and Spanish borders – afterward carried still farther into Naples and Britain – finds its most important and striking monument of central France in the Château of Polignac, only a few miles from Le Puy. This to-day is but a ruin, but it rises boldly from a depressed valley, and suggests in every way – ruin though it be – the mediæval stronghold that it once was.
Originally it was the seat of the distinguished family whose name it bears. The Revolution practically destroyed it, but such as is left shows completely the great extent of its functions both as a fortress and a palace.
These elements were made necessary by long ages of warfare and discord, – local in many cases, but none the less bloodthirsty for that, – and while such institutions naturally promulgated the growth of Feudalism which left these massive and generous memorials, it is hard to see, even to-day, how else the end might have been obtained.
Auvergne, according to Fergusson, who in his fact has seldom been found wanting, "has one of the most beautiful and numerous of the 'round-Gothic' styles in France … classed among the perfected styles of Europe."
Immediately to the southward of Le Puy is that marvellous country known as the Cevennes. It has been commonly called sterile, bare, unproductive, and much that is less charitable as criticism.
It is not very productive, to be sure, but a native of the land once delivered himself of this remark: "Le mûrier a été pendant longtemps l'arbre d'or du Cevenol." This is prima-facie evidence that the first statement was a libel.
In the latter years of the eighteenth century the Protestants of the Cevennes were a large and powerful body of dissenters.
A curious work in English, written by a native of Languedoc in 1703, states "that they were at least ten to one Papist. And 'twas observed, in many Places, the Priest said mass only for his Clerk, Himself, and the Walls."
These people were not only valiant but industrious, and at that time held the most considerable trade in wool of all France.
To quote again this eighteenth-century Languedocian, who aspired to be a writer of English, we learn:
"God vouchsafed to Illuminate this People with the Truths of the Gospel, several Ages before the Reformation… The Waldenses and Albigenses fled into the Mountains to escape the violence of the Crusades against them… Cruel persecution did not so wholly extinguish the Sacred Light in the Cevennes, but that some parts of it were preserved among its Ashes."
As early as 1683 the Protestants in many parts of southern France drew up a Project of non-compliance with the Edicts and Declarations against them.
The inhabitants in general, however, of the wealthy cities of Montpellier, Nîmes and Uzès were divided much as factions are to-day, and the Papist preference prevailing, the scheme was not put into execution. Because of this, attempted resistance was made only in some parts of the Cevennes and Dauphiné. Here the dissenters met with comfort and assurance by the preachings of several ministers, and finally sought to go out proselytizing among their outside brethren in affliction. This brought martyrdom, oppression, and bloodshed; and finally culminated in a long series of massacres. Children in large numbers were taken from their parents, and put under the Romish faith, as a precaution, presumably, that future generations should be more tractable and faithful.
It is told of the Bishop of Alais that upon visiting the curé at Vigan, he desired that forty children should be so put away, forthwith. The curé could find but sixteen who were not dutiful toward the Church, but the bishop would have none of it. Forty was his quota from that village, and forty must be found. Forty were found, the rest being made up from those who presumably stood in no great need of the care of the Church, beyond such as already came into their daily lives.
It seems outrageous and unfair at this late day, leaving all question of Church and creed outside the pale, but most machination of arbitrary law and ruling works the same way, and pity 'tis that the Church should not have been the first to recognize this tendency. However, these predilections on the part of the people are scarcely more than a memory to-day, in spite of the fact that Protestantism still holds forth in many parts. Taine was undoubtedly right when he said that it was improbable that such a religion would ever satisfy the French temperament.
Limousin partakes of many of the characteristics of Auvergne and Poitou. Its architectural types favour the latter, and its topographical features the former. The resemblance is not so very great in either case, but it is to be remarked. Its chief city, Limoges, lies to the northward of the Montagnes du Limousin, on the banks of the Vienne, which, through the Loire, enters the Atlantic at St. Nazaire.
In a way, its topographical situation, as above noted, accounts far more for its tendencies of life, the art expression of its churches, and its ancient enamels and pottery of to-day, than does its climatic situation. It is climatically of the southland, but its industry and its influences have been greatly northern.
With the surrounding country this is not true, but with its one centre of population – Limoges – it is.
II
L'ABBAYE DE MAILLEZAIS
Maillezais is but a memory, so far as its people and power are concerned. It is not even a Vendean town, as many suppose, though it was the seat of a thirteenth-century bishopric, which in the time of Louis Quatorze was transferred to La Rochelle.
Its abbey church, the oldest portion of which dates from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, is now but a ruin.
In the fourteenth century the establishment was greatly enlarged and extensive buildings added.
To-day it is classed, by the Commission des Monuments Historiques, among those treasures for which it stands sponsor as to their antiquity, artistic worth, and future preservation. Aside from this and the record of the fact that it became, in the fourteenth century, the seat of a bishop's throne, – with Geoffroy I. as its first occupant, – it must be dismissed without further comment.
III
ST. LOUIS DE LA ROCHELLE
The city of La Rochelle will have more interest for the lover of history than for the lover of churches.
Its past has been lurid, and the momentous question of the future rights of the Protestants of France made this natural stronghold the battle-ground where the most stubborn resistance against Church and State was made.
The siege of 1573 was unsuccessful. But a little more than half a century later the city, after a siege of fourteen months, gave way before the powerful force brought against it by Cardinal Richelieu in person, supported by Louis XIII.
For this reason, if for no other, he who would know from personal acquaintance the ground upon which the mighty battles of the faith were fought will not pass the Huguenot city quickly by.
The Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle naturally might not be supposed to possess a very magnificent Roman cathedral. As a matter of fact it does not, and it has only ranked as a cathedral city since 1665, when the bishopric was transferred from Maillezais. The city was in the hands of the Huguenots from 1557 until the siege of 1628-1629; and was, during all this time, the bulwark of the Protestant cause in France.
The present cathedral of St. Louis dates only from 1735.
Its pseudo-classic features classify it as one of those structures designated by the discerning Abbé Bourassé as being "cold-blooded and lacking in lustre."
It surely is all of that, and the pity is
