IV

Andnow let us give all our attention to the more military bridges. Brangwyn has studied them with the utmost care and interest; there are but few variations of the war-bridge that his art has not yet represented. Let us see, then, what his research has found.

1. This bridge from Bhutan has the same technique as the cantilever bridges of Kurdistan (p.74); but the gateway towers mark an advance. They are militant works, partly because they control the traffic, and partly because they are open below the eaves for archery and for other defensive warfare. Brangwyn suggests that gateway towers of this kind may have been brought to India by Darius Hystaspes (512B.C.) or by Alexander the Great (327B.C.). On this point there is no evidence. On the other hand, there seems to be no doubt that the timber gateways on Roman bridges in England, as in Gaul, were prepared for defence, though their main use was to limit the freedom of a public thoroughfare, invariably after sunset, and during the day in times of unrest. This was the first aim of defensive bridges, so the gateway towers in Bhutan are suggestive things to study. They are too light in structure to give us an idea of the bold and stern gateways built by the Romans with newly-felled trees; but yet they help usto realise vaguely what every young civilization must have done when it learnt from a free use of bridges that foes as well as friends were eager to pass without danger across rivers.

TIMBER BRIDGEPRIMITIVE TIMBER BRIDGE IN BHUTAN, INDIA

PRIMITIVE TIMBER BRIDGE IN BHUTAN, INDIA

Again, the earliest defensive bridges had another point in common with the primitive carpentry of Bhutan: they were made with tree-trunks resting on supports, and, when necessary, a part of their footways could be removed. Diodorus Siculus wrote a flaming account of a great bridge built by Semiramis over the Euphrates, rather more thantwo thousand years before the birth of Christ. After making due allowance for the frolicsome legends with which ancient history is enlivened, there are things worth noting in the enthusiasm of Diodorus. Herodotus attributed the same bridge not to Semiramis but to Nitocris, so evidence can be drawn from two authors. Pontists gather from the evidence that stone piers were connected by planks, which were taken up at night, just as the central part of a bridge in Bhutan could be removed as a military precaution. Diodorus draws entertaining pictures, and tries to prove that bridge-building was far advanced twenty centuries before our era began. If Semiramis collected architects and craftsmen from all the known civilizations, until at last she had at her beck and call a great host of capable servants, it is not surprising that she was able to build a fine bridge as well as to enlarge Babylon. The piers were grounded in deep water; their ends were protected by triangular buttresses; their stones were clamped together with thick bars of iron, which were soldered into the stones with molten lead. As for the superstructure, it was thirty feet wide, and all of wood—cedar, and cypress, and palm tree. In all this, probably, there is some exaggeration, but a famous bridge did exist at Babylon, and a combination of timber with stone piers was the most logical development from the simplest natural bridges—the fallen tree and the bridge of stepping-stones. Also it is likely enough that metal clamps were employed; iron was in vogue, and by using it in stonework under water anarchitect would feel less mistrustful of his cement and less anxious about the risks of floods. Further, it is quite probable that the entrance at each side was protected by a sort of drawbridge, because the times were lawless. Semiramis herself was put to death by her son Ninyas, and Ninyas in his turn wasmurdered.[119]

An important timber bridge with stone piers belongs to a handicraft more advanced than that in the bridges of Bhutan; it comes between the primitive inspiration of the Bhutan carpenters and the simplest arched bridges with plain gateway towers. It has not yet vanished from Europe, for a Gothic example exists at Thouars, in Deux-Sèvres, France, according to a photograph sold by Neurdein, of Paris. Another example crosses the Guadalaviar above Albarracin, in Aragon; and let us remember also that the tree bridge resting on stone piers has influenced some metal viaducts, such as Runcorn Bridge, near Liverpool, dating from 1868. In principle the construction is the same, timber being displaced by metal. At the end of its approach arches, where the metalwork begins, Runcorn Bridge has two gateways, each with twin turrets, and a great display of battlements and of machicolations. Although this make-believe of war has a farcical bad taste, like the assumed erudition that keeps dummy books in alibrary, yet Runcorn Bridge has a well-defined interest: it mimics a phase of military architecture which was evolved from such carpentry as to-day we find in Bhutan.

