It was in those easy-going days that the vineyards were planted, on the slopes below the castle, which were destined to make the name of Chateauneuf-du-Pape famous the toping world over long after the New Castle should be an old ruin and the Avignon Popes a legend of the past. Only within the present generation did those precious vines perish, when the phylloxera began among them its deadly work in France; and even yet may be found, tucked away here and there in the favoured cellars of Provence and Languedoc, a few dust-covered bottles of their rich vintage: which has for its distinguishing taste a sublimated spiciness due to the alternate dalliance of the bees with the grape-blossoms and with the blossoms of the wild thyme. It is a wine of poets, this bee-kissed Chateauneuf, and its noblest association is not with the Popes who gave their name to it but with the seven poets--Mistral, Roumanille, Aubanel, Matthieu, Brunet, Giera, Tavan--whose chosen drink it was in those glorious days when they all were young together and were founding the Felibrige: the society that was to restore the golden age of the Troubadours and, incidentally, to decentralize France. One of the sweetest and gentlest of the seven, Anselme Matthieu, was born here at Chateauneuf; and here, with a tender love-song upon his lips, only the other day he died. The vineyards have been replanted, and in the fulness of time may come to their glory again; but the greater glories of Chateauneuf--which belonged to it once because of its Popes, and again because of its sweet-souled Poet--must be only memories forevermore. [Illustration: THE ROUMANILLE MONUMENT]