Aix met the decree by deciding that the “Prince d’Amour” should be replaced by a “Lieutenant,” to whom should be allowed an annual pension of eight hundred livres. Apparently this was none too much, as one of the aspirants for the honour expended something like two thousand livres during his one year in office.
The costume officially prescribed for a “Lieutenant” or a “Prince d’Amour” was as follows:
“A corselet and breeches ‘à la romaine,’ of white moiré with silver trimmings, a mantle trimmed with silver, black silk stockings, low shoes tied with ribbons, and a plumed hat, together with ‘knee-ribbons,’ a sword-knot and a bouquet, also with streamers of ribbon.”
All this bespeaks a certain gorgeousness which was only accomplished at considerable personal expense on the part of him on whom the honour fell.
In one form or another this sort of thing went on at Aix until Revolutionary times, when the pageant was abolished as smacking too much of royal procedure and too little of republicanism.
Avignon and Arles are intimately associated with the modern exponents of Provençal literature, but Aix will ever stand as the home of Provençal letters of a past time, Aix the nursery of the ancient troubadours.
As a touring-ground little exploited as yet, the region for fifty kilometres around Aix-en-Provence offers so much of novelty and charm that it may not be likened to any other region in France.
Off to the southwest is Les Pennes, one of those picturesque cliff-towns, scattered here and there about Europe, which makes the artist murmur: “I must have that in my portfolio,”—as if one could really capture its scintillating beauty and grandeur.
Les Pennes will be difficult to find unless one makes a halt at Aix, Marseilles, or Martigues, for it appears not to be known, even by name, outside of its own intimate radius.
