Glories of Spain Part 39

From the outer gateway a long avenue of trees and buildings led to the monastery. Far down you looked upon a second gateway with a wonderful view of receding arches and outlines. Between the two gateways on the left were the workshops of the artisans of the days gone by, now closed and desolate. Just before reaching the second gateway, on the right, we found the small fifteenth-century chapel of St. George, with the original stone altar and groined and vaulted roof. On the left within the gateway was an ancient hospital and chapel, both crumbling into picturesque decay: and on higher ground, the palace of the bishops, where they lived and ruled in the days of their glory.

Exquisite outlines of crumbling archways and Gothic windows surrounded us. Over all was a wonderful tone of age, soft and mellow. Towers and steeples rose in clear outlines against the sky, outlines still perfect and substantial. But the outer buildings, which had been palatial dwellings, were mere empty sh.e.l.ls overgrown with weeds, given over to the bats and the owls. A wonderful bit of moulding or fragment of an archway, Roman or Gothic as might happen, showed the beauty and magnificence of what had once been, and would still exist but for the barbarities of man. Some of the outer walls might have defied a millennium of years. It was a dead world of surpa.s.sing beauty and refinement: a series of crumbling arches and moss-grown fragments of gigantic walls. We had it all to ourselves; the perfect repose was unbroken; no restless forms and loud voices intruded; no jarring element broke the spell of the centuries. We were in the very atmosphere of the Middle Ages. In days gone by the monastery must have been of regal splendour, as it was unlimited in power.

At last we reached the convent doorway and a bell went echoing through the silence. No one responded, and we began to fear that perhaps the custodian had gone off like our night porter in Lerida, taking the keys with him. A second summons produced echoing footsteps, and the door was opened by a comfortable looking woman, who was neither a ruin nor a fragment nor specially antique.

"Excuse me for keeping you waiting," she said. "I am not the guardian, only his humble wife. In fact he calls me his chattel. I object to the term. We did not expect any one here to-day, and he has just gone out to do a little commission."

But we discovered that this was a stretch of the imagination. In reality the old man, seized with a fit of laziness, was only then dressing. He appeared on the scene almost at once, somewhat to his spouse's confusion. But she made the best of it, and patting her capacious ap.r.o.n and stiffening her neck, walked off with a proud step and a jaunty air to her special quarters.

"We have had no one here for a fortnight," said the guardian. "I began to think we might advertise ourselves as closed for the winter season, like the seaside casinos. Quite worn out with doing nothing, I thought I might as well spend the morning in bed for a change. Of course just as an umbrella brings suns.h.i.+ne, so my staying in bed brought visitors."

"But your wife said that you had gone out to do a commission," cried Francisco, with all a boy's direct statement of the truth.

"Did she indeed now," replied the old guardian calmly. "That was over-zeal on her part; done with a good motive, but still wrong. I shall have to chastise her."

"How shall you do it?" asked Francisco. "Beat her?"

"We don't beat women, young senor," replied the guardian severely. "My chastis.e.m.e.nt takes the form of admonition."

"When I wanted punis.h.i.+ng, my father used to beat me with a cane,"

returned Francisco. "I don't think admonition would have done me any good at all. I don't suppose it will do your wife any good. On the very next occasion she'll tell another white lie. Much better give her a caning and have done with it."

"Did your father ever cane his wife?" asked the old man drily.

"She would have been much more likely to cane him," returned Francisco emphatically. "Does your wife beat you?"

The old man felt he was getting the worst of it; was being driven into a corner by this enfant terrible; and took refuge in silence.

This interesting conversation took place just inside the doorway, where we found ourselves lost in the beauty of the scene. A court with round arches on either side resting on pillars with small capitals. Above them the walls were in their rough, rude state, full of picturesque decay, but here as in many parts of the interior much had been restored.

