Fréjus

“ The freedman of Pliny—Forum Julii—The Port of Agay—The Port of Fréjus—Roman castle—Aqueduct—The lantern of Augustus—The cathedral—Cloisters—Boy and dolphin—Story told by Pliny—The Chaine des Maures—Désaugiers—Dines with the porkbutchers of Paris—Siéyès—Sans phrase—Agricola—His discoveries. It was strange. The first person I thought of, on arriving at Fréjus, was not Julius Cæsar the founder of this old port—no, nor Agricola, a native of Fréjus, who is so associated with British history, especially with Scottish—no! ”

“ When the four vessels entered the harbor of Frejus, a signal at the mast-head of the Muiron informed the authorities on shore that Napoleon was on board. The whole town was instantly in commotion. Before the anchors were dropped the harbor was filled with boats, and the ships were surrounded with an enthusiastic multitude, climbing their sides, thronging their decks, and rending the air with their acclamations. ”

“ I go to-morrow to Fréjus, and from there to the islands of Lérins, where I may find, perhaps, the remains of the first Christian church of the West. I am more than half inclined to believe I shall find nothing at all. But one must follow one’s profession conscientiously, and examine everything of historical significance.
It is impossible to find anything dirtier and prettier than Marseilles. Dirty and pretty applies equally to the women of Marseilles. They all have expressive faces, lovely black eyes, beautiful teeth, tiny feet, and imperceptible ankles. ”

“ Nothing that lives assimilates what is foreign to its nature: nothing that lives survives dissection. We took Fréjus as Fréjus was, and not as we wanted it to be or thought it must be. We took the aerodrome with the hippodrome, the coal merchant with the Norman tower, the parrot with the gargoyle, the Hôtel de Ville with the cathedral, and the mermaids with the mole.
CHAPTER XIV SAINT-RAPHAEL
On the terrace of our little home at Théoule, a lover of the Riviera read what I had written about Fréjus. ”

“ To the south-west of Fréjus lies the Chaine des Maures, the outline of which is by no means so bold as that of the porphyry Esterel, but the mountains rise in sweeping lines from a broad and fertile plain covered and silvered with olives, growing out of rich red soil, like the old red sandstone of Devonshire. The red sandstone rocks through which the line passes are ploughed with rains. On the right appears the wonderfully picturesque little town of La Pauline, with an extensive ruined castle, and the walls and towers of the town in tolerable condition. ”

“ On the south of the port of Fréjus is an old castle. There must have existed there originally a nodule of rock, but out of this a platform has been formed artificially of earth gathered from the port, and this platform was converted in Roman times into a fort. On one side may be seen a curious contrivance for resisting the outward pressure of the earth heaped up within. ”

“ The amphitheatre of Frejus, to pass to a more dignified subject, is situated without the walls of the town, on the side by which we had entered from Toulon; and is sufficiently perfect to be interesting, though it must suffer by a comparison with the better known, and finer specimens of the same sort which exist. There is also a temple, and an arch, the latter known by the name of the Porte Dorée, neither of which possesses any thing remarkable when compared with the ruins of Nismes and Orange. ”

“ La Muy is a wretched village, whose tout ensemble is completed by a ruinous house of the Count de Muy: this, as well as his castle at Grignan, was destroyed in the Revolution, and the annexed property alienated from him. To Frejus 12 miles: the few last of which improve as to scenery. We saw cork trees for the first time, and a profusion of myrtle in hedges and bushes. There is something peculiarly stagnant and wo-begone in the appearance of Frejus, which, however, is in more strict poetical character with its Roman ruins, than the populous and wealthy streets of Nismes would be. ”

“ In Mediæval times a strong castle with circular towers was erected on the ancient basement, that also is now in ruins, the ledges where the old Roman wall ended and the Mediæval wall sprang at half the thickness of the former were, when I saw them, dense with white irises.
[Illustration: Aqueduct of Fréjus.]
Fréjus was supplied in Roman times with an aqueduct, the arches of which, broken and ruinous, still stretch across the plain, and were destined to convey into the town the waters of the Siagnole, from a distance of about fifty miles. The arcade is about forty-five feet high. ”

