Of the larger mansions of the town, the most important is that of the “Hôtel de Manvilles,” at the end of the Grande Rue, a fifteenth-to-sixteenth-century building, the chief features of which are the beautiful windows, framed in with delicate classic pilasters, supporting entablatures composed of simple and dignified mouldings. On one of the wings of the building the inscription “Post Tenebras Lux 1571,” on the frieze over a window of great beauty, recalls that Claud II., one of the counts of this house, espoused, at the instigation of his Protestant wife, the cause of the party at the Reformation. The mansion of the Porcelets, near by the Church of St. Vincent, has been restored, and, after being an orphanage, is now the school for the handful of children who have had the misfortune to be born amidst these melancholy surroundings. Few of them will remain in their native town after they have grown up, and one would imagine that the memories they will carry away with them of their early days will seem like some fantastic dream. The Porcelet family were of the highest social rank in the fourteenth century, and they were also very numerous. These were the first nobles of the town of Arles and Marquises of Maillane, friends of King René, and the object of his satire. Regarding the origin of their name, there is a legend that relates in detail how a haughty dame of this family flouted and taunted a poor beggar-woman with having a family too large for a person in her miserable condition to maintain. The woman was, so the story says, really a fairy in disguise, who laid a spell on the high-born dame, condemning her to give birth to as many children as a sow, which happened to be near by, should bring forth little pigs. In time the sow had a litter of nine, and when the great dame had, in the course of time, a family equally large the people nicknamed them Porcelets, a name that stuck to them ever after. These legends of the past, when recounted on the spot, have a fascination that is enhanced by the romantic surroundings. One stumbles upon curious reminders of feudal customs, such as the deep narrow cisterns which received a tithe of all the wine made in the district under the manorial sway of the Des Baux. Across the wide valley, to the westward, the rocks tower one above the other and form the hill of Costa Pera. Time and the elements have worn its face into crevices and wrinkles and honeycombed it with innumerable caves. Midway up the cliff, there appears a deep hollow which at first might be mistaken for a well. It is, however, the entrance to a series of large caverns, that locally go by the name of the Grotto of the Fairies. Here in the very heart of the rock, cut and worn into weird and fantastic shapes, are halls, passages, and declivities, twistings and windings, amongst which the imagination runs riot and calls up the visions of strange, elfish, unearthly forms to people the uncanny surroundings.