legions; and to him was entrusted the defence of Italy. He hastily raised a new army, hurried into the province, crossed the crau, and planted himself at the extreme western end of the chain of Les Alpines at Ernaginum, now S. Gabriel, whence he could watch the enemy; and whilst there he employed the soldiery in digging a canal from the sea to the Durance, by means of which his camp could be supplied from Marseilles with munitions of war and provisions.
The Cimbri and Teutons, on leaving Spain, divided their forces. They decided that the Cimbri should cross into the plains of Italy by the passes of the Noric Alps, whereas the Ambrons and Teutons should advance across the Maritime Alps by the Col de Tende.
Marius remained inert, and observed the enemy cross the Rhone without making an effort to prevent the passage, to the surprise and indignation of his troops. The barbarians in vain attempted to draw him into an engagement. Then they defiled along the Roman road to the north of Les Alpines, passing under the palisades of the camp, shouting derisively, “We are on our way to Rome! Have you any messages for your wives and children?” Six days were spent in the march past.
With difficulty Marius restrained his men. Only when the last of the Ambrons, who brought up the rear, had gone by did Marius break up his camp. He had along with him his wife, Julia, and a Syrian sorceress named Martha. This woman, gorgeously attired, wearing a mitre, covered with chains of gold, and holding a javelin hung with ribbons, was now produced before the soldiery, and, falling into an ecstasy, she prophesied victory to the Roman arms. Marius now moved east, following the horde, keeping, however, to the high ground, the summit of the limestone cliffs, and he came suddenly upon the Ambrons at Les Milles, four miles to the south of Aix. At this point red sandstone heights stand above the little river Are, and from under the rocks ooze innumerable streams. Here the Ambrons were bathing, when the Roman legionaries appeared above.
Marius saw that the Ambrons had become detached from the Teutons, who were pushing on to Aix. He had now no occasion to restrain his soldiers, who poured down the hill and cut the enemy to pieces.
Then he thrust on in pursuit of the Teutons. He knew the ground thoroughly. The road beyond Aix ran through a basin – a plain bordered by mountain heights, those on the north sheer precipices of yellow and pink limestone, those on the south not abrupt, and clothed with coppice and box shrubs. He detached Claudius Marcellus to make a circuit to the north of the limestone range, with the cavalry, and to take up a position where the road emerges from the basin, at its eastern limit. He, with the main body of his army, by forced marches outstripped the Teutons, be moving to the south, out of sight in the brushwood, and came out where stands now the town of Trets. Thence he advanced down the slope towards the plain, which is red as blood with sandstone and clay, and where were tile works, Ad Tegulata. The Teutons had already encamped, when they saw the Romans. An engagement at once began. Whilst it was in progress, Marcellus came down in their rear with his cavalry. The result was a rout and a slaughter. Few were spared among the fighting men. Over 100,000 were slaughtered or made prisoners. Their wives and children, their camp, and all their plunder, fell to the victors. So great was the carnage, that the putrefying remains of the Germans gave to the spot the name of Campi Putridi, now corrupted into Pourrières.
A monument was afterwards erected where the fiercest of the battle raged, the foundations of which remain; and here was found the statue of Venus Victrix, now in the Museum of Avignon; and at Pourrières a triumphal arch was raised that still stands to commemorate the victory. On the crag to the north, commanding the field, a temple of Victory was erected that in Christian times became a chapel of Ste. Victoire, and the great deliverance in B.C. 120 is still commemorated by the lighting of bonfires on the heights, and by a pilgrimage and mass said in the chapel on March 23rd. A little convent was erected near the chapel, that is now in ruins; the existing chapel dates from only 1661. At the Revolution it was allowed to fall to decay, but has since been restored. The height of Ste. Victoire is noted as the resort of a special kind of eagle, resembling the golden eagle, but more thickset, and with “white scapulars.”
It may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott has placed one of the scenes of Anne of Geierstein at the Monastery of Ste. Victoire.
Near the chapel is the cavern of Lou Garagoul:
“In the midst of this cavernous thoroughfare,” says Sir Walter, “is a natural pit or perforation of great, but unknown, depth. A stone dropped into it is heard to dash from side to side, until the noise of its descent, thundering from cliff to cliff, dies away in distant and faint tinkling, less loud than that of a sheep’s bell at a mile’s distance. The traditions of the monastery annex wild and fearful recollections to a place in itself sufficiently terrible. Oracles, it is said, spoke from thence in pagan days by subterranean voices, arising from the abyss.”
The pit is, in fact, one of these avens so commonly found on the limestone causses. The description is somewhat overdrawn, but Sir Walter had never seen the place, and all he knew of it was second hand.
With Aix, King Réné is inseparably associated, that most unfortunate Mark Tapley of monarchs claiming to be King of Jerusalem, Aragon, of Naples and of Sicily, of Valencia, Majorca, Minorca, of Corsica and Sardinia – to wear nine crowns, and yet not possessing a rood of territory in one of them; Duke of Anjou and Bar, but despoiled of his dukedoms, and reduced to only his county of Provence.
Sir Walter Scott pretty accurately describes him: —
“Réné was a prince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the fine arts, which he carried to extremity, and a degree of good humour, which never permitted him to repine at fortune, but rendered its possessor happy, when a prince of keener feelings would have died of despair. This insouciant, light-tempered, gay, and thoughtless disposition, conducted Réné, free from all the passions which embitter life, and often shorten it, to a hale and mirthful old age. Even domestic losses, which often affect those who are proof against mere reverses of fortune, made no deep impression on the feelings of this cheerful old monarch. Most of his children had died young; Réné took it not to heart. His daughter Margaret’s marriage with the powerful Henry of England was considered a connexion much above the fortunes of the King of the Troubadours. But in the issue, instead of Réné deriving any splendour from the match, he was involved in the misfortunes of his daughter, and repeatedly obliged to impoverish himself to supply her ransom.”
In the Cours Mirabeau at Aix may be seen a statue of him by David of Angers, but it is worthless as a bit of portraiture; which is indefensible, as several genuine portraits of the king exist; one is in the cathedral along with his second wife, in the triptych of the Burning Bush; another in the MS. of Guarini’s translation of Strabo, in the library at Albi; a third, in private hands, has been engraved in the Count de Quatrebarbe’s edition of King Réné’s works.
Réné has got into such a backwater of history that probably not many English folk know more about him than that he was the father of the unfortunate Margaret, Queen of Henry VI., sketched for us by Shakespeare in an unfavourable light, and more of him than what Scott is pleased to say in Anne of Geierstein. But no man has so taken hold of Provençal affection as has Réné.
“If to the present day,” says a local historian, “the thought of this King makes a Provençal heart beat with tender love, it is due to this: that never was there a sovereign who showed greater consideration for his people, was more sparing of their blood and money, more desirous of promoting their happiness. Simple and modest in all his tastes, enjoying less revenue than most of the Seigneurs who were his vassals, he was to be seen every winter sunning himself in the midst of his subjects, who idolised him.”
Réné, Duke of Anjou and Maine, was prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy, when news reached him that the inheritances of his brother and of Queen Joanna II. of the Two Sicilies, had fallen to him. Married to Isabella, daughter of Charles of Lorraine, he had claimed that duchy on the death of his father-in-law, and in opposition to Anthony, Count of Vaudemont, nephew