BRIDGE AT SOSPELDEFENSIVE BRIDGE AT SOSPEL

DEFENSIVE BRIDGE AT SOSPEL

2. Gateway Bridge at Sospel, in the Italy of France. This drawing illustrates very well the transition from the primitive bridges of Bhutan to a simple arched bridge guarded by a gatehouse of control. It is a poor little house, its architecture being less intelligent than that in the Bhutan gateway towers. In these there is cleverness enough to prove that the bridge represents a stale oldcustom which has lagged behind the advance of handicraft, whereas the bridge at Sospel is far in advance of the tawdry little gatehouse. A span separates the gatehouse from the town, and the roadway is not on the same level above both arches.

NARNI IN ITALYAT NARNI IN ITALY: THIRTEENTH CENTURY

AT NARNI IN ITALY: THIRTEENTH CENTURY

3. A Broken War-Bridge of the Thirteenth Century, Repaired with Timber.

A very valuable illustration, and for several reasons. The gatehouse with its pointed archway is unusually tall;and the machicolated box below the slightly gabled roof is unique in my experience. The holes above this defensive work are partly for ventilation and partly for crossbowmen, whose fire would “puncture” an attack on the right entrance of the bridge. There is but one arrow-hole on the first storey, and I should not care to shoot through it while molten lead or boiling oil came sizzling down in two streams from that machicolated box. I do not know why the gate-tower was made so very high, but suppose that its engineer wished to build a place of vantage from which the movements of an attack could be seen afar off, beyond the entrance gates. In any case it failed to save four of the arches from gunpowder wars; and note the restoration! Could anything speak to us more clearly of the primitive bridge with stone piers united by rough timbering?

BRIDGE OVER THE GAV-DE-PAUWAR-BRIDGE OVER THE GAV-DE-PAU AT ORTHEZ IN FRANCE

WAR-BRIDGE OVER THE GAV-DE-PAU AT ORTHEZ IN FRANCE

4. The War-Bridge at Orthez.

In the wizard country of the French Pyrenees there are some very notable bridges, such as the Pont Napoléon, near Saint-Sauveur, the Pont d’Espagne, beyond Cauterets, and the Vieux Pont at Orthez. To study these three works, side by side, is to learn that modern bridge-building has achieved in stone a few great works as daring as any that the Middle Ages produced. The Pont d’Orthez has a graceful distinction, and for nearly six hundred years it has borne the formidable spates of the Gav-de-Pau. In the tierce-point arches, and particularly in the largest one, there is good drawing; the spandrils are relieved from dullness in a simple and effective manner that gives support to the baseof the parapet; perhaps the roadway dips too much on the left-hand side, and the fortified tower is too slim to be in scale with the broad pier from which it ascends. Add twelve inches of width to the side face, and see how different the tower looks! In fact, Brangwyn has done this instinctively, as I find by comparing his vigorous pen-sketch from nature with my photographs. The tower has but one machicolation, it guards the base of the pier from boat attacks and scaling ladders; but the spy-holes belowthe roof served many purposes, including those for which machicolations were invented. A vaulted passage conducts the road through the tower; it is lighted on the far side by an opening called the Priests’ Window, because the priests and monks of Orthez jumped through it into the river, driven to this act by the orders of Gabriel de Montgomery. Such is the legend, and there’s not a word of history in its drama. For the rest, Orthez has seen no war since the great combat of February 27, 1814, when Wellington prepared the way for the battle of Toulouse by defeating the French, under Soult.

But this old bridge, with all its charm and interest, is eclipsed as a work of art by the Pont Napoléon, whose gigantic arch, in a very noble curve, spans the rocky and precipitous gorge of the Pas de l’Échelle, along which the furious Gave de Gavarnie pursues a foam-bubbled race against time, sixty-seven metres below the bridge. Here is a masterpiece that rivals the Puente Nuevo at Ronda, thrown across the tremendous chasm of theGuadalvia.[120]