Nevertheless, so much of the original remains that the restoration does not offend. It has been well done. Before us, at the end of the short entrance-court was a large and splendid archway, and beyond we had a distant view of the Gothic cloisters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ENTRANCE TO CLOISTERS: POBLET.]

The interior was so immense, the pa.s.sages were so intricate, we could never have found our way without the custodian. Nothing could be lovelier than the half-ruined cloisters. The large exquisite windows were of rich pointed work, seven bays on each side, pillars and tracery either almost all gone, or partly restored. In one corner of the quadrangle was a hexagon glorieta enclosing the fountain that in days gone by supplied monks and bishops with water. Weeds and shrubs and stunted trees grew about it; a rare wilderness. Above rose the outlines of battlemented walls; of ruined pointed windows, lovely in decay; of crumbling stairways, rich mouldings and pointed roofs. The cloister pa.s.sages opened to enormous rooms. On the east side was the chapter-house, supported by four exquisite pillars, from which sprang the groining of the roof; the doors and windows were specially graceful and refined; the floor was paved with monumental stones of the dead-and-gone abbots, many of the inscriptions effaced by time.

Near this was the large refectory with pillars and pointed vault. Up the staircase, which still remains, we pa.s.sed to the palace del Rey Martin; King Martin the Humble as he was called; and large and baronial in days gone by the palace must have been, its very aspect transporting one to feudal times. Below the palace were enormous vaults where the wine was once stored: great vats and channels, and a whole series of processes to which the wine was subjected. Those must have been baccha.n.a.lian days, and supplies never failed. All the rooms--the Chocolateria, where the abbots took their chocolate, the Novitiate, of enormous dimensions, the Library, the room of the Archives, the room that contained the rich monastery treasure, another that had nothing but rare MSS., some of which are scattered but many more destroyed--all these rooms seemed countless, and each had its special charm and atmosphere.

It was impossible to enter the refectory with its vaulted roof lost in the semi-obscurity which reigned, without conjuring up a vision of monks and abbots who in past centuries feasted here and quaffed each other in draughts of rich Malvoisie. In the palace del Rey Martin, we imagined all the regal pomp and splendour in which the king delighted. In the wine vaults we beheld the wine running in deep red streams, traced it to the refectory table, and noticed the rapidity with which it disappeared before the worthy abbots. In the vaults it pa.s.sed through every stage, from the crus.h.i.+ng of the grape to the final storing in barrels.

On one side of the cloisters was the partly restored church, high and wide, with a magnificent nave of seven fine bays, so slightly pointed as to be almost Romanesque. We were lost in wonder at the size of the building, its simple grandeur, even as a partial ruin. Open to it from the north side is the great sacristy, saddest room of all. For here we find a solitary tombstone on which is inscribed the name of Philip Duke of Wharton, who came over to the monastery, a lonely exile, and died at the age of thirty-two, without friend or servant to soothe his last moments, knowing little or nothing of the language of the monks who surrounded him. Most melancholy of stories.

In the church, on each side of the high altar were remains of once splendid tombs. They are now defaced, and the effigies have altogether disappeared. Here was once the tomb of Jayme el Conquistador, which we had looked upon that very morning with our amiable sacristan on the left of the Coro in Tarragona cathedral. Its ancient resting-place in the great monastery church is now an empty s.p.a.ce.

The aisle behind the high altar contains five chapels, and behind these outside the church lies the cemetery of the monks, a beautiful and ideal spot with long rows of round arches one beyond another, so that you seem to be looking into vistas of countless pillars. Above the arches and pillars are walls of amazing thickness, with windows and projections, all ending in moss-grown, crumbling outlines. Below, small mounds and tombstones mark the resting-place of the dead. Here they sleep forgotten; no sign or sound penetrates from the outer world, and those who visit them are comparatively few.

The whole monastery is nothing but an acc.u.mulation of crumbling walls still strong and majestic, of church and cloister, of palace and palatial courts, of refined Gothic windows with broken tracery, of ancient stairways and flying arches. Over all was the exquisite tone of age.

