Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/84

62 height of Ste. Victoire is noted as the resort of a special kind of eagle, resembling the golden eagle, but more thickset, and with "white scapulars." It may be remembered that Sir Walter Scott has placed one of the scenes of Anne of Geierstein at the Monastery of Ste. Victoire.

Near the chapel is the cavern of Lou Garagoul:

"In the midst of this cavernous thoroughfare," says Sir Walter, "is a natural pit or perforation of great, but unknown, depth. A stone dropped into it is heard to dash from side to side, until the noise of its descent, thundering from cliff to cliff, dies away in distant and faint tinkling, less loud than that of a sheep's bell at a mile's distance. The traditions of the monastery annex wild and fearful recollections to a place in itself sufficiently terrible. Oracles, it is said, spoke from thence in pagan days by subterranean voices, arising from the abyss."

The pit is, in fact, one of these avens so commonly found on the limestone causses. The description is somewhat overdrawn, but Sir Walter had never seen the place, and all he knew of it was second hand. With Aix, King Réné is inseparably associated, that most unfortunate Mark Tapley of monarchs claiming to be King of Jerusalem, Aragon, of Naples and of Sicily, of Valencia, Majorca, Minorca, of Corsica and Sardinia—to wear nine crowns, and yet not possessing a rood of territory in one of them; Duke of Anjou and Bar, but despoiled of his dukedoms, and reduced to only his county of Provence. Sir Walter Scott pretty accurately describes him:—

"Réné was a prince of very moderate parts, endowed with a love of the fine arts, which he carried to extremity, and a