Formerly S. Cassien was the fortress to the town of Arluc. Castle and
town have disappeared wholly. Arluc, _Ara lucis_[14] as the place is
called in old deeds, was a shrine in a sacred wood. The Provençal
Troubadour Raymond Ferand tells a story of it.
Here lived once on a time a sorcerer named Cloaster; he had an altar
in the wood, at which he practised all kinds of _diableries_. There
was a bridge over the Siagne crossed by the people who came there to
worship. Now S. Nazarius was abbot of Lerins. One day, a youth named
Ambrose was sacrificing to idols at Arluc, when the devils laid hold
of him, raised him in the air, and flew away with him, in spite of all
his protests and kicks, to convey him to hell. But as they were thus
transporting him over the island of Lerins, Ambrose heard the chanting
of the monks, and he cried out to S. Honorat to help him. Then the
devils let go, and he came fluttering down like a feather into the
midst of the cloister of Lerins, where S. Nazarius received him; and
thenceforth Ambrose lived with the monks as a good Christian.
The Lerins Chronicle tells us that the Abbot Nazarius destroyed a
temple of Venus that was at Arluc, and built a church on its site,
which he dedicated to S. Stephen in A.D. 616, and attached to it a
convent of women. But in 730 the Saracens destroyed church and convent
and town, and sacked Lerins, where they massacred the abbot and five
hundred of his monks.
The town of Arluc was rebuilt by Pepin le Bref, but in 890 the Saracens
again destroyed it. It again struggled into existence, but was finally
utterly ruined and effaced by the Tard-Venus in 1361, under their
chief, who called himself “The Enemy of Man.” These Tard-Venus were one
of the Free Companies that ravaged the country, gleaning after others
had reaped.
The chapel was rebuilt, and when given to the abbey of S. Victor at
Marseilles, was dedicated to S. Cassien. The fête is on July 23rd;
religious services take place in the morning and a pleasure fair and
merrymaking in the afternoon.
A pretty watering place is La Napoule, that once enjoyed a prosperity
of which Cannes had no thought. It was the Roman station Ad Horea,
where vast stores of provisions were collected in magazines, for
transmission to the troops. The name Napoule has been supposed to be
the same as Naples, Neapolis, signifying the New Town, but no text
gives colour to this derivation, and it is more probable that La
Napoule comes from Epulia, _Provisions_, as it was a store place;
excavations made there when the railway was in construction laid bare
immense underground magazines and granaries, divided systematically
into compartments by pillars, and vaulted. These were originally well
ventilated. Remains of Roman constructions may still be seen by the
shore, and although no mention is made in the Itinerary of Antoninus
of a port there, it cannot be doubted that there was one for the
disembarkation or embarkation of stores.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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