Montpellier

“ Montpellier (66) , capital of Hérault, France, on the Lez, 6 m. from the Gulf of Lyons, 30 m. SW. of Nîmes, is a picturesque town, containing a cathedral, a university, picture-gallery, libraries, and other institutions, and has been a centre of culture and learning since the 16th century; it also manufactures chemicals, corks, and textiles, and does a large trade in brandy and wine. ”

“ The principal public buildings are the palace of justice—a modern structure, the theatre and the prefecture, also modern. Montpellier possesses old houses of the 15th and 16th centuries. The Lez is canalized so as to connect Montpellier with the canal du Midi and with the sea at Palavas. The town has a considerable trade in wine, brandy, fruit and silk. The principal industrial establishment is a manufactory for candles and soap. ”

“ LETTER XII NICE, December 6, 1763.
DEAR SIR,—The inhabitants of Montpellier are sociable, gay, and good-tempered. They have a spirit of commerce, and have erected several considerable manufactures, in the neighbourhood of the city. People assemble every day to take the air on the esplanade, where there is a very good walk, just without the gate of the citadel: but, on the other side of the town, there is another still more agreeable, called the peirou, from whence there is a prospect of the Mediterranean on one side, and of the Cevennes on the other. ”

“ What to-day is the cathedral of Montpellier was built from 1364 to 1367 as a monastery church, so that it hardly falls within our scope. But if architecturally the city of Montpellier is of lesser importance, it has been for long centuries the intellectual stronghold of the Midi, and we know that cathedrals are built with more than stones. Montpellier’s school of medicine was famous in the XII century. The city was free of Albigensian taint; no trading town was more flourishing during the XIII century. ”

“ The general characteristics of the imitation, size and bombast, are well epitomised in the principal statue of Montpellier's fine Champ de Mars, which represents the high-heeled and luxurious Louis XIV in the unfitting armour of a Roman Imperator, mounted on a huge and restive charger. Such affectation in architectural subjects is the death-blow to all real beauty and originality, and Montpellier has gained little from its Bourbon patrons except a series of fine broad vistas. No [Pg 242] city could offer greater contrast to the ancient and dignified classicism of Nîmes. ”

“ They had their exchange, their banks, their schools, their cemeteries, even their own wells for purposes of ablution. They worshipped in a magnificent synagogue, which in richness and beauty vied with the most splendid mosques, and from whose ceiling of aromatic woods were suspended hundreds of golden lamps. Not only had their hereditary commercial instincts made Montpellier a great and prosperous emporium, but their ingenuity was exhibited in the establishment of many important branches of manufactures. ”

“ He probably gained much by substituting Nice for Montpellier as a place to winter in, for although the climate of Montpellier is clear and bright in the highest degree, the cold is both piercing and treacherous. Days are frequent during the winter in which one may stand warmly wrapped in the brilliant sun and feel the protection of a greatcoat no more than that of a piece of gauze against the icy and penetrating blast that comes from "the roof of France." ”

“ There is a flourishing school of agriculture devoted to the study of wine and silk-culture. Montpellier is more celebrated, however, as an ancient city belonging to Aragon or to Navarre, before it finally became a French city in 1392. ”

“ Hence the supreme effort she is now making to obtain the control of education; hence the assertion by the Bishop of Montpellier of her 'absolute right to teach mankind.' She has, moreover, already tasted the fruits of this control in Bavaria, where the very liberality of an enlightened king led to the fatal mistake of confiding the schools of the kingdom to the 'doctors of Rome.'
The University of Montpellier, to the deans and faculties of which the above notification is addressed, is one of the oldest and most honored universities of Europe. ”

“ Within the last century it has been fashionable in England to give the name of Montpellier to many places, new streets, rows of houses, terraces, and gardens, where the situation has been supposed to have been at all favourable ”

