the wide countrysides of europe sum themselves up in central cities: municipalities inheriting from rome. the lesser towns group round the larger; the bishops of the lesser suffragan to metropolitan of the greater cities, as it was fixed in the roman order which constantine inherited from diocletian and which everywhere stamps the west with the framework of the fourth century. these great cities are not only the heads and inspirers of their provinces, they are also the gathering places of armies; the contrast and the fellowship between them is especially seen when either is the capital of a wide plain below a mountain range. then each becomes the depot and the goal in turn of invading forces, each stands for the national fortunes upon either side of the passes. so, for the great alps, you have augsburg and milan; so for the vosges, strasburg and nancy; so for the pyrenees, saragossa and toulouse.
no two cities in europe are more representative of their provinces or stand better for symbolising the nature of their land. from the towers of each the[pg 266] long line of the pyrenees may be traced, especially in early autumn mornings when the sky is clear with the approaching cold and when the first snow has fallen upon the summits. from toulouse the dark northern escarpment runs along the southern horizon in a wall, surprisingly level and seeming tiny in its long stretch or belt of grey; from saragossa, much further off and more rarely the white strips and patches can be caught behind the nearer foothills, the whole in a glare of sunlight full upon it, like a desert tilted up; you just see them over dry, treeless plains, and immediately the sun rises they are lost in the hot haze. the pyrenees thus stand between the two cities and belong to each, and the legends of the mountain regard now one, now the other, or, as in the song of roland, both combined (for the horn of roland as he died was heard southward in saragossa, northward in toulouse), and the smoke of each may just be seen or guessed from certain heights, from passes that look southward into aragon or northward into aquitaine.
alone of the central bishoprics of these hills they are united by a road, and have so been united for two thousand years. characteristically, in the true spirit of the pyrenees, there is but that one great road between them. it takes men, and has taken them since the legions made it, up by huesca and jaca and so over the summus pyrenæus, the "somsport," then down by the deep valley of bearn to oloron, to pau, to tarbes, and down the river bank to toulouse.[pg 267] all the armies have taken it. through this paved gap went the first frankish kings, still wild, wandering south for spoil, and through it in a tide poured the mohammedan host that so nearly seized upon europe. all such marchings brought up under the walls of one or other of the cities: saragossa for ever besieged from the north, toulouse beating off the raids from the south, fight similar wars. each has its river, and the river of each is the life of the two provinces on either slope of the mountains; the ebro of aragon, the garonne of aquitaine. each has its port: the one barcelona, the other bordeaux; and in each valley there is separation of thought and custom—something like hostility—between the inland city and the commerce of the sea. each was for long the centre of a nation, each afforded the title of a great house. aragon was built up under its princes, from that remote age when the chieftain of a few mountain clans began to fight his way south against the infidels till the light grew strong upon the twelfth century and alphonso fixed himself and the faith upon the ebro. toulouse grew under its counts to be almost a nation, ruling everything from the cevennes to the pyrenees, and making a rallying place, schools, law courts, and an imperial middle for all the fields of the garonne.
so far the parallel between these twin cities holds; but the test of any appreciation of them is contrast.
the landscape of saragossa is a baked plain, ill-watered and reflecting up to heaven the fierce sun of[pg 268] spain like a plate of bronze. the landscape of toulouse is of fields and meadows with many trees. the ebro trickles under the great bridge of saragossa for weeks together; then perhaps dies altogether, becoming rather a stagnant pool or two than a river; then, in spate, rises high and threatens the piles, roaring against them, and suddenly sinks again. the garonne runs in a broad, even stream, shallow, but full and never lacking water; it is already placid as it sweeps under the great bridge of toulouse. saragossa became the capital of a true kingdom whose language, traditions, and above all whose chivalrous aristocracy were its own. toulouse went under in the false adventure of the albigensian schism. saragossa was mohammedan, a sort of northern bastion of islam, till far into the development of the middle ages: it did not re-enter christendom till 1118. the first crusade was long past, england was all norman, while yet this city was governed by asiatic ideas in contempt of europe. toulouse, always christian, rose against the unity of christendom. saragossa in those struggles got a great hero and his legend, a man who fighting now for islam and now for us built up an epic, the cid campeador, the "challenger." toulouse has no heroes. saragossa became a pivot of steadfast faith, round which turned and on which reposed the reconquest of spain by men of our race. toulouse was—and to-day still is—perpetually seeking new things and divergence in europe: a sort of smouldering[pg 269] fire. to-day full of denials of things sacred yesterday, dogma, the family, property, all the foundations. saragossa lies indifferent, ready to become (as it is becoming) more wealthy and careless of these philosophical quarrels.
