The port became the _faubourg maritime_ of Arles, as did the Piræus for Athens. It was at this time that the name of Lion, or Lyon, was given to the great bay which washes the coast of the ancient Narbonnaise. It grew up from the fact that the Arlesien shipping was ever in evidence on its waters, bearing aloft their flags and banners “blazoned with lions.” As the number of these ships of Arles was great, the name came gradually to be adopted. The explanation seems plausible, and the countless thousands who now traverse its waters in great steamships, coming and going from Marseilles, need no longer speculate as to the origin of the name. The disappearance of the Roman Empire caused the decadence of the Fossis Marianis, as the name had been modified, and the invasion of the barbarians drove the inhabitants to the neighbouring heights, which they fortified. This Castrum de Fossis became in time the Château des Fossés Mariennes, and what is left of it, or at least the site, is so known to-day. In the middle ages the town became a Marquisat belonging to the Vicomtes de Marseille, but in 1393 it bought its freedom and became a _communauté_. [Illustration: _Fos-sur-Mer_] To-day the little town of Fos-sur-Mer is a queer mixture of the old and new, of indolence and industry; but the complex sky-line of its old château, seen over the marshes, is as fairylike and mediæval as old Carcassonne itself; which is saying the most that can be said of a crumbling old walled town. It is not so grand, nor indeed so well preserved, as Carcassonne, but it has all the characteristics, if in a lesser degree. Fos has a wonderful industry in the manufacture of paper and cellulose from the alfa, a textile plant which grows in abundance on the high plateaux of Algeria. Added, in certain proportions, to the cane or bamboo of Provence, it produces a most excellent fibre for the fabrication of high-grade papers; in a measure a very good imitation of the fine vellum and parchment papers of Japan and China. From Fos it is but a step to Port de Bouc, the more modern neighbour, and the gateway by which the products of the Fos of to-day reach the outside world. Here, in miniature, are all the indications of a world-port. It is a picturesque waterside town, the tall chimneys of its factories, the masts and funnels of the ships at its quays, and the tall spars of the lateen-rigged “_tartanes_,” all producing a wonderfully serrated sky-line of the kind loved by artists; but, oh! so difficult for them to reproduce satisfactorily. Besides these features there is also the near-by fort and the lighthouse which gleams forth a sailor’s warning a dozen miles out to sea. The hum of industry and the generally imposing aspect of the port leads one to suppose, from a distance, that the town is vastly more populous than it really is; but for all that it is an interesting note in one’s itinerary along Mediterranean shores.