“ The journey to Montpellier-le-Vieux formed no exception to the rule. Happy, thrice happy, those who can foot it merrily all the way!
The pedestrian has by far the easier task. Throughout the two hours' drive thither, and the somewhat shorter journey back, the horses have to crawl at a snail's pace, their hoofs being within an inch or two of the steep incline as the sharp curves of the corkscrew road are turned. The way in many places is very rough and encumbered with stones ”

“ The inhabitants of this town are said to be the liveliest people in France, and it is probably that circumstance which gave rise to this ridiculous story. My mother’s carriage having been sent on before us to this place, we now pursued our journey by land, and proceeded by the high road to Montpellier, a city very famous for the purity of its air, and on that account the resort of strangers in search of a better climate than their own. Hence it has given its name to so many places in England as a recommendation of the air. ”

“ The old hotels were usually more concentrated; but the school of medicine passed for one of the attrac- tions of Montpellier. Long before Mentone was dis- covered or Colorado invented, British invalids travelled down through France in the post-chaise or the public coach to spend their winters in the wonderful place which boasted both a climate and a faculty. The air is mild, no doubt, but there are refinements of mild- ness which were not then suspected, and which in a more analytic age have carried the annual wave far beyond Montpellier. ”

“ His entry into Montpellier was a sort of triumphal procession. In 1597 he began his ‘Ephemerides,’ a curious diary, in which he scrupulously records, not the events, but the studies of every day up to a few days before his death. The ‘Ephemerides’ are full of expressions of devotion, pious ejaculations, and earnest prayers, which remind one of the methodist diaries of the eighteenth century. They are the artless outpourings of an intensely religious soul. ”

“ LUCIE. It’s enough to give one a nightmare.
HOURTIN [rising, to Lucie] Forgive me. [To Brignac] I should have begun instead of ended by congratulating you on the success of your meeting.
Josephine enters with a bottle and glasses on a tray.
BRIGNAC. You must not go without drinking to it, then. Aha, I’m not from Chartres! Montpellier is my native town; close by Montpellier, at least. Palavas—Palavas-les-Flots. In my part of the country an honest man isn’t afraid of a glass of wine. Alicante, you know! ”

“ The air, blowing over the basin from a plain of wheat and olives (evergreens in this climate) , has a charming freshness. The Esplanade here is also a fine promenade, although the view which it commands is not so fine as that from the Peyroue. The manufactures of Montpellier are, verdigris, blankets and handkerchiefs; little trade going on. The climate is delightful, though now too warm for my taste. Every thing is much farther advanced here than at Aix. They have some very pretty gardens here, though nothing equal to what we see every day in England. The botanical garden is very small. ”

“ All that quarter of Nîmes has every reason to be proud of itself; it has been revealed to the world at large by copious photography. A clear, abundant stream gushes from the foot of a high hill (covered with trees and laid out in paths) , and is distributed into basins which sufficiently refer themselves to the period that gave them birth—the period that has left its stamp on that pompous Peyrou which we admired at Montpellier. Here are the same terraces and steps and balustrades, and a system of waterworks less impressive perhaps, but very ingenious and charming. ”

“ The University of Montpellier, at the time of our great Civil War, was much derided by the Paris Faculty for its laxity in granting degrees in medicine. The enemies of Montpellier said that a three-months’ residence, and the keeping of an act and opponency, sufficed to make a man a Bachelor of Medicine. The professors were accused of neglecting their lectures and selling their degrees ”

“ On 26th October 1289 Montpellier was raised by Nicholas IV. to the rank of a “studium generale,” a mark of favour which, in a region where papal influence was so potent, resulted in a considerable accession of prosperity. The university also now included a faculty of arts; and there is satisfactory evidence of the existence of a faculty of theology before the close of the 14th century, although not formally recognized by the pope before the year 1421. In the course of the same century several colleges for poor students were also founded. The university of Toulouse is to be Toulouse. ”

