St. Remy of the fiftieth anniversary of Gounod's score of Mistral's great poem, "Mireille." But we did not at all realize the fullness of the Provençal reverence for "the Master," as they call him, until we reached Arles. To the Provence Mistral is a god – an Apollo – the "central sun from which other Provençal singers are as diverging rays." Whatever Mistral touches is glorified. Provençal women talk with a new grace because Mistral has sung of them. Green slopes and mossy ruins are viewed through the light of Mistral's song. A Mistral anniversary is celebrated like a Declaration of Independence or a Louisiana Purchase. They have even named a wind after him. Or perhaps he was named after the wind. Whichever way it was, the wind has taken second place and the people smile tenderly now, remembering the Master, when its name is mentioned.
I believe Mistral does not sing in these later days. He does not need to. The songs he sang in youth go on singing for him, and are always young. Outside of France they are not widely known; their bloom and fragrance shrink under translation. George Meredith, writing to Janet Ross in 1861, said: "Mistral I have read. He is really a fine poet." But to Meredith the euphonies of France were not strange.
And Mistral has loved the Provence. Not only has he sung of it, but he has given his labor and substance to preserve its memories. When the Academy voted him an award of three thousand francs he devoted it to the needs of his fellow poets;5 when he was awarded the Nobel prize he forgot that he might spend it on himself, and bought and restored an old palace, and converted it into a museum for Arles. Then he devoted his time and energies to collecting Provençal relics, and to-day, with its treasures and associations, the place has become a shrine. Everything relating to the life and traditions of the Provence is there – Roman sculpture, sarcophagi, ceramics, frescoes, furnishings, implements – the place is crowded with precious things. Lately a room of honor has been devoted to the poet himself. In it are cases filled with his personal treasures; the walls are hung with illustrations used in his books. On the mantel is a fine bust of the poet, and in a handsome reliquary one finds a lock of hair, a little dress, and the cradle of the infant Mistral. In the cradle lies the manuscript of Mistral's first and greatest work, the "Mireille." The Provence has produced other noted men – among them Alphonse Daudet, who was born just over at Nîmes, and celebrated the town of Tarascon with his Tartarin. But Daudet went to Paris, which is, perhaps, a sin. The Provence is proud of Daudet, and he, too, has a statue, at Nîmes; but the Provence worships Mistral.
Chapter V
THE ROME OF FRANCE
There is no record of a time when there was not a city at Arles. The Rhone divides to form its delta there – loses its swiftness and becomes a smooth highway to the sea.
"As at Arles, where the Rhone stagnates," wrote Dante, who probably visited the place on a journey he made to Paris. There the flat barrenness of the Crau becomes fertile slopes and watered fields. It is a place for men to congregate and it was already important when Julius Cæsar established a Roman colony and built a fleet there, after which it became still more important – finally, with its one hundred thousand inhabitants, rivaling even Marseilles. It was during those earlier years – along through the first and second centuries – that most of the great building was done, remnants of which survive to this day. Prosperity continued even into the fourth century, when the Christian Emperor Constantine established a noble palace there and contemplated making it the capital of his kingdom.
But then the decline set in. In the next century or two clouds of so-called barbarians swept down from the north and east, conquering, plundering, and establishing new kingdoms. Gauls, Goths, Saracens, and Francs each had their turn at it.
Following came the parlous years of the middle period. For a brief time it was an independent republic; then a monarchy. By the end of the fifteenth century it was ready to be annexed to France. Always a battle ground, raided and sacked so often that the count is lost, the wonder is that any of its ancient glories survive at all. But the Romans built well; their massive construction has withstood the wild ravage of succeeding wars, the sun and storm of millennial years.
We knew little of Arles except that it was the place where there was the ruin of a Roman arena, and we expected not much from that. The Romans had occupied France and had doubtless built amusement places, but if we gave the matter any further thought it was to conclude that such provincial circus rings would be small affairs of which only a few vestiges, like those of the ruined Forum, would remain. We would visit the fragments, of course, and meantime we drifted along one side of the Place du Forum in the morning sunlight, looking in show windows to find something in picture postals to send home.
What we saw at first puzzled, then astonished us. Besides the pictures of Mistral the cards were mostly of ruins – which we expected, perhaps, but not of such ruins. Why, these were not mere vestiges. Ephesus, Baalbec, Rome itself, could hardly show more impressive remains. The arena on these cards seemed hardly a ruin at all, and here were other cards which showed it occupied, filled with a vast modern audience who were watching something – clearly a bull fight, a legitimate descendant of Nero's Rome. I could not at first believe that these structures could be of Arles, but the inscriptions were not to be disputed. Then I could not wait to get to them.
We did not drive. It was only a little way to the arena, they told us, and the narrow streets looked crooked and congested. It was a hot September morning, but I think we hurried. I suppose I was afraid the arena would not wait. Then all at once we were right upon it, had entered a lofty arch, climbed some stairs, and were gazing down on one of the surviving glories of a dead empire.
What a structure it is! An oval 448 by 352 feet – more than half as big again as a city block; the inner oval, the arena itself,6 226 by 129 feet, the tiers of stone seats rising terrace above terrace to a high circle of arches which once formed the support for an enormous canvas dome.
All along the terraces arches and stairways lead down to spacious recesses and the great entrance corridor. The twenty thousand spectators which this arena once held were not obliged to crowd through any one or two entrances, but could enter almost anywhere and ascend to their seats from any point of the compass. They held tickets – pieces of parchment, I suppose – and these were numbered like the seats, just as tickets are numbered to-day.
Down near the ringside was the pit, or podium, and that was the choice place. Some of the seats there were owned, and bore the owners' names. The upper seats are wide stone steps, but comfortable enough, and solid enough to stand till judgment day. They have ranged wooden benches along some of them now, I do not see why, for they are very ugly and certainly not luxurious. They are for the entertainments – mainly bull fights – of the present; for strange, almost unbelievable as it seems, the old arena has become no mere landmark, a tradition, a monument of barbaric tastes and morals, but continues in active service to-day, its purpose the same, its morals not largely improved.
It was built about the end of the first century, and in the beginning stags and wild boars were chased and put to death there. But then Roman taste improved. These were tame affairs, after all. So the arena became a prize ring in which the combatants handled one another without gloves – that is to say, with short swords – and were hacked into a mince instead of mauled into a pulp in our more refined modern way. To vary the games lions and tigers were imported and matched against the gladiators, with pleasing effect. Public taste went on improving and demanding fresh novelties. Rome was engaged just then in exterminating Christians, and the happy thought occurred to make spectacles of them by having them fight the gladiators and the wild beasts, thus combining business and pleasure in a manner which would seem to have been highly satisfactory to the public who thronged the seats and applauded and laughed, and had refreshments served, and said what a great thing Christianity was and how they hoped its converts would increase. Sometimes, when the captures were numerous and the managers could afford it, Christians on crosses were planted around the entire arena, covered with straw and pitch and converted into torches. These were night exhibitions, when the torches would be more showy; and the canvas dome was taken away so that the smoke and shrieks could go climbing to the stars. Attractions like that would always jam an amphitheater. This one at Arles has held twenty-five thousand on one of those special occasions. Centuries later, when the Christians themselves came into power, they showed