In Troubadour-Land by Sabine Baring-Gould

A dead town -- The Rhônes-morts -- Bars -- S. Louis and the Crusades -- How S. Louis acquired Aigues Mortes -- His canal -- The four littoral chains and lagoons -- The fortifications -- Unique for their date -- Original use of battlements -- Deserted state of the town -- Maguelonne -- How reached -- History of Maguelonne -- Cathedral -- The Bishops forge Saracen coins -- Second destruction of the place -- Inscription on door -- Bernard de Treviis -- His Romance of Pierre de Provence -- Provencal poetry not always immoral -- Present state of Maguelonne.

Aigues Mortes is a dead town, and differs from Maguelonne, to be presently described, in this, that it is a dead _town_, whereas Maguelonne is only the ghost of a dead town. It is a great curiosity, for it is a dead medieval town surrounded by its walls, and dominated by its keep. But first about its name, which signifies Dead Waters. If the reader will remember what has been already said about the structure of the delta of the Rhone, he will recall the fact that the river is constantly engaged in changing its mouths. When it has formed for itself a new mouth, it deserts its former course, which it leaves as a stagnating canal. This occasions the delta to be striped with what are locally termed Rhônes-morts, whereas a flowing branch is called a Rhône-vif.