A Tour Through Old Provence

by A. S. Forrest

One stumbles upon curious reminders of feudal customs, such as the deep narrow cisterns which received a tithe of all the wine made in the district under the manorial sway of the Des Baux.

Across the wide valley, to the westward, the rocks tower one above the other and form the hill of Costa Pera. Time and the elements have worn its face into crevices and wrinkles and honeycombed it with innumerable caves. Midway up the cliff, there appears a deep hollow which at first might be mistaken for a well. It is, however, the entrance to a series of large caverns, that locally go by the name of the Grotto of the Fairies. Here in the very heart of the rock, cut and worn into weird and fantastic shapes, are halls, passages, and declivities, twistings and windings, amongst which the imagination runs riot and calls up the visions of strange, elfish, unearthly forms to people the uncanny surroundings.

One can easily comprehend that this grotto became the foundation for grotesque legends, and how it might readily acquire a reputation for being the abode of witches who guarded jealously a she-goat made of solid gold, which was bound to bring fortune and prosperity of every conceivable kind to the mortal fortunate and daring enough to carry off the precious curiosity. There are no limits to the phantasms that the mind’s eye can see in the deep, mysterious recesses, according to its mood or to the state of the owner’s digestion.

Les Baux has many curious legends and traditions, some of them based upon actual experiences, slightly exaggerated, and others the effects of the unaided imagination. Of the latter class, a very beautiful one, that has formed the subject of many poems, records the death of the last of the noble house of Des Baux. When the Princess Alix was on her death-bed, the star which had guided her remote ancestor to Bethlehem’s manger shone with its last flash of splendour through the window on the fading princess, and at the moment her soul passed away, the light, which for a thousand years had been the beacon of this illustrious family, went out for ever.

On the heights above the Grotto of the Fairies are the remains of the ancient Roman Camp built by the army of Marius, and within its enclosure the upper casing walls of a cistern remain intact. The remains of another camp of Marius, which still goes by his name, lie on the hills that overlook the town from the north. The impregnable nature of these positions on the hills around Les Baux thus early singled them out for occupation in times of war and danger, and, when the Phocean colonists of Arles were driven from their city by the Visigoths, led by Euric, in the fifth century, they found a refuge on these austere mountain slopes.

Two relics of the Roman times, that have aroused much discussion, stand at the foot of the powdery cliffs of Baux. One of these is a huge block of greenish sandstone, about twenty feet high, which has fallen from the heights above. For years, the three life-size figures that are sculptured on this stone were regarded in the country as representing the three Saints, Marie, Martha, and their black servant Sara, whose bodies were alleged to lie in the church by the sea at Les Maries. About the middle of last century a tiny chapel, erected in front of the carved monolith, was dedicated to the three Marys, and called “Les Tremaie.” On close examination, it is discovered that the figures are dressed in Roman garments, and although much mutilated and corroded by the weather, they are unmistakable Roman work of either the first century before or after the Christian Era. Below the figures is an inscription which is undecipherable, containing only the characters

		F . CALDUS
AE . POSUIT .		P . . . . .

The opinion of experts to-day is practically unanimous in making the three figures represent Caius Marius, Julia Marii, his wife, and Martha, the Syrian prophetess who accompanied them, and was carried about in a litter throughout the campaign. If these deductions are correct, it fixes the date of the monument somewhere about 100 B.C., and gives further proof of the antiquity of Les Baux.