5. The Monnow Bridge at Monmouth.

WAR-BRIDGE AT MONMOUTHWAR-BRIDGE AT MONMOUTH

WAR-BRIDGE AT MONMOUTH

This bluff old gate-tower is a bolder specimen of mediæval work than the smaller one at Warkworth. We are lucky indeed to possess a war-bridge which has suffered so little from time and trade and highway officials. If you compare it with the Brangwyn water-colour of Parthenay Bridge, over the Thouet, you will be better able to put the Monnow Bridge in its proper place as a work of defensive art. The French tower is far and away superior: it has scale and dignity: it is a work of architecture as well as an instrument of war. At Monmouth, how different is the technical inspiration!Not a trace of good design saves the gate-tower from being no more than a weapon for ruthless men. A Peace Society could publish the Monnow Bridge as a fact to prove that slaughtering wars have been more vulgar even than the cruel battles of finance. It is the undefensive parts of this bridge that I admire. The ribbed arches are good (p.93), and in them a slight tentative effort has been made to free the ring of voussoirs from the oscillation sent down through the spandrils when a great weight passes along the footway. “A slight tentative effort,” I repeat, because the archstones have not been made independent from the spandrils.

6. To find arches of this kind we must return to the Pont Valentré at Cahors, which dates from the middle of the thirteenth century. In this noble bridge the voussoirs of all the arches look isolated from the spandrils, as they are rimmed and “extra-dossed.” It was the Romans who invented the “extra-dossed” arch, and they proved that by separating archstones from the spandrils a bridge was relieved from much wear and tear. On the other hand, when archstones are unequal, when they are thicker in their haunches than at the crown, oscillation goes along the full length of a bridge, fatiguing the piers, and causing at times a noticeable shiver, as in the Llanrwst Bridge, designed by Inigo Jones.[121]Even Perronet forgot this effect of repercussionwhen he built his bridge in the Place de la Concorde at Paris; and ever afterwards he clamped the headers with iron to the interior archstones, as if iron fastened into stone could never become a destructive agent.

The architect of Valentré Bridge was wiser than Perronet, every arch in his work being an elastic bow that moves between two piers without conveying its oscillation beyond these supports. To our modern eyes, no doubt, there are too many arches across the River Lot at Cahors, but this defect seemed necessary in the Middle Ages, and for two reasons. It was regarded as a defensive precaution, because narrow arches were easier to protect from the roadway when an enemy tried to assemble boats under a bridge; and since in the frequent wars of those days a bridge had often to be cut as a final resource against defeat, it was essential that the destruction of one arch should not upset another by the withdrawal of a counterbalancing thrust from one side of a pier. Many piers of a large size were looked upon as particularly needful when the greater lateral thrust of round arches had to be considered in its relation to a bridge cutin a single place. Also, as we have seen (p.264), bridges in the Middle Ages were built very slowly, and as war at any moment might stop the masons, piers were regarded as abutments and made very strong.

This much is known, but none can say why piers were built unreasonably large. Frequent inundations from obstructed rivers were as evidently harmful as weak piers that floods overthrew; and the genius that solved so many problems in church architecture ought to have shown in bridges a riper discretion. Often piers and arches were of the same width—a waste of labour and material, as well as of space in the waterway. Even the Romans, though their piers were less bulky, impeded the current of rivers with too much stone; and to save their work from the floods which they provoked, they built relief bays for spate water above that part of their piers where adequate resistance had been obtained against the lateral thrust of heavy arches.

In the Valentré at Cahors the architect scorned the aid of relief bays, and grew five vast piers from the river-bed; not a courteous thing to do, seeing that the word river in French is a lady-word, “La rivière”—the very sound of it is a sweet compliment to the youthful waywardness of running water. Yet French bridge-masters have sinned against rivers as frequently as we English. If the Valentré had one pier less, how ample and noble the design would be! Even now the design is so virile, so masculine, that we ought to speak of this bridge as we do of a great soldier. The feeble word “it” does not belong to the Pont Valentré. “He” and “him” and “his” are the right pronouns. According to many writers he is the finest military bridge in the world, but comparisons are difficult and risky: they are affected too much by a writer’s moods. One thing is certain—that the Valentré has no superior in his own line. His most celebrated rivals, two bridges at Toledo, in Spain, have a feminine grace; they are too courtly to be typical soldiers. There is another Spanish bridge that ranks high as a fortified work: it dates from the fourteenth century, and, in sixteen pointed arches, crosses the Duero at Zamora. Brangwyn prefers the Toledo bridges, the Alcántara and the Puente de San Martin, because they are lofty as well as spacious, while Zamora Bridge is long and low, like a good many Spanish bridges, both Roman andmediæval.[122]

