If this were the case (and having lived some years in the South of France I can say that there is at least some truth in Murray’s assessment), why did people go there in such numbers? Especially when they went on to read that another plague in that part of the world was that of
mosquitoes, which, to an inhabitant of the North, unaccustomed to their venomous bite, will alone suffice to destroy all pleasure in travelling. They appear in May, and last sometimes to November; and the only good which the mistral effects is that it modifies the intensely hot air of summer, and represses, momentarily, these pestilential insects. They are not idle by day, but it is at night that the worn-out traveller needing repose is most exposed to the excruciating torments inflicted by this cruel insect. Woe to him who for the sake of coolness leaves his window open for a minute; attracted by the light they will pour in by myriads. It is better to be stifled by the most oppressive heat than to go mad. Even closed shutters and a mosquito curtain, with which all beds in good inns are provided, are ineffectual in protecting the sleeper. A scrutiny of the walls, and a butchery of all that appear, may lessen the number of enemies; but a single one effecting an entry, after closing the curtains and tucking up the bed-clothes with the utmost care, does all the mischief. The sufferer awakes in the middle of the night in a state of fever, and adieu to all further prospect of rest. The pain inflicted by the bites is bad enough, but it is the air of triumph with which the enemy blows his trumpet, the tingling, agonising buzzing which fills the air, gradually advancing nearer and nearer, announcing the certainty of a fresh attack, which carries the irritation to the highest pitch.
I have never read a more perfect description of their tactics and torments, and Murray goes on to tell us that the pain and swellings last for several days, and that there is no remedy but patience. ‘The state of the blood at that time, however, considerably modifies or increases the amount and duration of suffering. It is said to be the female only which inflicts the sting.’
Another danger is from scorpions, which are sometimes brought into the house with the firewood, and might also be found ‘in the folds of the bed-curtains or sheets. Instances, however, of persons being bitten by this foul insect are very rare indeed: from its nature it is fearful, and, when discovered, endeavours to run away and hide itself.’
Having fed us the disadvantages first, in no uncertain terms, Murray brings out a somewhat sweeter pilclass="underline" ‘There is one little corner of Provence which combines remarkable picturesque scenery with a climate so serene and warm, and well protected from the injurious blasts, that its productions are almost tropical in their nature. This is a narrow strip bordering on the blue Mediterranean, extending from Toulon to Nice. It is a favoured region, the true garden of Provence, the real paradise of the Troubadours, sheltered from the injurious mistral …’
In such early days the approach to the South of France was on steamboats down the Rhône, being ‘almost without exception managed by English engineers’, starting every morning from Lyons. The inn at Tain was classified as ‘middling’, and one downriver at Valence as ‘not at all bad, with some pretensions to English comforts, but rather dear. Try here the sparkling St. Peray, an excellent wine, but inferior to Champagne.’ There was also a boarding house, kept by two English Protestant ladies.
Later, one could go by railway, and in 1890 the inn at Tain was described as ‘a mere cabaret’. If one survived the rigours of the journey, there was, near Avignon, ‘a well-managed Hydropathic establishment and pleasant boarding house, in a handsome château. Part of it is of the 14th century. It is under the direction of Dr. Masson, and may be found a pleasant half-way house for invalids going to or returning from a more southern climate.’
In whatever town our traveller stops Murray never fails to inform him of the unpleasantnesses which took place during the French Revolution. At Avignon, Marshall Brune, though Lord Exmouth’s passport was in his pocket, ‘was murdered by an infuriated mob of Provençal royalists, who, on receiving news of the Battle of Waterloo, and instigated by hatred of Napoleon, rose upon their adversaries, and committed all sorts of atrocities’.
On another page we are treated to an account of the infamous Glacière: ‘The tower, so called from an ice-house in a garden near it, stands close to the tower of the Inquisition. Into its depths were hurled no less than 60 unfortunate and innocent persons, females as well as men, by a band of democrats in Oct. 1791. The prisoners were dragged from their cells, and poignarded or struck down; but some of the victims were precipitated from above before life was yet extinct; and to finish the deed, quick-lime in large quantities was thrown down upon the mangled heap of dead and dying.’
Romance, as if the opposite face of the coin to death, was always well represented in Victorian guidebooks: ‘Continuing along the Rue de Lices, we shall find the last relic of the Church of the Cordeliers, in which Petrarch’s Laura, a lady of the family of De Sade, was buried. The church, destroyed at the Revolution, is now reduced to a fragment of the tower and side walls.’
Arthur Young, at the end of the previous century, described Laura’s tomb as ‘nothing but a stone in the pavement, with a figure engraved on it, partly effaced, surrounded by an inscription in Gothic letters, and another on the wall adjoining, with the armorial bearings of the De Sade family’. Murray adds that this ‘has entirely disappeared, having been broken open, and the contents of the tomb scattered, by the Revolutionists’.
Vaucluse, where John Stuart Mill stayed, was the site of Petrarch’s retirement, and ‘the Hôtel de Petrarque et Laure is rather a café frequented by Sunday excursionists. Formerly the landlord was a good cook, and, judging from the Strangers’ Book, the fried trout and eels, soupe à la bisque, and coquille d’écrevisse, made a far deeper impression on some visitors than the souvenir of Laura; Petrarch himself has mentioned the fish of the Sorgues with praise.’
Going southwest into the Languedoc — then, as now, the ‘wrong’ side of the Rhône — we may refer to the impressions of Charlotte Eaton, the intrepid lady-traveller quoted earlier. She found that part of France looking dull, uninteresting and neglected: ‘… the want of wood, of corn, of pasture, of animals, and even of birds; its general desertion both by the proprietor and the peasant, and the absence of life and human habitation, have a most melancholy effect, and accord but too well with the heartless and discontented appearance of the people, who herd together in villages composed of long, narrow streets of miserable hovels, the filth and wretchedness of which I shall never forget. Not a single neat cottage by the way-side, or rural hamlet, or snug farm-house is to be seen; even the château is rare, and when it appears, it is in a state of dilapidation and decay, and the very abode of gloom; not surrounded with pleasure-grounds, or woods, or parks, or gardens, but with a filthy village appended to its formal court-yard. How often did the cheerful cottages, and happy country seats of our smiling country, recur to my mind as I journeyed through the bepraised, but dreary scenes of Languedoc and Provence!’
Nîmes was the birthplace of Nicot, Murray says, a physician who first introduced tobacco into France (called after him nicotiana, or nicotine); and of Guizot, the historian, ‘whose father, an advocate, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror’.