St. Sauveur d'Aix
II
ST. SAUVEUR D'AIX
Aix, the former capital of Provence, one of the most famous ancient provinces, the early seat of wealth and civilization, and the native land of the poetry and romance of mediævalism, was the still more ancient Aquæ Sextiæ of the Romans—so named for the hot springs of the neighbourhood. It was their oldest colony in Gaul, and was founded by Sextius Calvinus in B. C. 123.
In King René's time,—"le bon roi" died at Aix in 1480,—Aix-en-Provence was more famous than ever as a "gay capital," where "mirth and song and much good wine" reigned, if not to a degenerate extent, at least to the full expression of liberty.
In 1481, just subsequent to René's death, the province was annexed to the Crown, and fifty years later fell into the hands of Charles V., who was proclaimed King of Arles and Provence. This monarch's reign here was of short duration, and he evacuated the city after two months' tenure.
During all this time the church of Aix, from the foundation of the archbishopric by St. Maxine in the first century (as stated rather doubtfully in the "Gallia Christiania"), ever advanced hand in hand with the mediæval gaiety and splendour that is now past.
Who ever goes to Aix now? Not many Riviera tourists even, and not many, unless they are on a mission bent, will cross the Rhône and the Durance when such appealingly attractive cities as Arles, Avignon, and Nîmes lie on the direct pathway from north to south.