THE ALCÁNTARATHE ALCÁNTARA AT TOLEDO, SHOWING THE MOORISH GATEWAY TOWER AT THE TOWN END OF THE BRIDGE

THE ALCÁNTARA AT TOLEDO, SHOWING THE MOORISH GATEWAY TOWER AT THE TOWN END OF THE BRIDGE

7. The Alcántara at Toledo. From every point of view this bridge makes a good picture, but I like her best when she is seen from a level only a little below the footway. Then I look down at the upward flight of her architecture, and watch how a luminous patterning of shadow enriches the suave yet austere masonry. Somehow I think of a courtly abbess whose half-smile is a discipline feared by everybody. In no other way can I describe the technical inspiration that makes this bridge very uncommon. Looking down again, I see that the Spanish masons—or shall we call them Hispano-Moresque?—were as thrifty as theFrenchmen at Cahors; across the breadth of the bigger arch, and below the springing, there are seven holes, from which the centring was scaffolded. Technically the arches are inferior to those of the Pont Valentré, because their rings are not sufficiently rimmed and extra-dossed, so they lie too close into the body of the spandrils. The pier is designed very well, it has a distinction of its own and forms on each side of the roadway a narrowing shelter-place with four angles. Lower down, near the Moorish adaptation from a Roman triumphal arch, a long recess carried by five brackets varies the line of each parapet, in which there is no pretension, no swagger, no balustraded bombast. On the town side the bridge is guarded by a Moorish gate-tower, while across the river is a gateway dating from the time of Charles the Fifth.

A Roman bridge crossed the Tagus at this great spot, and was repaired in 687 by the Visigoths, but in 871 it disappeared, I know not how or why. Then a bridge was built by Halaf, son of Mahomet Alameri, Alcalde of Toledo, but Halaf obeyed a command from Almansor Aboaarmir Mahomet, son of Abihamir, Alquazil of Amir Almomenin Hixem. I hope you like these names and titles? They are given by George Edmund Street,[123]who quotes from Cean Bermudez; and so with confidence we may add Halaf Alameri to the few early bridge-masters who are known to us by name.

For 340 years no accident seems to have happened toAlameri’s work. Then in 1211 a part of the bridge fell into the river; and six years later, during its restoration, Enrique I had a gate-tower set up by Matheo Paradiso, a military architect with too angelic a name. Forty-one years passed, and then the bridge was renewed once more, this time by the King D. Alonso, who put the following inscription on a piece of marble above the point of the arch: “In the year 1258 from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ was the great deluge of water, that began before the month of August, and lasted until Thursday the 26th of December; and in most lands the fall of rain did much damage, especially in Spain, where most of the bridges fell; and among them was demolished a great part of that bridge of Toledo which Halaf, son of Mahomet Alameri, ... had made ... in the time of the Moors, 387 years before this time; and now the King D. Alonso, son of the noble King D. Ferrando, and of the Queen Doña Beatriz, who reigned in Castile, has had it repaired and renovated; and it was finished in the eighth year of his reign, in the year of the Incarnation 1258.”

Even then some of Alameri’s work remained, but I fear that it all vanished in 1380, when Archbishop Pedro Tenorio, a kinsman of Don Juan, and a great pontist, became patron of the Toledo bridges and gave to the Alcántara the appearance that we know, apart from the fortified gateways, which were either altered or built by Andres Manrique,A.D.1484.

8. Brangwyn has sketched the other great bridge at Toledo, the Puente de San Martin, a better work of artthan the Alcántara. Here the style is far more masculine, and there is no wide expanse of barren wall such as we find in the Alcántara below the bracketed recesses. The five arches vary much in size, no doubt, but yet they harmonise very well, and the most important one is heroic in scale, being not less than 140 Spanishft.wide and 95ft.high. As for the piers, each has a character of its own: they have but one thing in common—bulk enough not only to resist floods, but to be in keeping with a defile of rocks. There are two gateways, and one of them has Moorish ornament and a Moorish battlement.

