Nîmes

“ In general Nîmes is poor; its only treasures are its Roman remains, which are of the first order. The new French fashions prevail in many of its streets; the old houses are paltry, and the good houses are new; while beside my hotel rose a big spick-and-span church, which had the oddest air of having been intended for Brooklyn or Cleveland. ”

“ An English, an American, town which should have such a monument, such a square, as this, would be a place of great pretensions; but like so many little villes de province in the country of which I write, Nimes is easily ornamental. What nobler ornament can there be than the Roman baths at the foot of Mont Cavalier, and the delightful old garden that surrounds them? All that quarter of Nimes has every reason to be proud of itself; it has been revealed to the world at large by copious photography. ”

“ Certainly Nîmes, a bustling, prosperous city cannot approach Aix or Arles in interest of story and romance, and she has aside from her Roman remains nothing to detain us.
I find that I am not alone in my opinion of these Roman remains. James in his Little Tour in France speaks of them as monotonous and brutal, and not at all exquisite. He referred especially to the amphitheatres at Nîmes and Arles. They are cold and cheerless even under a brilliant sunlight ”

“ This great green spring, ever flowing, mysterious even nowadays, is the great feature of Nimes, and this fountain certainly awoke the veneration of the old Gauls, who believed it to be a direct gift of the gods. One follows up a canal between streets planted with trees, and looks down into the pure water like liquid green glass, then suddenly reaches a garden. ”

“ No more at Nîmes than at Avignon could we get an inkling of information as to the best means of reaching the Causses.
We are but fairly off on our way to Le Vigan when we find a welcome change in the atmosphere. The air is cooler, the heavens show alternating cloud and sky; we feel able to breathe. Past olive grounds and mulberry plantations, ancient towns cresting the hill-tops, cheerful farmsteads dotted here and there—these are the pictures descried from the railway. ”

“ Nîmes, unlike Arles (the Gallic Rome) , is still a prosperous and growing city, a popular place of residence and full of modern life. Its streets, shops, and open spaces, adorned with modern statues, many of great merit, are highly appreciated by all classes of its inhabitants, who delight in the beauty of their town. The older families from the smaller towns around recognise the attractions of the largest city in the lower valley of the Rhone, and seek it as a place of residence and retirement. ”

“ Père Ambroise was popular; hardly a parish priest in Nîmes was more welcome as a visitor, and none were less feared. Children ran after the amiable father, babies crowed for him, invalids were glad to hear his cheery voice. He was not intended as a persecutor or a martyr; he was round and the world was round, and both revolved comfortably in their own orbits. Père Ambroise was lazy, and, Mère de Dieu, these wretched Camisards were as fleet of foot as mountain goats! The good priest preferred a good dinner and a soft bed in Nîmes. ”

“ The road from Nimes, for a distance of fifteen miles, is superb; broad enough for an army, and as white and firm as a dinner-table. It stretches away over undulations which suggest a kind of harmony; and in the curves it makes through the wide, free country, where there is never a hedge or a wall, and the detail is always exquisite, there is something majestic, almost processional. ”

“ The amphitheatre at Arles, unlike that of Nîmes, was, if the evidence of the height of the wall of the Podium enclosing the Arena is trustworthy, used for the great fights of lions, tigers, elephants, and other animals, as well as for combats between the gladiators—elaborate and extravagant spectacles that riveted the attention and ministered to the enjoyment of the Roman world for a period extending over seven hundred years. The immense arenas at Arles and Nîmes are proof of the prosperity of these two colonies. ”

“ Wherever the traveller around Europe now reaches a place that makes instant appeal; where harsh winds are screened away and blazing sunshine filters through feathery foliage; where all Nature beckons one to halt and rest awhile—there he is practically certain to find Roman remains. The wealthy Romans wintered at Nice and Cannes and St Raphael; took the waters at Baden-Baden and Aix in Savoy; made sporting centres of Treves on the Moselle and Ronda in Andalusia; dallied by the marble baths of Nîmes.
Nîmes had captured Rivière at sight. ”

