United States or American Samoa ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It has not been preserved in lava like Pompeii, and its streets and houses, its ramparts and castle, have become fragmentary, not through the sudden destruction, but through the gradual withdrawal, of a population. It is not an extinguished, but a deserted city; more deserted far than even Carcassonne and Aigues-Mortes, where I found so much entertainment in the grass-grown element.
It was wonderful there, and strangely, almost terribly still. Once the sea had washed the feet of the cliff, dim ages ago. Now my eyes had to travel far to the Mediterranean, where Marseilles gloomed dark against the burnished glimmer of the water. I could see the Etang de Berre, too, and imagine I saw the Aurelian Way, and gloomy old Aigues-Mortes, which we were to visit later.
At length the unwilling crusaders, stimulated by repeated exhortations and by the example of Louis, set forward on their march from all the provinces, and directed their course toward the ports of Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles.
Between Toulouse and Tarbes the scenery is quite unlike that of the Gard and the Aude. Instead of the interminable vineyards round about Aigues-Mortes and Carcassonne, we gaze here upon a varied landscape. Following the Garonne with the refrain of Nadaud's famous song in our minds "Si la Garonne avait voulu,"
Ten thousand prisoners this was all that remained of the crusade that had started eighteen months before from Aigues-Mortes. Nevertheless the lofty bearing and the piety of the king still inspired the Mussulmans with great respect. A negotiation was opened between him and the Sultan Malek-Moaddam, who, having previously freed him from his chains, had him treated with a certain magnificence.
On arriving at Aigues-Mortes about the middle of May, Louis found nothing organized, nothing in readiness, neither crusaders nor vessels; everything was done slowly, incompletely, and with the greatest irregularity. At last, on the 2d of July, 1270, he set sail without any one's knowing and without the king's telling any one whither they were going.
He started from Paris on the 16th of March, 1270, a sick man almost already, but with soul content, and probably the only one without misgiving in the midst of all his comrades. It was once more at Aigues-Mortes that he went to embark. All was as yet dark and undecided as to the plan of the expedition. Was Egypt, or Palestine, or Constantinople, or Tunis, to be the first point of attack?
You may walk round the enceinte of Aigues-Mortes, both outside and in; but you may not, as at Carcassonne, make a por- tion of this circuit on the chemin de ronde, the little projecting footway attached to the inner face of the battlements.
M. Topin indicates that the other French ports of the Mediterranean were not then "disponibles," and that Aigues-Mortes was the most eligible spot for an embarkation. Behind the straight walls and the quiet gates the little town has not crumbled, like the Cite of Carcassonne. It can hardly be said to be alive; but if it is dead it has been very neatly embalmed.
You may walk round the enceinte of Aigues-Mortes both outside and in; but you may not, as at Carcassonne, make a portion of this circuit on the chemin de ronde, the little projecting footway attached to the inner face of the battlements.
Word Of The Day