Here in the Golfe de St. Tropez, at St. Tropez, at La Foux, and at Ste. Maxime, one sees again those great _tartanes_ and _balancelles_, the great white-winged craft which fly about the Mediterranean coasts of France with all the idyllic picturesqueness of old. There are still twenty kilometres before one reaches Fréjus, the first town of real latter-day importance since passing Toulon, and this, too, in spite of its great antiquity. Other of the coast towns have risen or degenerated into mere resorts, but Fréjus holds its own as the centre of affairs for a very considerable region. CHAPTER VI. FRÉJUS AND THE CORNICHE D’OR Twenty kilometres beyond Ste. Maxime one comes to the Golfe de Fréjus and its neighbouring towns of Fréjus and St. Raphaël, the former the _ville commerçant_ and the latter the _ville d’eau_. As with Arles, on the banks of the Rhône, one may well say of Fréjus that the town and its environs form a veritable open-air museum. It will be true to add also, in this case, that the museum has a far greater area than at Arles, for Fréjus, and the antiquities directly connected with it, cover a radius of at least forty kilometres. The Romans, the great builders of baths and aqueducts, set a great store by water, and indeed classed it as among the greatest blessings of mankind. No labour was too great, and expense was never thought of, when it came to a question of building these great artificial waterways which, even unto to-day, are known as aqueducts the world over. One of their greatest works of the kind led to Fréjus, and two of its arches stand gaunt and grim to-day in the midst of a fence-paled field. There is also a sign attached to one of the fence-posts which reads as follows: +-------------------+ | DEFENSE ABSOLUE | | DE PENETRER | | DANS LA PROPRIÉTÉ | +-------------------+ This sign-board does not look as durable as the moss-grown old arches over which it stands sentinel; perhaps some day the stress of time (or some other reason) will cause it to disappear. The remains of this great aqueduct of other days prove conclusively the great regard and hope which the Romans must have had for the Forum Julii of Julius Cæsar, for all, without question, attribute the foundation of Fréjus to the conqueror of the Gauls. The evolution of the name of Fréjus is readily enough followed, though the present name, coming down through Forojuliens and Frejules, is a sad corruption. Of this evolution the authorities are not very certain, and call it “_une tradition et non un fait historiquement prouvé_.” It is satisfying enough to most, however, so let it stand; and anyway we have the words of Tacitus, who said that his brother-in-law, Agricola, was born at “the ancient and illustrious colony of Forojuliens.”