The Église St. Quinin is a conglomerate edifice which has been built up, in part, from a former church which stood on the same site in the seventh century. It is by no means a great architectural achievement as it stands to-day, but is highly interesting because of its antiquity. In the cathedral the chief article of real artistic value is a bénitier, made from the capital of a luxurious Corinthian column. One has seen sun-dials and drinking-fountains made from pedestals and sarcophagi before—and the effect has not been pleasing, and smacks not only of vandalism, but of a debased ideal of art, but this column-top, which has been transformed into a bénitier, cannot be despised.
The bête-noir of all this region, and of Vaison in particular,—if one is to believe local sentiment,—is the high sweeping wind, which at certain seasons blows in a tempestuous manner. The habitant used to say that "le mistral, le Parlement, et Durance sont les trois fléaux de Provence."
XIII
ST. TROPHIME D'ARLES
"In all the world that which interests me most is La Fleur des 'Glais' ... It is a fine plant.... It is the same as the Fleurs des Lis d'Or of the arms of France and of Provence."
—Frederic Mistral.
Two French writers of repute have recently expressed their admiration of the marvellous country, and the contiguous cities, lying about the mouth of the Rhône; among which are Nîmes, Aigues-Mortes, and—of far greater interest and charm—Arles. Their opinions, perhaps, do not differ very greatly from those of most travellers, but both Madame Duclaux, in "The Fields of France," and René Bazin, in his Récits de la Plaine et de la Montagne, give no palm, one to the other, with respect to their feeling for "the mysterious charm of Arles."
It is significant that in this region, from Vienne on the north to Arles and Nîmes in the south, are found such a remarkable series of Roman remains as to warrant the statement by a French antiquarian that "in Rome itself are no such temples as at Vienne and Nîmes, no theatres so splendidly preserved as that at Orange,—nor so large as that of Arles,—and that the magnificent ruined colosseum on the Tiber in no wise has the perfections of its compeer at Nîmes, nor has any triumphal arch the splendid decorations of that at Reims in the champagne country."