It was originally a Cistercian monastery, dating from the middle of the twelfth century. Its abbots were bishops, who lived in great pomp and almost unlimited wealth and power. "Which they used according to their lights," said our custodian; "sometimes wisely, sometimes wastefully. I should like to have been cellarman to the old abbots in the days when the vaults were full of wine and a few quarts a day more or less were never missed."

"Is there any legend connected with its origin?"

"Indeed, yes, senor. When was there ever an old inst.i.tution in Spain without its legend? As the senor knows and sees, the monastery dates back to the year 1150. But long before that, in the days of the Moors, a hermit named Poblet took refuge here that he might pray in peace. An emir found him one day, captured him and put him into prison. Angels came three times over and broke his chains. The emir grew frightened, repented, set the hermit at liberty, and gave him all the surrounding territory in this fertile valley of La Conca de Barbera. In 1140 the body of Poblet was miraculously discovered. It was nothing but a heap of bones, and so I suppose they were labelled, or how could they have identified them--but I don't know about that. The bones of course became sacred and had to be duly honoured. So Ramon Berenguer IV. built the convent of El Santo; the bones were interred under the high altar, and the king gave enormous grants to the clergy. The place grew celebrated above all others in Catalonia; it become a sort of Escorial, and here the kings of Aragon for a long time were buried."

"And the bones of the hermit--where are they?"

"n.o.body knows," replied the guardian, shaking his head wisely. "They may pretend, but n.o.body knows. Is it likely? And what does it matter for a few human bones? Just as if they could work miracles or do any good. A poor old hermit, with all our weaknesses upon him!"

"Then you don't believe the legend?"

"Not I, senor. I believe much more in the jovial times the old abbots indulged in. At least we have a capacious refectory and inexhaustible wine vaults to prove what fine banquets they had in the Middle Ages. We have come down to poor times, in my opinion. The world in general seems very much what this monastery is--a patched-up ruin."

"If the world were only half as beautiful," said H. C., "we should spend our years in a dream."

"It would not be my sort of dream, senor," returned the old guardian drily. "I have been here for twenty years, and confess I would give all the ruins in the world for a good and gay back street in Madrid or Barcelona. To you, senor, who probably come from the great cities of the world and mix with gay crowds--well, I dare say you think this paradise.

To me it is a dreary wilderness."

It was not to be expected that the old custodian would appreciate all the beauty and refinement, all the ecclesiastical, regal and historical atmosphere that surrounded it with a special halo. And perhaps twenty years' contemplation of the outlines would have made many a better man long for a change of scene. Custom stales and familiarity breeds contempt. But not twice twenty years could have made us unmindful of the singular beauty of Poblet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONKS' BURIAL GROUND: POBLET.]

We had got round to the lovely cloisters again, and Francisco declared it was time to display the luncheon-basket. So there, in the silent cloisters, surrounded by all the tone and atmosphere and outlines of the early centuries, we spread our feast.

The old guardian was equal to the occasion and produced table and chairs. Those he placed in the quadrangle, under the blue skies. The lovely glorieta was on one side of us; on the other, by looking through the broken tracery down the silent pa.s.sage, we caught the outlines of the great church; a wonderful view and vision.

Our host, better than his orders, had packed up two bottles of wine, and H. C. in the largeness of his heart presented the guardian with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g b.u.mper of choice Laffitte, that nearly half emptied one of the bottles. Like a true courtier, he bowed and drank to our health and happiness, and when the wine had disappeared, patted his fine rotundity with affectionate appreciation.

"Senor," he cried, "this is better than anything I ever tasted. A bottle of this a day would reconcile me even to the solitude of Poblet. Surely the old abbots never had anything equal to this--even when they drank Malvoisie. It has set the blood coursing through my veins as I have not felt it for twenty years. For such as this some people would sell their souls."

