Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/259

Rh Porcarius, the abbot, and five hundred monks, were butchered by the Moors. The interesting fortress, with its cloister and quadrangle in the centre, was erected by the monks as a place of refuge from the Moors and Algerine pirates. But worse times were in store, when the Crown came to look on the great abbeys as fiefs, to be given in commendam to laymen, to bastards, to favourites, to harlots, who might enjoy the revenues and ignore the duties. Naturally enough, in such a condition of affairs, Lerins declined. It became a place to which younger sons were relegated, vicious monks were banished; it was resolved into a bastille for evildoers, and sank to so low an ebb that, as a scandal, the abbey was suppressed the year before the Revolution came, and swept all monastic institutions away. To the west of the Île Ste. Marguerite, in the sea pours up a copious spring of fresh water. When the surface of the sea is calm, the upflow can be easily distinguished by the undulations. There are other such springs in the Gulf of Jouan, near Antibes, also at the mouth of the Var; near the shore at Portissol, west of S. Nazaire; another again near Bandol. In 1838, a M. Bazin tapped this latter when sinking a well at Cadière, and such an abundance of water poured forth that the well had to be abandoned. Off Cassis is a very considerable spring in the sea, so strong that it carries floating bodies for a couple of miles from its source. But the largest of all is in the Gulf of Spezzia, and is called La Polla. This has been enclosed by the Italian government, and vessels supply themselves with fresh water from it. The rain which falls on the limestone causses, that