“ When one comes to the Roman period the remains are so splendid that many are satisfied with what they have seen in Provence, and do not feel impelled to see Rome before they die. Nîmes stands first among the towns of Provence for the splendour of the Roman structures it has preserved. ”

“ Nîmes covers a large area, owing to the fact that its population is housed in low buildings, not in the lofty tenements which are found in most of the industrial towns of France. The central and oldest part is encircled by shady boulevards, which occupy the site of the old fortifications. Here are to be found the majority of the Roman remains for which Nîmes is remarkable. The most celebrated is the amphitheatre, the best preserved though not the largest in France. ”

“ The day after I had bade them farewell, I slept at Nimes, where I spent three days in the company of a naturalist: M. de Seguier, the friend of the Marquis Maffei of Verona. In his cabinet of natural history I saw and admired the immensity and infinity of the Creator’s handiwork.
Nimes is a town well worthy of the stranger’s observation; it provides food for the mind, and the fair sex, which is really fair there, should give the heart the food it likes best. ”

“ Over them on the hill-top rises the Tour Magne, a Roman watch-tower which formed part of the defences of the city. Stretching across the deep and rocky bed of the river Gard, about 14 miles to the north, is the vast aqueduct which carried the water-supply of Nîmes across the obstruction caused by the river. The three superimposed tiers of arches filling the wide space make one of the most imposing of all the Roman works that have come down to the present time.
Arles is a serious rival to Nîmes. ”

“ They had loved when young, they came together in the autumn of their lives.
In the heart of the Church of Nemausus there was not forgetfulness of its heroes.
If the visitor at the present day to Nîmes will look about him, he will find two churches, both recently rebuilt, in place of, and on the site of, very ancient places of worship, and the one bears the name of St. Baudille. If he inquire of the sacristan, “Mais qui, donc, était-il, ce saint?” then the answer given him will be: “Baudillas was a native of Nîmes, a deacon, and a martyr.” ”

“ The “Pont du Gard,” which was one of Agrippa’s greatest engineering feats, remains the most colossal Roman monument in France. Remoulins, the little village that lies nearest to the bridge, is easily reached by train either from Nîmes or Avignon, and the road along the banks of the Gard is full of rural charm, for it passes vineyards, homesteads, ploughed fields, and green pastures. Great steep hills rising up on either side of the river enclose the valley, and when one suddenly catches sight of the towering masonry of the aqueduct that spans the river the sensations aroused are bewildering. ”

“ The Roman remains in Nimes are held famous everywhere. Nowhere, least of all in Rome, are the relics of that great people of builders to be seen in such perfection. There is the amphitheatre, smaller, but more perfect even, than that at Arles. There is the Maison Carrée, a temple almost quite perfect, and of surpassing proportional perfection. Small this temple is: it consists of thirty elegant Corinthian columns, ten of which are disengaged, and form the portico, whereas the remainder are engaged in the naos or sanctuary. No engraving can give an idea of its loveliness. ”

“ This view is, of course, remarkably fine, but I am ashamed to say I have not the smallest recollection of it; for while I looked into the brilliant spaces of the air I seemed still to see only what I saw in the depths of the Roman baths, - the image, disastrously confused and vague, of a vanished world. This world, however, has left at Nimes a far more considerable memento than a few old stones covered with water-moss. The Roman arena is the rival of those of Verona and of Arles; at a respectful distance it emulates the Colosseum. ”

“ From the hilltop behind the castle one looks over a country as rich as any in Provence. The Rhone glides through meadows, orchards, vineyards, and great mulberry plantations, past little red-tiled farmhouses, and long white roads lined by tall poplars and thickset hedges.
Orange is the gateway to Roman Gaul, and its two monuments are a magnificent introduction to the neighbouring towns of Arles and Nîmes. There are many curious streets and houses in the town, and the Hôtel de Ville, which stands in the principal square, is a pleasing bit of seventeenth-century architecture. ”

