Among men of note that have been associated with Nimes is Fléchier, born at Pernes in Vaucluse in 1632, who became Bishop of Nimes in 1687. He was the son of a tallow-chandler. From his eloquence he was much regarded as a preacher, but unfortunately his discourses contain very little except well-rounded sentences of well-chosen words. He was a favourite of Louis XIV., who respected his integrity and piety. One day a haughty aristocratic prelate about the Court had the bad taste to sneer at him for his origin. "Avec votre manière de penser," replied Fléchier calmly, "je crois que si vous étiez né ce que je suis, vous n'eussiez fait, toute votre vie--que de chandelles."
A dead town--The Rhônes-morts--Bars--S. Louis and the Crusades--How S. Louis acquired Aigues Mortes--His canal--The four littoral chains and lagoons--The fortifications--Unique for their date--Original use of battlements--Deserted state of the town--Maguelonne--How reached--History of Maguelonne--Cathedral--The Bishops forge Saracen coins--Second destruction of the place--Inscription on door--Bernard de Treviis--His Romance of Pierre de Provence--Provençal poetry not always immoral--Present state of Maguelonne.
Aigues Mortes is a dead town, and differs from Maguelonne, to be presently described, in this, that it is a dead _town_, whereas Maguelonne is only the ghost of a dead town. It is a great curiosity, for it is a dead mediæval town surrounded by its walls, and dominated by its keep. But first about its name, which signifies Dead Waters. If the reader will remember what has been already said about the structure of the delta of the Rhone, he will recall the fact that the river is constantly engaged in changing its mouths. When it has formed for itself a new mouth, it deserts its former course, which it leaves as a stagnating canal. This occasions the delta to be striped with what are locally termed Rhônes-morts, whereas a flowing branch is called a Rhône-vif.
[Illustration: Aigues Mortes.--One of the gates.]
Moreover the stagnant masses of water left by floods are called Aigues Mortes--Dead Waters; and it is precisely on such that the little fortified town I am now writing about, stands. I know of no point on the littoral of the Rhone that offers so excellent an opportunity of observing the processes of that river than at Aigues Mortes. The river has, indeed, long ago deserted the branch that once discharged itself here, and it has left four lines behind it, making successive stages of advance, four bars, with their several backwaters, now converted into ponds or meres. The Canal of Beaucaire now passes by Aigues Mortes, and reaches the Mediterranean nearly three miles below the town.