It is true that Galliardini and Ziem have made the fame of Martigues as an “artists’ sketching-ground,” and as such its reputation has been wide-spread. Artists of all nationalities come and go in twos and threes throughout the year, but it has not yet been overrun at any time by tourists. None except the Marseillais seem to have made it a resort, and they only come out on bicycles or _en auto_ to eat “_bouillabaisse_” of a special variety which has made Martigues famous. Ziem seems to have been one of the pioneers of the new school, high-coloured paintings which are now so greatly the vogue. This is not saying that for that reason they are any the less truthful representations of the things they are supposed to present; probably they are not; but if some one would explain why M. Ziem laid out an artificial pond in the gardens of his house at Martigues, put up Venetian lantern-poles, and anchored a gondola therein, and in another corner built a mosque, or whatever it may be,--a thing of minarets and towers and Moorish arches,--it would allay some suspicions which the writer has regarding “the artist’s way of working.” It does not necessarily mean that Ziem did not go to Africa for his Arab or Moorish compositions, or to Venice for his Venetian boatmen and his palace backgrounds. Probably he merely used the properties as accessories in an open-air studio, which is certainly as legitimate as “working-up” one’s pictures in a sky-lighted atelier up five flights of stairs; and the chances are this is just where Ziem’s brilliant colouring comes from. Martigues in its manners and customs is undoubtedly one of the most curious of all the coast towns of France. It is truly a gay little city, or rather it is three of them, known as Les Martigues, though the sum total of their inhabitants does not exceed six thousand souls all told. Martigues at first glance appears to be mostly peopled by sailors and fishermen, and there is little of the super-civilization of a great metropolis to be seen, except that “all the world and his wife” dines at the fashionable hour of eight, and before, and after, and at all times, patronizes the Café de Commerce to an extent which is the wonder of the stranger and the great profit of the patron. [Illustration: _Martigues_] No café in any small town in France is so crowded at the hour of the “_apéritif_,” and all the frequenters of Martigues’s most popular establishment have their own special bottle of whatever of the varnishy drinks they prefer from among those which go to make up the list of the Frenchman’s “_apéritifs_.” It is most remarkable that the cafés of Martigues should be so well patronized, and they are no mere longshore _cabarets_, either, but have walls of plate glass, and as many varieties of absinthe as you will find in a boulevard resort in Paris.