record of fights against Saracens and infidels abroad, and feudal chiefs at home.
High up on the walls of the Castle of Tarascon one can see evidences of the ordinances of later times. The end of the eighteenth century has left its mark here as on most of the strongholds and buildings in Provence.
The only other important building in Tarascon is the Church of St. Martha; but it is the most significant that the little town possesses, for it perpetuates the legend which gives the town its name.
The story of St. Martha and her victory over the devastating terror of the country-side, “The Tarasc,” is but a variation of the familiar St. George and the Dragon legend which embodies the pietistic faith in the overthrow of evil by good. This legend of St. Martha, along with that of the “Stes. Maries,” belongs exclusively to Provence, and it permeates the whole religious tradition of the delta of the Rhone. The story or legend runs that, after the crucifixion of Christ, the holy women who had remained faithful to their Lord, Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James, Mary Salome, Martha with Sara, their black servant and Lazarus, were put in a boat by the Jews and sent out to sea. After an adventurous voyage of nearly two months, they landed on the extreme west point of the Camargue in a little village that was inhabited by some poor Phocean fisherfolk. The legends vary as to the subsequent routes taken by the illustrious voyagers, but they seem all to agree that Martha found her way to Tarascon; Mary Magdalen to St. Baume, not far from Marseilles, where her bones are believed to be under the Chapel of the Grotto; St. Lazarus accompanied her to Marseilles, where the legend connecting him with that city is still held in esteem by the pious.
Early in the fifteenth century, King René, who had an excellent taste for romantic legends, had a vision in which the holy women of “Stes. Maries” appeared to him and revealed the spot where their mortal remains were lying neglected. The sentimental King sought them and had them placed in the church, which he rebuilt on the spot where they first landed, and altered the name of the church from “Our Lady of the Sea” to “Les Maries.” Up to this time the little church of the tenth century, at this spot, went by the name of “St. Mary of the Boats,” or “St. Mary of the Sea.”
This name was probably but the Christian of an older Pagan name, given to the church or temple that stood on
