidante of all my thoughts, and you, above all, Jesus, my Redeemer; know all that I have given my love to duke Gerard along with this ring and this flower. I love him more than father and husband!’ Then they separated; but their love always endured, without there ever being any harm come of it, but only a tender longing and secret thoughts.”

The coolness of Gerard, before his just-received wife, disparaging her, and swearing everlasting love to the new-made Queen, the moment after they have left church, is sufficiently astounding.

So completely was it an accepted theory that love could not exist along with marriage, that it was held that even if those who had been lovers married, union ipso facto dissolved love. A certain knight loved a lady, who, however, had set her affections on another. All she could promise the former was that should she lose her own true love, she would look to him. Soon after this she married the lord of her heart, and at once the discarded lover applied to be taken on as her servitor. The lady refused, saying that she had her lover – her husband; and the controversy was brought before the Court of Love. Eleanor of Poitiers presided, and pronounced against the lady. She condemned her to take on the knight as her lover, because she actually had lost her own lover, by marrying him.

We probably form an erroneous idea as to the immorality of these contracts, because we attach to the idea of love a conception foreign to that accorded it by the chivalry of Provence in the twelfth century. With them it was a mystic exaltation, an idealising of a lady into a being of superior virtue, beauty, spirituality. And because it was a purely ideal relation it could not subsist along with a material relation such as marriage. It was because this connexion was ideal only that the counts and viscounts and barons looked with so much indifference, or even indulgence, on their wives contracting it. There were exceptions, where the lady carried her condescension too far. But the very extravagance of terms employed towards the ladies is the best possible evidence that the Troubadours knew them very little, and by no means intimately. Bertram, to Helena, was “a bright particular star,” but only so because he was much away from Roussillon, and —

“So high above me
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be computed, not in his sphere.”

When she became his wife she discovered that he was a mere cub. Cœlia was no goddess to Strephon. So the privileged “servant,” worshipped, and only could frame his mind to worship, because held at a great distance, too far to note the imperfections in temper, in person, in mind, of the much-belauded lady.

A friend told me that he was staggered out of his posture of worship to his newly acquired wife by seeing her clean her teeth. It had not occurred to him that her lovely pearls could need a toothbrush.

William de Balaun, a good knight and Troubadour, loved and served Guillelmine de Taviac, wife of a seigneur of that name. He debated in his mind which was the highest felicity, winning the favour of a lady, or, after losing it, winning it back again. He resolved to put this question to the proof, so he affected the sulks, and behaved to the lady with rudeness – would not speak, turned his back on her. At first she endeavoured to soothe him, but when that failed withdrew, and would have no more to say to him. De Balaun now changed his mood, and endeavoured to make her understand that he was experimentalising in the Gai Saber, that was all. She remained obdurate till a mutual friend intervened. Then she consented to receive William de Balaun again into her favour, if he would tear out one of his nails and serve it up to her on a salver along with a poem in praise of her beauty. And on these terms he recovered his former place.

Geofrey Rudel had neither seen the Countess of Tripoli nor cast his eyes on her portrait, but chose to fall in love with her at the simple recital of her beauty and virtue. For long he poured forth verses in her honour; but at last, drawn to Syria by desire of seeing her, he embarked, fell mortally ill on the voyage, and arrived at Tripoli to expire; satisfied that he had bought at this price the pleasure of casting his eyes on the princess, and hearing her express sorrow that he was to be snatched away.

In a great many cases, probably in the majority of cases, there was no amorous passion excited. It was simply a case of bread and butter. The swarm of knights and Troubadours that hovered about an exalted lady, was drawn to her, not at all by her charms, but by her table, kitchen, and cellar – in a word, by cupboard love.

In their own little bastides they led a dull life, and were very impecunious. If they could get some lady of rank to accept their services, they obtained free quarters in her castle, ate and drank of her best, and received gratuities for every outrageously flattering sonnet. If she were elderly and plain – that mattered not, it rather favoured the acceptance, for she would then not be nice in selecting her cher ami. All that was asked in return was, that he should fetch her gloves, hold her stirrup, fight against any one who spoke a disparaging word, and turn heels over head to amuse her on a rainy day.

A little poem by Pierre de Barjac is extant. He loved and served a noble lady De Javac. One day she gave him to understand that he was dismissed. He retired, not a little surprised and mortified, but returned a few days later with a poem, of which these are some of the strophes: —

“Lady, I come before you, frankly to say good-bye for ever. Thanks for your favour in giving me your love and a merry life, as long as it suited you. Now, as it no longer suits you, it is quite right that you should pick up another friend who will please you better than myself. I have naught against that. We part on good terms, as though nothing had been between us.

“Perhaps, because I seem sad, you may fancy that I am speaking more seriously than usual; but that you are mistaken in this, I will convince you. I know well enough that you have some one else in your eye. Well, so have I in mine – some one to love after being quit of you. She will maintain me; she is young, you are waxing old. If she be not quite as noble as yourself, she is, at all events, far prettier and better tempered.

“If our mutual oath of engagement is at all irksome to your conscience, let us go before a priest – you discharge me, and I will discharge you. Then each of us can loyally enter on a new love affair. If I have ever done anything to annoy you, forgive me; I, on my part, forgive you with all my heart; and a forgiveness without heart is not worth much.”

During the winter these professional lovers resided at the castles of the counts and viscounts. In the spring they mounted their horses and wandered away, some in quest of a little fighting, some to loiter in distant courts, some to attend to their own farms and little properties. Each as he left doubtless received a purse from the lady he had served and sung, together with a fresh pair of stockings, and with his linen put in order.