Title or descriptionA SPANISH WAR-BRIDGE—THE BRIDGE OFST.MARTIN, TOLEDO. ITS HISTORY SEEMS TO DATE FROM 1212, BUT IN THEXIVCENTURY IT WAS REBUILT BY ARCHBISHOP PEDRO TENORIO

A SPANISH WAR-BRIDGE—THE BRIDGE OFST.MARTIN, TOLEDO. ITS HISTORY SEEMS TO DATE FROM 1212, BUT IN THEXIVCENTURY IT WAS REBUILT BY ARCHBISHOP PEDRO TENORIO

The Puente de San Martin seems to date from the year 1212. In 1368 he met with an accident that destroyed the big arch. Shortly afterwards, about 1380, Archbishop Tenorio began the restoration, aided by a careless architect. One day, in fact, the architect perceived that his new arch would fall down as soon as the centring was removed. Panic-stricken, he went home and consulted his wife, who happened to be a forerunner of the Suffragettes. What could be done to save her husband’s reputation? She could set fire to the scaffolding; and when the arch fell Toledo was quite awed by the accident. All the usual things were said about the terrible destruction that flames could do in a brilliant hour; and then the architect was asked to renew what the fire had ruined. This time he did his work admirably, and his wife was too much elated by his complete success, for she gave discretion to the winds and told the tale of her incendiarism. If Pedro Tenorio had punishedher by claiming payment for the new work from her husband, Toledo would have been amused, perhaps; but the good Archbishop had learnt too much in confessionals to expect very much from human nature. He seems to have done nothing more than congratulate his architect on the wife’sdevotion.[124]

RABOT AT GHENTTHE RABOT AT GHENT: A FORTIFIED LOCK

THE RABOT AT GHENT: A FORTIFIED LOCK

9. Defensive Bridges in Flemish Towns. They represent the manly, swaggering burghers who were not cleverenough to keep their liberties. The Pont des Trous at Tournai, for instance, guarded at each end by a huge round tower, has more to say to us about the turbulent old Flemish pride than have many chapters written by good historians. It is a bridge enlivened by art, yet blinded by an excess of warlike caution. There are three good pointed vaults, each with a double ring of moulded voussoirs; and there are two piers equally well designed; but the parapet rises into a high rampart pierced with nine arrow slits, and the ungainly towers have such flat summits that they appear to be roofless.[125]At Courtrai, on the other hand, we find the Pont de Broel, whose tall round towers have conical roofs lighted in a playful way by dormer windows, and graced with long weather-vanes. The Pont de Broel is a small bridge with three round arches, it looks very trivial between its formidable guardians. Both towers are encircled by machicolations, whose snarling teeth make an unpleasant girdle almost a third way down the walls. Between them and the roof are many small openings, defensive windows let us call them; and beneath the machicolations some other windows keep watch, with a proper respect of scaling ladders. We pass on to Ghent, where fifty-eight bridges span the canals, and connect the thirteen islands into which the brave old city is divided. In 1488, after FrederickIII, Emperor of Germany, withhis son Maximilian, had raised the siege of Ghent, the victorious burghers began at once to build the famous Rabot Forts, which included a defended lock. Brangwyn represents the Rabot lock and its bold defensive towers. These have two points of interest. They do justice to the character of mediæval Ghent, being bluff, stern, fanciful, ambitious, but short-sighted; and they seem to be copied from the Holsten Gate at Lübeck, built by this Hanseatic and republican city as a protection against frequent attacks from Denmark.