“ These matters concern the archeologist; and I felt here, as I felt afterward at Arles, that one of the profane, in the presence of such a monument, can only admire and hold his tongue. The great impression, on the whole, is an impression of wonder that so much should have survived. What remains at Nîmes, after all dilapidation is estimated, is astounding.
I spent an hour in the Arènes on that same sweet Sunday morning, as I came back from the Roman baths, and saw that the corridors, the vaults, the staircases, the external casing, are still virtually there. ”

“ It was half an hour before moonrise and the night was supremely still. The warm air of midsummer stirred not even a leaf on the trees. There was no sound but the footsteps of three persons walking through a mulberry grove at a short distance from the spot where the highroad from Nîmes turned off to St. Hippolyte. Mademoiselle and Babet, escorted by M. d’Aguesseau, were making their way slowly back to St. Cyr. They had been—at the peril of their lives—to one of the night meetings of the Church of the Desert and were returning; cautiously avoiding observation all the while. ”

“ More than that, the city of Nîmes took charge of his family and assured their future, as a fitting homage to the man whose life had been so nobly independent, so proudly self-supporting. The Roman colony could not bear to see Reboul's helpless relatives the pensionaries of a stranger, and the care it extended to them was delicately offered not as a boon but a right. People of all classes, all religions, all political opinions united in mourning their great compatriot. ”

“ If, gorged with prosperity, you have forgotten the past, the people of Nimes and Arles, of Narbonne and Bordeaux, of Toulouse and Chalons, do not forget it when they gaze on their ruined cities, their desolated cathedrals, their overthrown fortresses. ”

“ I have no intention of describing Nîmes—a city, perhaps, as familiar to my country-people as any in France; and, indeed, time only permitted of a glance at the beautiful Roman baths, a quite fairy-like scene, the exquisite little Greek temple, [Footnote: Colbert wished to move this lovely little temple to Versailles, bit by bit, and the Cardinal Alberoni demanded that it should be encased in gold.] known under the name of the Maison Carrée, and the amphitheatre. All these have been well and amply described for tourists elsewhere ”

“ I said to myself that though a Roman arena is one of the most impressive of the works of man, it has a touch of that same stupidity which I ventured to discover in the Pont du Gard. It is brutal; it is monotonous; it is not at all exquisite. The Arenes at Nimes were arranged for a bull-fight, - a form of recreation that, as I was informed, is much dans les habitudes Nimoises, and very common throughout Provence, where (still according to my information) it is the usual pastime of a Sunday afternoon. ”

“ From Nîmes to the Mediterranean the impressions are packed too thick. First the Rhone, with the castles of Tarascon and Beaucaire taunting each other across its yellow flood, Beaucaire from a steep cliff, Tarascon from the very brink of the river; then, after a short flight through olive-orchards and vineyards, the pretty leafy town of Saint Remy on the skirts of the Alpilles; and a mile to the south of Saint Remy, on a chalky ledge of the low mountain-chain, the two surviving monuments of the Roman city of Glanum. ”

“ On the hillside grow many sweet-smelling aromatic plants, and they tempt one to linger that one may bruise the leaves and so enjoy the fresh wholesomeness of the perfume. Below, at a dizzy distance, runs the Gard, the shores rich with woods over which now is a sort of mysterious bloom that seems in perfect keeping with the unseen Enchanted Castle filled with 218 exquisite works of art from all the quarters of the globe, that hides somewhere among the foliage a little lower down the stream.
Ascending to the level of the aqueduct one sees traces of its route over the hill on the way to Nimes. ”

“ But Nimes, that city with the heart of fire, was quiet; like the wounded who have lost the best part of their blood, she thought only, with the egotism of a convalescent, of being left in peace to regain the strength which had become exhausted through the terrible wounds which Montrevel and the Duke of Berwick had dealt her. For sixty years petty ambition had taken the place of sublime self-sacrifice, and disputes about etiquette succeeded mortal combats. ”

“ Provence in the Middle Ages and the days of the troubadours of course is profusely treated. Architecture also fares brilliantly. Besides the splendid classic remains at Arles, Nimes, St. Remy, Orange, there are churches of a style such as can be found in no other part of the world; a version of the Romanesque which is peculiar to the South of France. ”