“Love,” says Mr. Green, in his History of the English People, “was the one theme of troubadour and trouveur; but it was a love of refinement, of romantic follies, of scholastic discussions, of sensuous enjoyment – a plaything rather than a passion. Nature had to reflect the pleasant indolence of man; the song of the minstrel moved through a perpetual May-time; the grass was ever green; the music of the lark and the nightingale rang out from field and thicket. There was a gay avoidance of all that is serious, moral, or reflective in man’s life. Life was too amusing to be serious, too piquant, too sentimental, too full of interest and gaiety and chat.”

That this professional, sentimental love-making went beyond bounds occasionally is more than probable, for human nature cannot be controlled by such a spider-web system. It will break through. Every one knows the story of William de Cabestaing, who loved and served among others – for he was to one thing constant never – Sermonde, wife of Raymond de Roussillon, whereupon the husband had him murdered, and his heart roasted and dished up at table. When Sermonde was told what she had eaten, she threw herself out of a window. But is the story true? Much the same tale occurs thrice in Boccaccio; once of Sermonde, something of the same in the Cup, and again in the Pot of Basil; moreover, the same tale is told of others.

This artificial theory of love was carried to the Court of Naples, and to that of Frederick II. at Palermo. It brought after it an inevitable reaction, and this found its fullest expression in Boccaccio.

“All the mediæval enthusiasms,” says Mr. Addington Symonds, “are reviewed and criticised from the standpoint of the Florentine bottega and piazza. It is as though the bourgeois, not content with having made nobility a crime, were bent upon extinguishing its spirit. The tale of Agilult vulgarises the chivalrous conception of love ennobling men of low estate, by showing how a groom, whose heart is set upon a queen, avails himself of opportunity. Tancred burlesques the knightly reverence for a stainless scutcheon, by the extravagance of his revenge. The sanctity of the Thebaid, that ascetic dream of purity and self-renunciation for God’s service, is made ridiculous by Ailbech. Sen Ciappelletto brings contempt upon the canonisation of saints. The confessional, the worship of relics, the priesthood, and the monastic orders, are derided with the deadliest persiflage. Christ Himself is scoffed at in a jest which points the most indecent of these tales. Marriage offers a never-failing theme for scorn; and when, by way of contrast, the novelist paints an ideal wife, he runs into such hyperboles that the very patience of Griselda is a satire on its dignity.”[5 - Renaissance in Italy. “Italian Literature,” i., c. 2.]

CHAPTER III

MARSEILLES

The arrival of the Phocœans – The story of Protis and Gyptis – Siege of Marseilles by Cæsar – Pythias the first to describe Britain – The old city – Encroachment of the sea – S. Victor – Christianity: when introduced – S. Lazarus – Cannebière – The old galley – Siege by the Constable de Bourbon – Plague – The Canal de Marseilles – The plague of 1720 – Bishop Belzunce – The Revolution – The Marseillaise – The Reign of Terror at Marseilles – The Clary girls

AS has been already stated, Massilia, or Marseilles, was originally a Phœnician trading station. Then it was occupied by the Phocœans from Asia Minor. It came about in this fashion.

In the year B.C. 599 a few Phocœean vessels, under the guidance of an adventurer called Eumenes, arrived in the bay of Marseilles. The first care of the new arrivals was to place themselves under the protection of the Ligurians, and they sent an ambassador, a young Greek named Protis, with presents to the native chief, Nann, at Arles. By a happy coincidence Protis arrived on the day upon which Nann had assembled the warriors of his tribe, and had brought forth his daughter, Gyptis, to choose a husband among them. The arrival of the young Greek was a veritable coup de théâtre. He took his place at the banquet. His Greek beauty, his graceful form and polished manners, so different from the ruggedness and uncouthness of the Ligurians, impressed the damsel, and going up to him, she presented him with the goblet of wine, which was the symbol of betrothal. Protis put it to his lips, and the alliance was concluded.

The legend is doubtless mythical, but it shows us, disguised under the form of a tale, what actually took place, that the Ionian settlers did contract marriages with the natives. But the real great migration took place in B.C. 542, fifty-seven years later.

Harpagus, the general of Cyrus, was ravaging Asia Minor, and he invested Phocœa. As the Ionians in the town found that they could hold out no longer, their general, Dionysos, thus addressed them:

“Our affairs are in a critical state, and we have to decide at once whether we are to remain free, or to bow our necks in servitude, and be treated as runaway slaves. Now, if you be willing to undergo some hardships, you will be able to secure your freedom.”

Then he advised that they should lade their vessels with all their movable goods, put on them their wives and children, and leave their native land.

Soon after this Harpagus saw a long line of vessels, their sails swelled with the wind, and the water glancing from their oars, issue from the port and pass away over the blue sea towards the western sun. All the inhabitants had abandoned the town. Dionysos had heard a good report of the Ligurian coast, and thither he steered, and was welcomed by his countrymen who had settled there half a century before.

But the Ligurians did not relish this great migration, and they resolved on massacring the new arrivals, and of taking advantage of the celebration of the Floral Games for carrying out their plan. Accordingly they sent in their weapons through the gates of Marseilles, heaped over with flowers and boughs, and a party of Ligurians presented themselves unarmed, as flocking in to witness the festival. But other Ligurian girls beside Gyptis had fallen in love with and had contracted marriages with the Greeks, and one of these betrayed the plot. Accordingly the Phocœans closed their gates, and drawing the weapons from under the wreaths of flowers, slaughtered the Ligurians with their own arms.