Behind
the high altar of Saint Sauveur’s Gothic nave, a small chapel
dedicated to Saint-Mitre contains a fifteenth century painting depicting
an important moment in the life of the saint. (He has just picked up
his severed head) Some accounts say that he kissed it, though this
episode appears to have been beyond the powers of the artist. The cathedral
tower is portrayed uncrowned, which is the way it was until the end
of the nineteenth century. The palaces that surround it, however, are
variously
interpreted as the product of a fertile "Renaissance" fantasy
- the artist was of the school of Avignon - or as the unique surviving
record of Aix’s architecture in the late fifteenth century.
The
monument Sec in the avenue Pasteur,
is an incongruous and eclectic medley of autobiographical,
socio-economic, and biblical fantasy with a touch of freemasonry
: Moses, Noah, European and African homo sapiens sapiens,
the
Old Testament and the New, Joseph Sec, the new, himself,
and the other Joseph, also a carpenter, commemorate a moment
when
high thinking was undergoing Rousseauesque revision ; liberty
from bondage, the spirits of time and eternity, feedom and
slavery, were clamouring, if not for precedence, at least
for a supreme pecking order. No Jehovah or royal vicar by
divine
right, but Themis implacable, female personification of even-handed
justice, scales in hand, crowns the highest pinnacle of the
monument above Moses himself with his books of the Law, and
gazes incorruptibly in the general direction of Marseille
(why not ?). The 17th century statuary that borders the garden
behind
the monument itself is a typically discriminate instance
of "borrowing", in
this case from the unforunate Jesuits who were ousted from
their chapel in 1765. The pavillon next to the monument is
noteworthy for its multicolored tiled roof, unique in a town
where the ancient Roman curved tile is synonymous with a
certain proximity to the northern shores of the Mediterranean.
The
other Aixois "revolutionary" is quite a different proposition.
The ancient palace of the counts of Provence, a rambling patchwork
of a building embracing three Roman towers and the substantial mediaeval
masonry that united them, was abruptly condemned in 1775, less for
its dilapidation and the tile that injured a passer-by than for the
huff of Parliamentarians who had been evicted from it in 1771, and
replaced by detestable upstarts
from the national Audit Office.
Thus
disappeared Aix’s largest and most ancient Roman survival. But
construction of the Palais de Justice was suspended until 1822
; its massive pillars and perron greet those arriving by the
ancientvia Aurelia, (rue d’Italie). It was not completed until
1832. The ancient stones of the counts’ palace became modern rubble,
serving to raise the level of the road from Marseille, giving to the
Cours
Mirabeau both direct access and a fine platform for Aix’s biggest,
most effusive fountain. The Monument Sec and the Palais de Justice emerge
as different statements of the same "enlightened" eighteenth
century. The majesty of "the Law" fills the void created
by the demise of royal and ecclesiastical authority.
The
church of Saint-John of Malta (Saint-Jean de Malte) stands
at the eastern end of the rue Cardinale. Its stark simplicity
offers a striking contrast to the venerable but heteroclete
bazaar of the cathedral. Built in the second half of the 13th
century, it is a fine example of Provençal Gothic, bare,
and spare as a Cistercian abbey. Built outside the city walls
it was protector and host to pilgrims and travellers on their
way from Italy. Its 67 meter spire and promise of safe haven
doubtless gladdened hearts and hastened steps along the Aurelian
Way. At each angle of the west end, a turret, more military
than ecclesiastical, more plain than fancy, stands guard ;
three tall defence towers dating from the thirteenth century,
two
to the south and one to the north announced to roving brigands,
cutthroats, and routiers that the Knights-Hospitaliers
of Saint-John meant business, and that order could be enforced,
even outside the city ramparts. The northern tower still stands,
gaunt and forbidding in its bourgeois habit at No. 20, rue
d’Italie.
Behind
the high altar of Saint Sauveur’s Gothic nave, a small chapel
dedicated to Saint-Mitre contains a fifteenth century painting depicting
an important moment in the life of the saint. (He has just picked up
his severed head) Some accounts say that he kissed it, though this
episode appears to have been beyond the powers of the artist. The cathedral
tower is portrayed uncrowned, which is the way it was until the end
of the nineteenth century. The palaces that surround it, however, are
variously
interpreted as the product of a fertile "Renaissance" fantasy
- the artist was of the school of Avignon - or as the unique surviving
record of Aix’s architecture in the late fifteenth century. 
