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Before taking leave of the Elysian Fields, I must quote the words of a French author upon them: "It has been a rich quarry only too easily worked, and we will not here enter on the painful story of its spoliation. All the museums of the south of France possess tombs stolen from the Alyscamp.
The body of S. Martha is supposed to lie in the crypt, in an early Christian marble sarcophagus, probably brought from the Alyscamp at Arles, representing Moses striking the rock, and the miraculous feeding of the multitude, the miracle of Cana, and the resurrection of Lazarus.
On the Alyscamp is the venerable church of S. Honore, half ruinous, in which, underground in the crypt is the ancient baptistery that had served the first Christians when the church was young. It was furnished with a large porphyry circular vessel for immersing adults. Louis XIV. saw it, coveted it for some water-works, and got the Arelois to give it him.
A strange story is told of him, how one night, as he was pacing the walls of Arles, or possibly walking in the Alyscamp, he saw a mysterious ship come sailing over the meres. In the starlight he discerned forms of sailors. The ship drew up near where he stood, and a voice called to him: "Reverend father, we know who thou art.
This plateau was called the Elysian Fields, now Alyscamp, and is so thick with tombs that you walk over them as you follow the road that runs along the plateau. You see the grass at the side dead in one place, there is a tomb there; you see a bit of white marble cropping up in another, that is a tomb. You see a great stack of stones heaped up by the side of a railway cutting, they are all tombs.
I am not responsible for the grammatical blunders, they were made clearly by the sculptor of the inscription, who did not understand what he cut. Among the tombs extracted from the Alyscamp and now in the Museum of Arles, is another of a girl, and a very accomplished young lady she must have been; her name was Julia, and she was the daughter of Lucius Tyrannus.
Below the rock is a spit of land that stood anciently dry above the meres, and on that is a very singular old church dedicated to the Holy Cross, round which has been discovered a minor Alyscamp, a place of sepulture utilised from the earliest times. Sainte Croix is now regarded as a national monument, and is preserved carefully.
Difficulty of finding one's way about in Arles The two inns The mistral The charm of Arles is in the past A dead city Situation of Arles on a nodule of limestone The Elysian Fields A burial-place for the submerged neighbourhood The Alyscamp now in process of destruction Expropriation of ancient tombs Avenue of tombs Old church of S. Honore S. Trophimus S. Virgilius Augustine, apostle of the English, consecrated by him The Flying Dutchman Tomb of AElia Of Julia Tyranna Her musical instruments Monument of Calpurnia Her probable story Mathematical versus classic studies Tombs of utriculares Christian sarcophagi Probably older than the date usually attributed to them A French author on the wreckage of the Elysian Fields.
The company are excavating Les Alyscamp for this purpose, throwing about the sarcophagi, Pagan or Christian, or using them for building materials and sawn in half they make decent quoins for a brickshed and strewing the dust of the dead of ages under the wheels of the locomotives. One undesecrated, unrifled headland remains above the factories, on which is a venerable but abandoned church.
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