10. Covered Defensive Bridges of Timber. In these the protection has been of three sorts: against the weather, against riots, and against primitive weapons. Thus the covered bridges of Sumatra, made with bamboo and boards, are sunshades in bridge-building; and this applies to the roofed timber bridges in Western China. Some of these are carried over important rivers on stone piers, their roofing is decorative, and even to-day they would be useful in a time of unrest, especially to women and children. As for the Swiss variety of covered timber bridge, it seems to date from the period of lake-dwellings. But, whatever its lineage may have been, it is very ancient. Throughout the Middle Ages it was valued in war as well as in winter, when its footway was always free from snow. Often there was but a narrow space for light and air between the overhanging roof and the balustrade of heavy planks. It is not surprising that Swiss timber bridges were to mediæval archers and crossbowman what Hougomont was toNapoleon’s troops. On the other hand, it is surprising that these primitive structures are still as popular among the Swiss as they ever were. The most remarkable specimens are at Lucerne. In Brangwyn’s vivid pen-drawing we see the Todentanzbrücke, which is decorated with thirty pictures of the Dance of the Dead, by Meglinger.

TODENTANZBRÜCKETODENTANZBRÜCKE AT LUCERNE IN SWITZERLAND

TODENTANZBRÜCKE AT LUCERNE IN SWITZERLAND

As for the Kapellbrucke, also at Lucerne, it dates from 1303, and its length is 324 metres. It crosses the mouth of the river Reuss, that flows impetuously under it in a limpidtorrent. The timbers that support the roof are ornamented with 254 scenes from the history of Switzerland.

PONT SAINT-ESPRITPONT SAINT-ESPRIT

PONT SAINT-ESPRIT

11. Pont Saint-Esprit, over the Rhône, below the confluence of the Ardèche. This bridge, like the Pont Valentré, is a masculine structure, so we must speak not of “it” but of “him.” Always there is a point of sex to be considered in architectural inspiration. Some bridges are women, either high-born or low-born; others are common soldiers; a few are great men of action, like the Roman Alcántara in Cáceres; while many have no distinctive sex, and we need pronouns with which to describetheir character. If we speak of a neutral bridge as “it” we say nothing at all; but if we could refer to it as “itshe” or “ithe,” then we could show in one word which sexual qualities predominate. In old English bridges it is the neutral type that holds the field, very often in the “itshe” class. We have nothing to place side by side with the Pont Valentré and the Pont Saint-Esprit. Even Old London Bridge was a heroine, not a hero. A certain weakness germinated in the past of England, and influenced several phases of art and architecture. It is from this weakness, which seems to be racial, that modern England has grown by the score feeble artists limp with sentiment, and feebler faddists troubled with “nerves.” Whenever I see one of our little old ballad bridges—an “itshe” or an “ithe”—I say to myself, “Here is modern England in embryo; here is the beginning of a weak sentiment which in course of time will sap the vigour of our race.”

So the Pont Saint-Esprit is to my mind something more than a noble achievement in manly bridge-building; he marks for me also a startling difference between the undergrowth of the French character and the undergrowth of the English genius. We are beginning to realise in our own sports and games, as in boxing and in football, a truth which has long been known to students of French art, namely, that although the surface of the French character has boiled swiftly, like scum over jam, yet no other people have had in equal measure the self-belief that triumphs over frequent disaster, and the intrepid hope that gives amplepinions to the imagination. Study the churches of France in their historical sequence from their Romanesque period to the last phases of Gothic; contrast their varied charm with the almost incessant wars that devastated the country; and then lift your hat to the greatness attained by the French genius in times, not of crisis only, but often of catastrophe. We have reason to be very proud of our own churches, but they do not equal the French when they are studied side by side from large photographs. The unhappier country was the more adventurous builder, notwithstanding the virile influence brought to England by French Cistercian monks and by such bridgemasters as Isembert. This fact is galling to our patriotism, but yet it helps us to appreciate those Englishmen of genius who have risen far above the many littlenesses which English public opinion has been overapt to approve both in art and in architecture.

Again, there are three geographical reasons why the Pont Saint-Esprit is very notable: he crosses the Rhône, one of the most treacherous rivers in Europe; he belongs to the Department of Gard, where historical bridges have been famed since the times of the Romans; and he is in the district of Uzès, where we find the Pont Saint-Nicolas, on the road to Nîmes, a lofty bridge of the thirteenth century, with a beautiful distinction, built by the Priory of Saint-Nicolas-Campagnac.

