Provence
The Provence of the Romans, though, was bigger and included much land west of the Rhône; in the Middle Ages practically the whole of this part of the Mediterranean considered itself Provençal, from Catalonia to Liguria. Given such an independent history, it is not surprising that Provence in its present form was not created until after the Revolution; it has consisted ever since of the five departments: Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, Basses-Alpes (now renamed Alpes-de Haute-Provence), Var, Alpes-Maritimes. But it’s a case of five departments with ten landscapes, for Provence is above all a land of abrupt contrasts: the rocky soil of Crau; the lakes of the Camargue; the thin soil of the Luberon; the snowy foothills of the Alps; the marshlands of the Rhône and the Durance; the mimosas, palms and orange trees of the Côte d’Azur; the rocky inlets of Cassis; the humid valley of Gapeau; the cold of the Verdon gorges; the clement temperature of Hyères.
It is no accident, therefore, that Fabrice Moireau’s sketches reveal ancient and medieval influences, for example in the arc de triomphe romain d’Orange and in the Théâtre Antique with its magnificent mur de scène, which Louis XIV called ‘the most beautiful wall in my kingdom’; and the church of Saint-Trinit which, perched 850 metres up on the plateau of Albion, is said to represent the very height of the stonemason’s skill. However, Moireau also knows to point up the hearty abundance of the land itself, for it was not for its history that Provence was first explored by members of Louis XIV’s court. From the start Provence as vacation destination was all about nature – or at least as much of it as the pampered literati could take: Madame de Sévigné, who came to live in Grignan, famously described hay-making as ‘frolicking in a meadow’.