“ Espousing the principles of the Revolution in 1789, he was commissioned by the noblesse of the province to draw up the cahier (statement of principles and grievances) ; and the sénéchaussée of Montpellier elected him deputy to the states-general of Versailles; but the election was annulled on a technical point. Nevertheless in 1792 the new department of Hérault, in which Montpellier is situated, sent him as one of its deputies to the Convention which assembled and proclaimed the Republic in September 1792. ”

“ Both as sources of amusement and instruction, I frequently attended the lectures on chemistry, mineralogy, and botany, at the college, and had reason to feel gratified by the general attention paid me, both by the professors and students. Montpellier appears a most desirable situation for prosecuting a course of study, as it abounds with excellent public lectures, literary societies, and good libraries. ”

“ Wherever one goes in France among the cities and larger towns the ideas of big and eye-filling perspectives are aimed at by the municipal authorities and architects. Lyons, Nice, Orleans, Tours, Havre, Montpellier, Nîmes, Marseilles, to mention places that come readily into the mind, have all achieved something of the Parisian ideal, and even the more mediaeval towns, whenever an opportunity presents itself, expand into tree-shaded boulevards of widths that would make an English municipal councillor rub his eyes and gasp. ”

“ Maguelonne, the original bishopric, lies six miles from Montpellier on the Mediterranean. In ancient days it was a little island of volcanic formation, then in time an island in a swamp, connected artificially with the mainland. Climb to the flat stone roof of the ancient cathedral of St. Pierre, almost the only monument left standing here where civilization has followed civilization, and look across the lagoons that lie between France and the solitary dead city. Europe and the present seem no longer to exist in this the most aloof, self-effaced, most philosophic spot in the world. ”

“ Guillaume Pellicier, Bishop of Maguelonne—or rather then of Montpellier itself, whither he had persuaded Paul II. to transfer the ancient see—was a model of the literary gentleman of the sixteenth century; a savant, a diplomat, a collector of books and manuscripts, Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac, which formed the original nucleus of the present library of the Louvre; a botanist, too, who loved to wander with Rondelet collecting plants and flowers. ”

“ I will place myself at your disposal at Montpellier on any day and at any hour that may be most convenient to you. We shall name four persons of literary standing to give us three subjects with which we are to deal for twenty-four hours. We shall be shut up together. ”

“ The after part of the day we spent in great heat on the journey to Montpellier, along roads of which you would say, “ça n'a pas de nom!” and the description of which is wearisome—I continually believed we should be upset—and over bridges which looked like fabrics simply designed to help the carriage and the people down into the rivers over which they were scrambled together—built I cannot say. We seemed to be in a wild and newly-inclosed country. At Bishop Eliott's lovely country seat all was again cultivated and beautiful—a continuation of the romantic and luxurious district around Maçon ”

“ Strange that a neighbourhood so weird should have exercised only a wholesome influence on the character of the people! As far as we can judge, no franker, cheerier, more straightforward folks are to be found in France, to say nothing of that little fact of white assizes, so creditable to the department.
Perhaps the fine prospect framing in Montpellier-le-Vieux is best appreciated as we walk back to the farm, the mind not then being full of expectancy. ”

“ We discovered an open-air restaurant located upon an attractive place. The garçon, after receiving a preliminary pourboire, served us so well that we returned there the next day.
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Everybody who visits Montpellier will remember the Promenade de Peyrou which rises above the town. The scenic display is great. Only a few miles away, and in clear view, tosses the restless Mediterranean. The prospect made us realize how far south we had come since the starting of our tour from Berlin. ”

“ Perhaps these pages may tempt a stray sketcher or lover of wild flowers to follow my route, but the peasant-owner of Montpellier-le-Vieux, although reaping a fair harvest from his unique possession, will not certainly become a millionaire through the patronage of Messrs. Cook, Gaze and Caygill. And, truth to tell, it is not even every ardent lover of natural beauty who would be held captive here. It requires a peculiar temperament to appreciate this gray, silent, fantastic world of stone. When once within its precincts, our mood is not precisely that of delight or exhilaration ”