The vin de Cassis is like the wine of which Keats wrote:
“So fine that it fills one’s mouth with gushing freshness,—that goes down cool and feverless, and does not quarrel with your liver, lying as quiet as it did in the grape.”
The sheltering headland which rises high above Cassis is known as Le Gibel. On its highest peak the poet Mistral has placed the retreat of the heroine Esteulle in his poem “Calandau.” Black and menacing, Cap Canaille continues Le Gibel out toward the sea, and its sheer rise above the Mediterranean approximates five hundred metres.
On the opposite bank of a little bay, called in Provençal a calanque, rises the ruined towers and walls of a feudal château, of no interest except that it forms a grim contrasting note with the blue background of sky above and sea below.
A little farther on, sheltered at the head of a calanque, is Port Miou, which has a legend that has made it a popular place of pilgrimage for the Marseillais. The little port is well sheltered in the bay, with the entrance nearly closed by a great sentinel rock, which is, at times, wholly submerged by the waves. It is this which has given rise to the legend that a Genoese fisherman, surprised by a tempest and being unable to control his craft, abandoned the tiller and would have hurled himself into the sea if his son, obeying a sudden inspiration, had not steered the boat through the narrow strait and came to a safe harbour within. The father at once fell upon the boy, killing him with a blow; but, Providence taking no revenge, the boat drifted on to a safe anchorage.
The story is not a new one; the same legend, with variations, is heard in many parts of western Europe and as far north as Norway, but it is potent enough here to draw crowds of Sunday holiday-makers, in the summer months, from Marseilles.
In 1377 Pope Gregory XI., who desired to reëstablish the papacy at Rome after its seventy years at Avignon, took ship at Marseilles, but was held back by contrary winds and seas and hovered about the little archipelago of islands at the harbour’s mouth, until finally, when he had at last got well started on his way, a furious tempest arose and the vessel forced to anchor in the calanque of Port Miou, called by the historian of the voyage Portus Milonis.
Beyond Cassis, eastward, are still to be traced the outlines of the old Roman road which led into Gaul from Rome, via Pisa and Genoa, until it finally passes Ceyreste, the ancient Citharista. The name was originally given to the site because of the chain of hills at the back, which formed a sort of a tiara (citharista signifying tiara or crown), of which the little city formed the bright particular jewel. It must have been one of the first health resorts of the Mediterranean shore, for Cæsar founded here a hospital for sick soldiers. Since that day it appears to have been neglected by the invalids (real and fancied), for they go to Monte Carlo to live the same life of social diversion that goes on at Paris, Vienna, or New York.
Another explanation of the origin of the city’s name is that it was dedicated to Apollo, the god of music, and that its name came from the cithare, or zither, which, according to those learned in mythology, the god always bore.
Ceyreste, at all events, was of Grecian origin as to its name, and was perhaps the patrician suburb of La Ciotat, the city of sailors and merchants. Unlike most plutocratic towns, Ceyreste appears always to have had a due regard for the proprieties, for a French historian has written: “Il est de notoriété publique que jamais aucun Ceyrestéen n’a subi de peine infamante, ni même afflictive. Jamais aucun crime n’a été commis dans la commune!”