Now these two bridges, so different in technical inspiration, yet so alike in thorough scholarship, mark a veryimportant time of transition in French architecture. The Pont Saint-Esprit was designed and built by theFrères pontifes, or Pontist Brothers, but already the good example set by these friars was followed with enthusiasm by a great many laymen, whose guilds were competing against the religious corporations. Sooner or later, inevitably, civil work of every sort would have to pass under the sway of laic schools and masters; but the people of France were superstitious in their fondness for the Pontist Brothers, whose ferry-boats had saved a great many lives, whose bridges were famous everywhere, whose hospitals lodged and fed pilgrims, and whose white dress was in harmony with their good work and their good conduct. So the public was very far from pleased when a bridge of importance was built without help from the Pontist Brothers. For this reason, and no other, the Pont Saint-Cloud was calledun pont maudit, and its construction was attributed to the Devil. Still, the Pontist Brothers had to go. During the thirteenth century their public value as bridge-builders grew weaker and weaker, until at last their competition against the trade guilds could be regarded no longer as a political offence.[126]It says much for them that their last undertaking, the Pont Saint-Esprit, was in most respects their best achievement: a fact which time itself has recognised by keeping this bridge in use to the present day.

PONTE NOMENTANOTHE PONTE NOMENTANO, A MEDIÆVAL WAR-BRIDGE IN THE CAMPAGNA, THREE MILES FROM ROME. IT SPANS THE WILLOW-FRINGED ANIO, A SACRED RIVER IN ITALIAN LEGEND

THE PONTE NOMENTANO, A MEDIÆVAL WAR-BRIDGE IN THE CAMPAGNA, THREE MILES FROM ROME. IT SPANS THE WILLOW-FRINGED ANIO, A SACRED RIVER IN ITALIAN LEGEND

The Pont Saint-Esprit was commissioned by the Abbey of Cluny, and in 1265 the Pontist Brothers began to found the piers, after discussing their plans with Jean de Tessanges, Abbot of Cluny. Now, an earlier work of the Pontist Brothers, the Pont Saint-Bénézet at Avignon, was eighty years old in 1265, and his behaviour in the Rhône must have been a subject of interest to the successors of Bénézet. I conclude, then, that the Pont Saint-Esprit may be looked upon as a technical criticism of the earlier bridge, and it approves in all respects the work ofSt.Bénézet. Both bridges have relief arches for spate water, and when they are examined in bird’s-eye views, both have an elbow opposed to the current of the Rhône, and each suggests the image of a bridge of boats to which already I have drawn attention (p.262). This image is rather more pronounced in the case of the earlier bridge, for the length of Bénézet’s piers, in the direction of the current, is enormous, being not less than thirty metres.

For the rest, the Pont Saint-Esprit seems to have an enchanted size, his most confident historians giving neither the same dimensions nor the same number of arches. Men with tape measures have grown tired of their job, seemingly; and even in photographs some arches are omitted while others are blurred by distance. On my table is an excellent photograph: it takes in just a bit of the metal arch which, about fifty years ago, displaced two of the old arches andmade a passage for boats. From this point to the elbow upstream, there are eleven arches; beyond the elbow there are six more, and the bridge is not complete. This is all the camera can do. According to Viollet-le-Duc, there are twenty-two arches in a length of about 1000 metres; the roadway is five metres wide. Larousse tells me, on the other hand, that the length is 738 metres, the width 5 metres 40, the number of arches twenty-six; and another great work of reference, published also by Larousse, gives 919 metres for the length, and says that among the twenty-five arches there are nineteen ancient ones. We ought to admire the variegated self-confidence of historians.

But the main point is evident enough: the Pont Saint-Esprit is one of the longest stone bridges in the world. And the construction is truly marvellous. This was proved when a pier was pulled up to make room for the iron arch. The labour required was astounding, so excellent was the cemented masonry. But, of course, the bridge has passed through a good many changes to keep him in touch with the increase of traffic. In the seventeenth century he was still closed at both ends by strong gateways, while on the town side was a quite important defence of the fourteenth century, afterwards embodied in the citadel by which the river was guarded above-bridge. These defensive works have all gone, but their effect can be studied in “La Topographie de la Gaule,” where an engraving gives a good idea of their appearance.

