About Four Miles From Arles, As You Drive North-
Ward Toward The Alpilles, Of Which Alphonse Daudet
Has Spoken So
Often, and, as he might say, so in-
timately, stand on a hill that overlooks the road
the very considerable
Ruins of the abbey of Mont-
majour, one of the innumerable remnants of a feudal
and ecclesiastical (as well as an architectural) past
that one encounters in the South of France; remnants
which, it must be confessed, tend to introduce a cer-
tain confusion and satiety into the passive mind of
the tourist. Montmajour, however, is very impressive
and interesting; the only trouble with it is that,
unless you have stopped and retumed to Arles, you
see it in memory over the head of Les Baux, which
is a much more absorbing picture. A part of the
mass of buildings (the monastery) dates only from the
last century; and the stiff architecture of that period
does not lend itself very gracefully to desolation: it
looks too much as if it had been burnt down the year
before. The monastery was demolished during the
Revolution, and it injures a little the effect of the
very much more ancient fragments that are connected
with it. The whole place is on a great scale; it was
a rich and splendid abbey. The church, a vast
basilica of the eleventh century, and of the noblest
proportions, is virtually intact; I mean as regards
its essentials, for the details have completely vanished.
The huge solid shell is full of expression; it looks
as if it had been hollowed out by the sincerity of
early faith, and it opens into a cloister as impressive
as itself.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 220 of 276
Words from 60104 to 60383
of 75796
