vencal Apt which
possesses so large a part of the Saint's body, is not as simple, and
therefore not as strong as in Breton Auray which has but a part of her
finger. Republicanism in the south country is not too friendly to the
Church, kings and queens no longer come with prodigal gifts, and
Sainte-Anne of Apt has not the peasant strength of Sainte-Anne of Auray.
And in spite of the great feast-day of July, in spite of Aptoisian
pride, in spite of the devotion and prayers of faithful worshippers, the
Cathedral of Apt is a church of past rather than of present glories.

[Sidenote: Riez.]

Just as the church-bells were chiming the morning Angelus, and the warm
sun was rising on a day of the early fall, a traveller drove out of old
Manosque. He had no gun,--therefore he had not come for the hunting; he
had no brass-bound, black boxes, and therefore could not be a "Commis."
What he might be, he well knew, was troubling the brain of the
broad-backed man sitting before him, who, with many a long-drawn
"Ou-ou-u-u-" was driving a fat little horse. But native courtesy
conquered natural curiosity and they drove in silence to the long, fine
bridge that spans the river of evil repute:

"Parliament, Mistral, and Durance
Are the three scourges of Provence."

At that time of year, however, the Durance usually looks peaceable and
harmless enough; half its great bed is dry and pebbly, and the water
that rushes under the big arches of the bridge is not great in volume.
But the size and strength of the bridge itself and certain huge rocks,
placed for a long distance on either side of the road, are significant
of floods and of the spring awakening of the monstrous river that, like
Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has two lives.

[Illustration: "SAINT-MARTIN-DE-BROMES WITH ITS HIGH, SLIM TOWER."]

[Illustration: "THE FORTIFIED MONASTERY OF THE TEMPLARS."--(NEAR
GREOUX).]

The road wound about the low hills of the Alps, past a massive,
fortified monastery of the Templars whose windows gape in ruin; past
Saint-Martin-de-Bromes with its high, slim, crenellated watch-tower;
past many quiet little villages where in the old times, Taine says,
"Good people lived as in an eagle's nest, happy as long as they were not
slain--that was the luxury of the feudal times." Between these villages
lay vast groves of the grey-green olive-trees, large flourishing farms,
and, further still, the bleak mountains of the Lower Alps. It was toward
them t