decoration has been made. It seems a shapeless pile of towers and
machicolated and battlemented curtains, falling into almost complete
ruin. But on passing through the single entrance, one finds oneself in a
well-proportioned church of nave and side aisles, a south chapel, and an
apse. Each buttress of the apse is battlemented outside and forms a turret,
and two strong towers are adapted internally to serve as a transept and a
porch.

Marseilles claims to have had as its first apostle Lazarus, whom Christ
raised from the dead. The foundation of this myth is that in the fourth
century it perhaps had a prelate of the name of Lazarus, though the
earliest known bishop was Orestius, A.D. 314. The fact is that the
existence of S. Lazarus at Marseilles was unsuspected till the eleventh
century. When Cassian founded his abbey he dedicated it to S. Victor. If he
had known anything about Lazarus, almost certainly he would have dedicated
the church to him; he erected moreover, two other chapels, one to SS. Peter
and Paul, the other to the Blessed Virgin and S. John the Baptist. When, in
1010, Benedict IX. enumerates the glories of the abbey restored after the
destruction by the Saracens, he does not make the most transient allusion
to S. Lazarus. However, Benedict IX., in 1040, does mention the passion of
this Lazarus raised from the dead by Christ, as one of the causes why the
abbey was venerable. His relics were said to have been transported thence
to Athens, to preserve them from the Saracens. We shall learn more about
this fable when we come to the Camargue.




CHAPTER V.