The excellent fumes must have penetrated even to the guardian's private rooms, for at this moment, with an air of great innocence, the wife appeared upon the scene. Francisco declared she had heard the cork drawn and arrived for a share of good things. With true gallantry, but a sinking at the heart for the diminis.h.i.+ng Laffitte, H. C. poured out another b.u.mper and offered it to the lady, whose proportions matched her husband's. It was accepted with a reverence, and if appreciation were a reward for the empty bottle, H. C. had his to the full. Then the comfortable pair retired to the cloister pa.s.sage, where the guardian had his own table and chairs and display of photographs, and there they sat down and contemplated life under Laffitte influence. Judging by their expressions they were in the enjoyment of infinite beat.i.tudes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUINS OF POBLET.]

It was a calm, quiet, delicious hour, far removed from the world. For the moment we were back in the centuries, picturing scenes of the past.

Days when Poblet rose from small things to great; when its abbots became mitred; when they could ask nothing of the kings of Aragon that was not immediately granted. The kings delighted to honour them. Wealth flowed into the treasury; power multiplied. At last they ruled as despots. The kings built them a palace within the hallowed precincts. Side by side dwelt humble monk and crowned head. Humble? Where the regal will clashed with the monkish, the king went on his knees and gave way. It became the Escorial of Aragon, a thousand times more beautiful and perfect than that other Escorial reposing on the hill-slopes of Castile.

Here it pleased the kings to be buried, and close to the monks' cemetery reposed the dead who had held the sceptre. No special tomb or carved sarcophagus marked their rank. In death all should be equal. Or if there were tombs decorated with gold and enriched with sculpture, they were placed in the great church. What more indeed could they want than these wonderful arcades reposing under the pure skies of heaven.

But the monks grew stiff-necked and proud; waxed rich and powerful, grasping and avaricious. Since kings bowed down to them, they were the excellent of the earth. Humility fled away. They were paving the road to their own downfall. At last they would only admit those of highest rank into their community. Of course they upheld the kingly power whilst trying to make it subservient to themselves. The throne was their stronghold: Republicanism meant confiscation. The revolutions of the world have attacked the religious orders before all else with hatred and violence.

Time rolled on. Ferdinand VII. died, and in the War of Succession they became politically unpopular. Socially they had long been disliked for their oppression of the peasantry; but strong and rich, the feeling had to be cherished in silence. The monks were Carlists to the backbone.

At length, in the year, 1835, Poblet was attacked by the peasantry, who came down like a furious avalanche upon the building that for its beauty should have been held twice sacred.

By this time, too, a change for the better had come over the monks. Much wealth and influence had gone from them; they were quietly doing good.

But the traditions of the past are slow in dying. The mob believed the monastery was a vast treasure-house; untold riches lay buried in fict.i.tious graves, hidden in tombs and hollow pillars. It was now that the men of Reus proved capable of fiendish acts of excitement. The monks were driven from their refuge and many were cruelly ma.s.sacred. The pent-up fury of ages was let loose like a torrent. No power could stay the thirst for so-called revenge. It was their hour; a short-lived hour; but how much was accomplished! The monastery was ruined. The mob, infuriated at finding no heaps of gold, no hidden treasures, tore down pillars, defaced monuments, desecrated the church, left the beautiful traceried windows in ruins, and then set fire to the building.

The sun had risen on as fair and peaceful a scene as earth could show; it set on the saddest of devastations. Yet, thanks to the solid masonry, much escaped. For the monks it was lamentation and mourning and woe. It has been recorded that the sun went down in a deep-red ball, reflection of the blood of the martyred monks. But the people are superst.i.tious. We have seen it ourselves sink over the Spanish plains also a fiery-red ball, intense and glowing, when the world was at peace. Yet, it must have been a special sunset on that memorable day of 1835, for it is recorded that long after the sun disappeared clouds shot to and fro in the sky like swords of flame. But this, too, we have gazed upon in days of peace and quietness.