The part played in history by Aix-en-Provence was great and important, not only as regards its own career, but because of the aid which it gave to other cities of Provence. For the assistance which she gave Marseilles, when that city was besieged by the Spanish, Aix was given the right to bear upon her blazoned shield the arms of the Counts of Anjou (the quarterings of Anjou, Sicily, and Jerusalem). This accounts for the complex and familiar emblems seen to-day on the city arms. René d’Anjou was much revered in Aix, in which town he made his residence. It was but natural that the city should in a later day honour him with a statue bearing the inscription, “_Au bon roi René, dont la mémoire sera toujours chère aux Provençaux_.” There were times when sadness befell Aix, but on the whole its career was one of gladsome pleasure. To René, poet of imagination as well as king, was due the founding of the celebrated Fête-Dieu. In one form or another it was intermittently continued up to the middle of the nineteenth century. Originally it was a curious bizarre affair, with angels, apostles, disciples, and the whole list of Biblical characters personated by the citizens. The “Fête de la Reine de Saba,” the “Danse des Olivettes,” and the “Danse des Épées” were other processional fêtes which contributed not a little to the gay life here in the middle ages and account for the survival to-day of many local customs. Nostradamus, the prophet of Salon, gives the following flattering picture of “Le Prince d’Amour,” the title given to the head of the mediæval Courts of Love which nowhere flourished so gorgeously as here: “He marched always at the head of the parade, alone and richly clad. Behind were his lieutenants, his nobles, his standard-bearers, and a great escort of horsemen, all costumed at his expense.” It was Louis XIV. who decided to suppress the function, and a royal declaration to that effect was made on the 16th June, 1668. Aix met the decree by deciding that the “Prince d’Amour” should be replaced by a “Lieutenant,” to whom should be allowed an annual pension of eight hundred livres. Apparently this was none too much, as one of the aspirants for the honour expended something like two thousand livres during his one year in office. The costume officially prescribed for a “Lieutenant” or a “Prince d’Amour” was as follows: “A corselet and breeches ‘_à la romaine_,’ of white moiré with silver trimmings, a mantle trimmed with silver, black silk stockings, low shoes tied with ribbons, and a plumed hat, together with ‘knee-ribbons,’ a sword-knot and a bouquet, also with streamers of ribbon.” All this bespeaks a certain gorgeousness which was only accomplished at considerable personal expense on the part of him on whom the honour fell. In one form or another this sort of thing went on at Aix until Revolutionary times, when the pageant was abolished as smacking too much of royal procedure and too little of republicanism.