“ There is absolutely nothing of interest to the tourist in any of these little towns between Toulon and Fréjus. There is to be sure the usual picturesque church, which, if not grand or architecturally excellent, is invariably what artists call “interesting,” and there is always a picturesque grouping of roof-tops, clustered around the church in a manner unknown outside of France. ”

“ He had a slave, a Greek, named Zosimus, of whom he writes to his friend Paulinus, who had an estate at Fréjus: "He is a person of great worth, diligent in his services, and well skilled in literature; but his chief talent is that of a comedian. He pronounces with great judgment, propriety, and gracefulness; he has a very good hand too upon the lyre, and performs with more skill than is necessary for one of his profession. ”

“ Its scattered groupes recede from the eye up a solitary valley, interspersed with clumps of olive trees, and backed by pine forests, and the foreground derives a degree of wildness from the profusion of Spanish broom of an unusual size and beauty, with which its scattered blocks are fringed. We walked also to the small village of St. Raphael, a mile or two from the [231] town, which is the modern port of Frejus, and stands in what was formerly the main sea ”

“ The port has disappeared under sand, and is now nothing but a field and a beach."
If S. Raphael be devoid of antiquities and of history, at a little distance is Fréjus, that has both in abundance.
The ruins are many, but not beautiful; everything was built in a hurry, and badly built. The aqueduct was no sooner completed than it gave way and had to be patched up. The triumphal arch on the old quays is a shabby affair. The amphitheatre is half cut out of the natural rock. ”

“ Where the towns do not run into each other, an unbroken line of villas links them up. It is all the city—you cannot get away from that.
The road we follow to Fréjus was opened in 1903, a gift to the nation from the initiative and enterprise of the Touring-Club de France. The building of a tram line was fortunately forbidden. But with the railway and rapidly-developing use of the automobile, the little villages of the Estérel coast are being rapidly built up. Around the cape from Théoule, Le Trayas will soon rival Saint-Raphaël as a center for Estérel excursions. ”

“ André Hercule Cardinal de Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus (1653-1743) , was seventy-three years old, when he became Prime Minister, and remained in power till his death, at the age of ninety.—T.
[408] The War of the Polish Succession.—B.
[409] 29 May 1734 (Cf. Vol. I., p. 13) .—T.
[410] Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Maréchal Duc de Belle-Isle (1684-1761) , father of the Comte de Gisors and grandson of Fouquet (vide infra) , created a marshal of France, after meritorious services, in 1700. His finest feat of arms was his masterly retreat from Prague in 1742. ”

“ As Freya was also considered goddess of fecundity, she was sometimes represented as riding about with her brother Frey in the chariot drawn by the golden-bristled boar, scattering, with lavish hands, fruits and flowers to gladden the hearts of all mankind. ”

“ But Freyja did not know this.
Nobody spoke to her nor admired the necklace. They all went to the feast while Freyja sat at the door of the palace and mourned. The necklace sparkled in the sun and her tears dropped down and looked like jewels themselves. She arose and went to Odin and said:
“Let me go find my husband.” And Odin answered:
“Go, Freyja, and good fortune attend you.”
Freyja sprang into her chariot and began her search for her husband. She went to the houses in the big cities, and to the homes of the poor and destitute. “Is my husband here?” she asked everywhere. ”

“ Frey was silent. The king said: ‘Still I speak to thee, Frey; if thou canst give to men strength or power, then spare it not, and do what thou art able to do, and if thou sleepest, awake and defend thee, for now I will attack thee.’ He raised his hand and cut off Frey’s hand, but he did not move. Then he struck one blow after the other until he had cut asunder the whole idol....” (Flateyjarbók, I. Olaf Tryggvason) .
The gods were not the only beings worshipped, for we have some examples of men being worshipped after their death. ”

“ We have already seen that when the days of the week received their Germanic names it was Frigg who was equated with the Roman Venus; but in the Scandinavian mythology it is Freyja, not Frigg, who is the goddess of love. Snorri describes Freyja as riding in a chariot drawn by two cats, 'and wheresoever she rides to battle, she has half the slain and Odin the other half.' This association of Freyja with Odin, which seems to imply that Frigg was almost on the point of being displaced by a rival goddess, also appears in the verse for which Hjalti Skeggjason was found guilty of blasphemy. ”

