From this moment the struggle changed its character. The Christians assumed the offensive. Charles Martel pursued the retreating host, and took from them the port of Maguelonne; and when a crowd of refugees sought shelter in the amphitheatre of Arles, he set fire to it and hurled them back into the flames as they attempted to escape. Their last stronghold was Narbonne, where they held out for seven years, and then in 759 that also fell, and the Moorish power for evil in France was at an end; but all the south, from the Alps to the ocean, was strewn with ruins. They were not, however, wholly discouraged. Not again, indeed, did they venture across the Pyrenees in a great host; but they harassed the towns on the coast, and intercepted the trade. When the empire of Charlemagne was dismembered, Provence was separated from France and constituted a kingdom, under the administration of one Boso, who was crowned at Arles in 879. This was the point of departure of successive changes, which shall be touched on in the sequel. The German kings and emperors laid claim to Provence as a vassal state, and it was not till 1481 that it was annexed to the Crown of France. Avignon and the Venaissin were not united to France till 1791. In no part of Europe probably did pagan customs linger on with such persistence as in this favoured land of Provence, among a people of mixed blood—Ligurian, Phœnician, Greek, Roman, Saracen. Each current of uniting blood brought with it some superstition, some vicious propensity, or some strain of fancy. In the very first mention we have of the Greek settlers, allusion is made to the Floral Games. The Battle of Flowers, that draws so many visitors to Nice, Mentone, and Cannes, is a direct descendant from them; but it has acquired a decent character comparatively recently. At Arles, the Feast of Pentecost was celebrated throughout the Middle Ages by games ending with races of girls, stark naked, and the city magistrates presided over them, and distributed the prizes, which were defrayed out of the town chest. It was not till the sixteenth century, owing to the remonstrances of a Capuchin friar, that the exhibition was discontinued. Precisely the same took place at Beaucaire. At Grasse, every Thursday in Lent saw the performance in the public _place_ of dances and obscene games, and these were not abolished till 1706 by the energy of the bishop, who threatened to excommunicate every person convicted of taking part in the disgusting exhibition of “Les Jouvines.” A native of Tours visited Provence in the seventeenth century, and was so scandalised at what he saw there, that he wrote, in 1645, a letter of remonstrance to his friend Gassendi. Here is what he says of the manner in which the festival of S. Lazarus was celebrated at Marseilles:—