Her mediaeval ruins seem to belong to a past almost as dead and ghostly as her Roman days, and to realise her Middle Ages, one must leave the busy people in the town below, climb one of the hills, and sitting beside the crumbling walls of some great tower or castle, watch the hot sun setting behind the low mountains and lighting in a glow the bare walls of some other ruined stronghold on a neighbouring height. The shadows creep into the valleys, the rocks grow grey and cold, and the clusters of trees beside them become darkly mysterious. Then far beneath a white thread seems to appear, beginning at the valley's entrance and twisting along its length until it disappears behind another hill. This is the road; and by the time the eye has followed its long course, daylight has grown fainter. Then Provence takes on a long-lost splendour. To those who care to see, cavalcades of soldiers or of hunters come home along the road, castles become whole and frowning, the dying sun casts its light through their gaping window-holes, as light of nightly revels used to shine, and a phantom Mediaevalism appears. One of the powerful families of the country, the Counts of Forcalquier, sprang from the House of Berenger in the XI century, and a hundred and fifty years later, grown too great, were crushed by the haughty parent house. More than one hill of Eastern Provence has borne their tall watchtowers, more than one village owed them allegiance, and a large town in the hills was their capital and bore their name. And yet not a ruined tower that overlooks the Provencal mountains, not a village, gate, or castle--Manosque or old Saint-Maime,--but speaks more vividly of the old Counts than does Forcalquier, formerly their city, now a mere country town which has lost prestige with its increasing isolation, many of its inhabitants by plagues and wars, and almost all of its picturesque Mediaevalism through the destructiveness of sieges. Long before this day of contented stagnancy, in 1061, when Forcalquier, fortified, growing, and important, claimed many honours, Bishop Gerard Caprerius of Sisteron had given the city a Provost and a Chapter, and created the Church of Saint-Mary, co-cathedral with that of Notre-Dame of Sisteron. Not contented with this honour, Forcalquier demanded and received a Bishopric of her own. Her hill was then crowned by a Citadel, her Cathedral stood near-by, her walls were intact. Now the Citadel is replaced by a peaceful pilgrims' chapel, the walls are gone, Saint-Mary, ruined in the siege of 1486, is recalled only by a few weed-covered stumps and bits of wall, and its title was given to Notre-Dame in the lower part of the town.