“ In her father's old mansion.'"
OF THE GOD FREY, AND THE GODDESS FREYJA.
25. "Njord had afterwards, at his residence at Noatun, two children, a son named Frey, and a daughter called Freyja, both of them beauteous and mighty. Frey is one of the most celebrated of the gods. He presides over rain and sunshine, and all the fruits of the earth, and should be invoked in order to obtain good harvests, and also for peace. He, moreover, dispenses wealth among men. Freyja is the most propitious of the goddesses; her abode in heaven is called Folkvang. ”

“ The good Freyr, as pacific a god as ever lived, was quite indifferent to battles and fights; hence he gave his orders quietly to his faithful sword, while he remained comfortably seated at Odin’s table, enjoying his strong beer and the rarest wines. ”

“ In all that time, although the princess grew to be a lovely maiden, tall and stately, she still took pleasure in the tales that Freyo told her of the Apple Tree that grew up in the country quite close to the top of the earth. Now when these seven chests were shown at court, it was the opinion of wise men and artists from far and near that their equal could not be found in all the world. King Silversword was greatly pleased, and in reward he commanded that Freyo be made Duke of Freyoland. ”

“ FREYR and FREYJA. The name of the deity who was the symbol of the sun—to mean Seminator, the Fructifier, Freyja—the symbolical representation of the moon—means the Seminated, the Fructified; the original sig. is that of glad, joyful, imparting gladness, beautous, lovely. FRIGGA, prop. FRIGG. Grimm has shown that the root of this word is, if not strictly syn., at least very nearly allied with that of the word Freyja, and explains it to mean the Free, the Beauteous, the Winsome. ”

“ Frey, or Fro, as he was called in Germany, was the son of Niörd and Nerthus, or of Niörd and Skadi, and was born in Vana-heim. He therefore belonged to the race of the Vanas, the divinities of water and air, but was warmly welcomed in Asgard when he came thither as hostage with his father. As it was customary among the Northern nations to bestow some valuable gift upon a child when he cut his first tooth, the Æsir gave the infant Frey the beautiful realm of Alf-heim or Fairyland, the home of the Light Elves. ”

“ Fraud, one of the evil deities, was represented as a goddess with a human face and a serpent’s body, and at the end of her tail was a scorpion’s sting. She lived in the river Cocytus, and nothing but her head was ever seen.
Freyr (Frey′r) . The Scandinavian god of fertility and peace. The patron god of Sweden and Iceland.
Freyja (Frey′ja) . The Scandinavian Venus. The goddess of love.
Friga (Fri′ga) . The Saxon goddess of earthly enjoyments. The name Friday is derived from her. In Scandinavian mythology she is the goddess of marriage. ”

“ Freya, no longer an omnipotent goddess, but a frightened wife, trembled before his wrath, and begged the dwarfs to help her. And when one of them—the most hideous of all—promised that he would prevent the statue from speaking if Freya would but deign to smile upon him, the queen of the gods, who had no dread of ugly things, and whose heart was full of love and of pity, smiled her gentle smile on the piteous little creature who had never known looks of anything but horror and disgust from any of the deathless gods. ”

“ The multiplicity of forms under which essentially the same divinity presents itself in history and in popular belief may be illustrated by the mother-goddess of the Teutons. As Freyja she is the female counterpart of Freyr; as Nerthus of Freyr’s northern doublet, Njordr. When Wodan largely absorbs the elemental functions, she becomes his wife, as Frîja or Frigg. Through her association with the heaven-gods, she is herself a heaven-as well as an earth-goddess [366] , the Eostre of Bede [367] , as well as the Erce of the Anglo-Saxon ploughing charm [368] . ”

“ This peaceful occasion was the last on which I saw all these people assembled together; the charmingly fresh and resolute Freya, the innocently round-eyed old Nelson, Jasper, keen, long limbed, lean faced, admirably self-contained, in his manner, because inconceivably happy under the eyes of his Freya; all three tall, fair, and blue-eyed in varied shades, and amongst them the swarthy, arrogant, black-haired Dutchman, shorter nearly by a head, and so much thicker than any of them that he seemed to be a creature capable of inflating itself, a grotesque specimen of mankind from some other planet. ”