the great churches of the two towns are in violent contrast too. at toulouse these are all of one pattern and old. the place where st. saturninus, the evangelist of the city, died—the church of the "toro," the bull (for a bull dragged him to death through the streets of the city)—is of small roman brick, plain, steadfast. the vast cathedral to which his body was translated is of that same brick, and all the arches are roman, round and small. the dominican church is the same; a stranger sometimes takes one for the other. in saragossa the cathedral is stamped with the fervour of the reconquest. it is crammed with detail and with infinite carving. it is very dark, high and silent, and at the same time, with its wealth of creation and of figures, magical. toulouse has no monument of faith other than those similar early simple and huge temples. saragossa has the colour, the tinsel, and the gorgeousness of the late renaissance in the gilded basilica of the pilar.
religion, which is at once the maker and the expression of states, differs utterly in mood between one city and the other. in toulouse there is war. the men who deny and the men who affirm are at it with all the weapons of our time, as six hundred[pg 270] years ago they were at it with swords. you buy a newspaper, and ten to one the leading article will be an affirmation or a denial of the creed—signed by some famous name. in saragossa you may buy newspapers for a month and get nothing but the common news, two days old. mass is crammed at toulouse, empty in saragossa. there are enemies of the mass in power at toulouse, numerous, vigilant, convinced. in saragossa a few eccentrics or none. toulouse would persecute one way or the other had it a power separate from the state. saragossa was always tolerant; of its few murders one was the popular murder of an inquisitor. there is something that sleeps in saragossa for all its liveliness and wealth and air. there is something that wakes and prowls in toulouse for all its ancient walls and green things growing upon ruins as they grew in rome.
these are the two cities as i know them. often upon a height upon the pyrenees i have thought how one lay beneath me to the left, the other to the right, the end of a chance journey. all human tracks from the mountains seem to lead down like water-courses to one or the other place, and travel flows of its own weight to the sunlit market-place of saragossa or to the capitol of toulouse from every saddle in the hills. you may be in the cerdagne (which is catalan) or in roncesvalles (which is basque), but if you are on foot and wish to go far the roads will bring you insensibly to the great[pg 271] town on the ebro; you may be as far west as st. jean-pied-de-port or as far east as ax, but on the northern slope insensibly you will be driven to toulouse. the two cities are the reservoirs of life on either slope of the hills, and each holds, as it were, a number of threads, which are paths and roads radiating out to the high crossings of the chain.
and, as i consider the two towns, whether near them as i lately was or here at home, i find almost as great a pleasure in imagining their future as in remembering their long past and the sharp picture of their present time. the provinces of europe develop, but they do not change their identity. if it be paradoxical to suggest a wealthy saragossa and a fanatical toulouse, yet it is not out of keeping with the revolutions of europe. saragossa is on the road to wealth in a country which is rapidly accumulating; toulouse is well on the road to fanaticism and religious war. one can see toulouse with great artists and fierce rhetoric standing out against some reaction of thought in the republic or captured by the flame that has set fire to lourdes; one can see saragossa dragged into the orbit of barcelona, drifting with the rising wealth of mediterranean commerce, forgetting altars, and sharing the mere opulence of the catalans. such thought leads one to fantastic guesses; it is provoked by the modern character of these two great, unwritten, ill-known pyrenean towns in one of which the chief quarrel of[pg 272] our time is so actively pursued, in the other of which lies all the new promise of spain. and that reminds me. saragossa has no song of its own; toulouse has one called "if the garonne had only wished, she might."
so much for saragossa and toulouse.
