rosary of winter resorts to Hyères on one side to Alassio on the other; as white grains threaded on the line from Marseilles to Genoa. As this chain of villas, hotels, casinos, and shops has sprung up so recently, the whole looks extremely modern, and devoid of historic interest. That it is not so, I hope to show. This modern fringe is but a fringe on an ancient garment; but a superficial sprinkling over beds of remote antiquity rich in story.
Sometimes it is but a glimpse we get—as at Antibes, where a monument was dug up dedicated to the manes of a little "boy from the North, aged twelve years, who danced and pleased" in the theatre. The name of the poor lad is not given; but what a picture does it present! Possibly, of a British child-slave sent to caper, with sore heart, before the Roman nobles and ladies—and who pined and died. But often we have more than a hint. The altar piece of the Burning Bush at Aix gives up an authentic portrait of easy-going King Réné, the luckless wearer of many crowns, and the possessor of not a single kingdom—Réné, the father of the still more luckless Margaret, wife of our Henry VI.
Among the Montagnes des Maures, on a height are the cisterns and foundations of the stronghold of the Saracens, their last stronghold on this side of the Pyrenees, whence they swept the country, burning and slaying, till dislodged in 972 by William, Count of Provence. Again, the house at Draguignan of Queen Joanna, recalls her tragic story; the wife of four husbands, the murderess of the first, she for whose delectation Boccaccio collected his merry, immoral tales; she, who sold Avignon to the Popes, and so brought about their migration from Rome,
