Amongst these is the tomb of Geoffrey VI., a Count of Provence, who died in 1063. He was a generous patron and friend to the Monastery, and in the eleventh century conceded, along with other rights, the privilege of claiming the first sturgeon which should be caught in the river between Mourrade de Bourques and the sea. This typically feudal privilege was, until the Revolution, enforced more by way of custom latterly, and a great procession of holiday-making fishermen, with bands playing and banners flying, accompanied by innumerable sightseers, came on rafts and in boats to the Abbey with their offering. Masses were celebrated for the soul of the good Count, a handsome pourboire given to the fishermen, the sturgeon cooked and placed upon the already groaning [Illustration: THE MONASTERY. AT MONTMAJOUR.] board of the epicurean brothers, and everybody was contented and happy. [Illustration: NEAR MONTMAJOUR.] The Benedictine Monastery of Montmajour enjoyed so many other privileges and bequests that it grew to be one of the richest and most powerful in the whole of France. No wonder the laity were keen to swell its holy ranks and enjoy its privileged security and bountiful board, its immunity from taxation and public service. The amazing contrast to the luxury of the Abbey’s latter days is the legend of the poverty and homelessness of those for whom it was founded. The story runs, or, as the troubadours say, it is told and said and related, that when Villegis, King of the Goths, who had already dispossessed the Romans of Arles of their last colony in Gaul, surrendered to the Frankish conqueror Childebert, the latter, hunting one day over his newly-acquired territory in the vicinity of Arles, met with some hermits on a lonely mountain-side whose piety and poverty so touched the victorious barbaric King that he founded for them the Monastery of Montmajour. ARLES VI ARLES It would seem that Arles has been an important city for over two thousand five hundred years. History can give no authentic records of its beginnings, but, as is generally the case with ancient towns in a similar predicament, legend has taken in hand the task of supplying details, and Arles has its legend, which bears on the face of it some elements of probability. Massilia (now Marseilles) has evidence to show that even long before the Phoceans founded their towns in Gaul, Phœnician seamen, the pioneers of navigation, had discovered its natural harbour, round which the town of to-day is built. Interesting relics of these early traders are still in existence; and their successors, the Phoceans, who undoubtedly were on the scene as early as 600 B.C., must have found on their arrival that the advantages of the position had been fully appreciated by the earlier settlers, who had built there a town of considerable importance, but which was then in a declining state.