12. Ponte Nomentano in the Campagna, three milesfrom Rome. This, no doubt, is the most romantic of all the fortified bridges that Brangwyn has painted. Both bridge and castle are mediæval, but they rise over the willow-frilled Anio, a river haunted by myths which to the ancients were sacred truths. It was in the Anio that Rhea Silvia passed from the brief hours of her mortality into the life of a goddess; and to this river Silvia confided her two children, Romulus and Remus, the twin Moses of Roman story, who were carried in their cradle to the Tiber, where other waters bore them on and on till at last they came to land under the fig tree at the foot of the Palatine hill. What a delightful legend to be whispered by the current of the prattling Anio below the uncouth stones of the Nomentano! What other war-bridge has been united to such a gracious myth?

And history as well as legend has been busy on the banks of the Anio. Into this river the ashes of Marius were thrown by the adherents of Sulla; and beyond the bridge, on the right bank, west of the Via Nomentana, is a very famous hillside, the Mons Sacer, to which the plebeians retreated, as to a fortified place, when they asserted their right to tame the patricians. Their first great strike, or secession, occupied four months in the year 549B.C., when four thousand of them encamped on the friendly hill, leaving the crops unharvested, and the city without a garrison. Mount Sacer became sacred to the People of Rome, and to the historic sense it is the Hill of Liberty, sanctified by the first brave ideals of a democratic justice. Yet in recent times vulgarians have taken hold of Mount Sacer, andhave carted it away by the ton to be used as building material.

As for the Ponte Nomentano, he is nothing more than a burly soldier, a common man-at-arms. The mediæval engineer was uninspired by an enchanted site, and gave the whole of his attention to the pronged battlements. He had no feeling for proportion, and no liking for a stern eloquence of line such as we find in the noble castle of Chenonceaux, a masterpiece of the French Renaissance, whose long wing is carried by a bridge of five round arches, and whose turreted portion is pierced by a single arcade.

13. The bridges of Laroque, near Cahors, on the river Lot. In this rapid sketch Brangwyn represents a riverside Gibraltar upon which an ancient village stands, partly on bridges. Its value in “the good old times” as a stronghold fortified by Nature is patent, and the watch-towers have an unsleeping alertness that looks out upon the world through one eye or window. I should like to know who built the first bridge at Laroque. There is a Romanesque form in the arch drawn by Brangwyn, and the Romans were active in the neighbourhood. Over the Lot at Divona, now called Cahors, they built a bridge, which perished some years ago in a local storm of party feeling. To imagine Rome with a Gibraltar on the Lot is a great pleasure.

LAROQUELAROQUE ON THE RIVER LOT, NEAR CAHORS, A SORT OF INLAND GIBRALTAR; A PART OF THE VILLAGE IS BUILT ON BRIDGES THROWN ACROSS CHASMS IN THE ROCKS

LAROQUE ON THE RIVER LOT, NEAR CAHORS, A SORT OF INLAND GIBRALTAR; A PART OF THE VILLAGE IS BUILT ON BRIDGES THROWN ACROSS CHASMS IN THE ROCKS

Before we pass on from the defensive bridges, I should like to give you a picture of the famous old bridge at Saintes, in France, that lasted to the year 1843, when itwas destroyed. I know not why I use the silly word “it,” for the bridge of Saintes was an exceedingly martial structure that united all the main phases of military art—the primitive, the Roman, and the mediæval. Let me give an abridged description from Viollet-le-Duc’s “Dictionnaire raisonnéed’Architecture”:—

“The first gate appeared on the right shore of the Charente, on the side of the Faubourg des Dames; next came the Roman arch,[127]the upper part of which was crenellated during the Middle Ages; next on the side of the town stood a tower of oval plan, through which the road lay; the town gates with flanking towers closed the end of the bridge. From the first gate to the Roman arch the bridge was of wood, as was also the case between the great tower and the town gates, so that by the removal of this part of the roadway all communication could be cut off between the town and the tower, as well as between the bridge and the Faubourg; moreover, the parapets were crenellated, so that the garrison of the town at any moment could stop all navigation.”

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