+-------------------+ | HOC . OPVS | | | | F. F. R. D . LOES | | | | DVCLOT | | | | CUBERNATOR | | | | DOMUS . SATI | | | | BERNARDI | | | | 16 + 73 | +-------------------+ CHAPTER XX BY THE BANKS OF THE RHÔNE The boundary between Dauphiny and Provence was by no means vague; it was a well defined territorial limit, but in the old days, as with those of the present, the climatic and topographic limits between the two regions were not so readily defined. The Rhône, the mightiest of French rivers when measured by the force and, at times, the bulk of its current, played a momentous historic part in the development of all the region lying within its watershed, and for that reason the cities lying midway upon its banks had much intercourse one with another. [Illustration] Vienne, on the left bank of this swift-flowing river, was the capital of the Counts of the Viennois, and the birthplace of the earliest of the "native" Dauphins, who afterwards transferred their seat of power to Grenoble. For this reason it is obvious that the history of Vienne and that of the surrounding territory was intimately bound up with the later mountain province of Dauphiny, whose capital was Gratianopolis. As the capital of this mountain empire evolved itself into Grenoble, and the power of the Dauphins gradually waned at Vienne, Comte Humbert, who was then ruler at Vienne, transferred his sceptre to the heir of Philippe de Valois who built his palace in the ancient mountain stronghold of the Romans in preference to continuing the seat of governmental dignity and rule by the banks of the mighty Rhône. From this one gathers, and rightly, that Vienne is one of the most ancient cities of Dauphiny, and indeed of all the Rhône valley. Its history has been mentioned by Cæsar: "_Accolit Alpinis opulenta Vienna calonis._" In the fifth century it was the capital of the first Burgundian kingdom, and at a later period the official residence of the native Dauphins, the race that came before those eldest sons of the French kings who wielded their power from their palace at Grenoble. Vienne's architectural monuments are many and of all states of nobility, but of palaces, castles and chateaux it contains only the scantiest of memories.