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CHAPTER VII

LES MONTAGNES DES MAURES

Exceptional character of the Maures—Warm quarters in the Southern nooks of the chain—A future for them—The cork tree—The carob—The mulberry—The Saracens take possession of the chain—King

Hugh makes terms with them : his history Marozia S. Majolus

William of Provence—Le Grand Fraxinet—Grimaud—S. Tropez—The Bravade.

A HUNCH of granite heaved up, and carrying on its back the beds of schist and gneiss that had overlain it, stands up between the Gapeau and the Argens. Its nearest geological relations, not connexions, are the Cevennes and Corsica, all pertaining to the same period of upheaval. Only to the east does the granite assert itself above the overlying formations. This mass of mountain is of no great elevation, never rising above 1,200 feet, and extending over a superficies of 200,000 acres.

"It forms by itself," says Elisée Reclus, "an oregraphic system sharply limited. Its mass of granite, gneiss, and schist is separated from the surrounding limestone mountains by profound and wide valleys, those of the Aille, the Argens, and the Gapeau. In fact, it constitutes an ensemble as distinct from the rest of Provence as if it were an island separated from the continent."

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