The Motor Routes of France: To the Châteaux of Touraine, Biarritz, the Pyrenees, the Riviera, & the Rhone ValleyHome, Gordon
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The Motor Routes of France: To the Châteaux of Touraine, Biarritz, the Pyrenees, the Riviera, & the Rhone Valley
Home, Gordon
Automobile travel -- France -- Guidebooks; France -- Description and travel
The Hôtel de Ville, containing a big library, to which the public is
admitted, _except on Sundays and Mondays, and between August 15 and
October 15_, was built in 1640, and much altered in 1760; but the
clock-tower adjoining goes back to 1512.
One relic of the medieval fortifications of Aix exists in the Tour de
Tourreluco. It stands in the garden of the thermal establishment, where
one can also see the slight remains of the Roman baths.
The Church of La Madeleine was built in 1703 with a later façade, and
St. Jean de Malle was founded in the thirteenth century for the Order of
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. It contains on the left side of
the altar the tomb of
[Illustration: THE ROMANESQUE BRIDGE OF ST. BÉNÉZET AT AVIGNON.
Only four arches and the chapel survive. (_Page 335._)]
Raymond, Count of Provence, with statues and recumbent figures.
THE ROAD TO FRÉJUS
goes out eastwards, and, after a few miles, passes through a rocky
ravine before coming out into the long valley of the River Arc, bounded
on the north by the gaunt grey precipices of Mont Ste. Victoire. It was
into this valley that Marius with his legions drove the undisciplined
invaders in 102 B.C., and near Pourrières he outflanked and defeated
them. The slaughter was so enormous that the two great tribes of the
Teutones and Ambrones, with their women and children, were practically
annihilated, and the river ran red with their life-blood. Just after
crossing the Arc, on the north side of the road, are the slight ruins of
the monument put up by the Romans to celebrate the great victory
achieved by the brilliant strategy of Marius, who thus saved Rome from
premature extinction.
Soon after passing Pourrières, a compact village north of the road, with
roofs and walls of the same dark orange-red as the soil of the
vineyards, there is spread out in front a splendid mountain view, with
snow-capped peaks standing out against the blue of the distant sky.
[Illustration: No. 18. AIX-EN-PROVENCE TO CANNES.]
St. Maximin is a very small town with a lovely Gothic church, which
should by no means be ignored. It dates from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth century, and stands over an early crypt containing Early
Christian sarcophagi. This is kept locked, but the sacristan has the
key. The altar at the east end of the north aisle is dated 1526, with
the name ‘Jacques Baurmes, Chamberlain to the King,’ who gave it to the
church. In one of the paintings Christ is being scourged on the
Piazzetta at Venice! The choir-stalls of the seventeenth century are
richly carved, the whole interior is clean and light, and the lofty
arches are exceptionally beautiful.
The way out of St. Maximin is a zigzag to the right, and at the fork
just outside one turns to the left, neither going under the railway-arch
nor up to the station, which one can see on the left a little farther
on.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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