In Troubadour-Land by Sabine Baring-Gould

Position of Tarascon and Beaucaire opposite each other -- Church of S. Martha -- Crypt -- Ancient paintings -- Catechising -- Ancient altar -- The festival of the Tarasque -- The Phoenician goddess Martha -- Story of S. Fronto -- Discussion at _déjeuner_ over the entry of M. Carnot into Marseilles -- The change in the French character -- Pessimism -- Beaucaire -- Font -- Castle -- Siege by Raymond VII. -- Story of Aucassin and Nicolette.

Tarascon and Beaucaire stand frowning at each other across the Rhone, each with its castle; Beaucaire a grand pile on a crag, Tarascon dipping its feet in the water, and sulkily showing to its enemy a plain face, reserving all its picturesqueness for its side towards the town. This castle of Tarascon was one in which King René resided, as well as in that at Aix, but the Aix castle is gone, and that at Tarascon remains. Beaucaire belonged to the counts of Toulouse, whereas Tarascon, as already said, belonged to Provence. I do not like to venture on an explanation of the name, but the _Tar_ with which it begins is most probably the Keltic _Daur_, water. [1] But the Tarasconese will not hear of this. To them the name is taken from the Tarasc, a monster that devastated the whole country round, but whom S. Martha bridled and slew. S. Martha, as we have already seen, is the very prophetess who directed Caius Marius in his campaign against the Teutons and Ambrons, the devastating horde that has in the popular imagination been represented as a dragon. 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.