All this wide territory constituted the ancient Kingdom of Arles.

Book IV. treats of the Counts Proprietary and Hereditary from 910 until Provence is reunited to the Crown of France (1481). To these the Sieur de Bouche devotes many of his formidable Sections. There are long lines of Bozons and Rothbolds of the 1st Race, and of Raimonds and Raimond Berengers Counts of Catalonia and of Barcellona and Kings of Aragon—beings of a most strange personal appearance if one may judge by the quaint old engravings which head each of the Sieur's Books of Chapters. They stare out of their medallions with a grotesque expression of royal blankness combined with a dull, obscure form of indignation which speaks ill for the "agréments" of the post of ruler of Provence in the later Middle Ages. The complication of names and races and titles is almost hopeless at this period. Even our dauntless author says wearily, "nous sortons d'un lieu fort nuageux pour entrer dans un plus tenebreux."

There are three different genealogies of the Counts of the 1st Race, and very little seems to be known of the Counts themselves with the exception of William I.

"It was by him and his valliance that this faithless and barbarous nation of Saracens was driven out who for nearly 100 years occupied the famous fortress of Fraxinet la Garde, whence they issued to make plundering expeditions by sea and land; their fort of Fraxinet and all Provence was entirely delivered from this impious and cruel race of robbers...."

Travellers on the Riviera may see the little village of Garde Freinet—as the ancient hornet's nest is now called—peacefully dreaming among the mountains of the Moors, that magnificent range whose name records for ever the long domination of those irrepressible brigands.

The inhabitants to this day are of obvious Saracen type and the grey hill-top villages of this region are living relics of that mysterious race.

As acknowledgment for his great services to his country William I. was presented by the Seigneur Grimaldi of Monaco with the lands contiguous to the fief of St. Tropez.

So uncertain seem to be the records of the dynasties of Provence that the author has to prove the existence of one of the Counts (Count Bertrand) by means of a document in which he "restores, restitutes, and gives" the Church of Notre Dame des Rats (qui est l'Eglise des Trois Maries en la Camargue) "to the Church of Saint Etienne and Saint Trophime of Arles."

The Catalan Counts of Provence: that is the 2nd Race of Proprietary Counts who were also Counts of Catalonia and Barcelona, give the same difficulty to their historians, who do not agree among themselves. They seem to have become confused by the multiplicity of the names of Raimond Berenger and of Ildefons and Alphonse—"qu'a moins d'avoir le filet d'Ariadne il est impossible de sortir de ce Labyrinthe."