Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/236

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186
THE RIVIERA

youth named Ambrose was sacrificing to idols at Arluc, when the devils laid hold of him, raised him in the air, and flew away with him, in spite of all his protests and kicks, to convey him to hell. But as they were thus transporting him over the island of Lerins, Ambrose heard the chanting of the monks, and he cried out to S. Honorat to help him. Then the devils let go, and he came fluttering down like a feather into the midst of the cloister of Lerins, where S. Nazarius received him; and thenceforth Ambrose lived with the monks as a good Christian.

The Lerins Chronicle tells us that the Abbot Nazarius destroyed a temple of Venus that was at Arluc, and built a church on its site, which he dedicated to S. Stephen in A.D. 616, and attached to it a convent of women. But in 730 the Saracens destroyed church and convent and town, and sacked Lerins, where they massacred the abbot and five hundred of his monks.

The town of Arluc was rebuilt by Pepin le Bref, but in 890 the Saracens again destroyed it. It again struggled into existence, but was finally utterly ruined and effaced by the Tard-Venus in 1361, under their chief, who called himself "The Enemy of Man." These Tard-Venus were one of the Free Companies that ravaged the country, gleaning after others had reaped.

The chapel was rebuilt, and when given to the abbey of S. Victor at Marseilles, was dedicated to S. Cassien. The fête is on July 23rd; religious services take place in the morning and a pleasure fair and merrymaking in the afternoon.

A pretty watering place is La Napoule, that once enjoyed a prosperity of which Cannes had no thought. It was the Roman station Ad Horea, where vast stores