Petrarch Canon at Lombez [pp. 802-812]

i88i.] PETRARC~ CAiVOK AT LoMBEz. 803
and administered justice to the people, and where Montesquieu
spent part of his youth under the tutelage of a relative wbo was
one of the monks.
This part of.Aquitaine was once a Roman province called
Novempopulania, because inhabited by nine different peoples.
Past Lombez runs the old Roman road that went from Climberris (Auch) to Tolosa. Andeiit remains have been found on a hill
overlooking the town where a villa or encampment once stood
-fragments of marble columns and ancient pottery, a bronze
Mercury, some antique lamps, and a great number of Roman
medals and coins. But there seems to have been no town here
before the sixth century. Lombez, in fact, is one of those places,
so numerous in Europe, that have grown up around the tomb
of a saint. Its foundation is due to St. Majan, or Maya~, the
great apostle of this valley. Ancient traditions say that St.
Majan was a bishop of Antioch in the sixth century, who, after
a pilgrimage to Rome and St. James of Compostella, came into
Aquitaine by way of Bayonne, and, arriving at the valley of the
Save, was so filled with compassion at the barbarism of the people that he built an oratory to the holy Mother of God, with a
small cell adjoining in which he established himself and spent the
remainder of his life in laboring for their conversion. He also
encouraged them in clearing and cult~vating the land, and introduced new fruit-trees, among others a kind of plum known here
as the peregrine, one of which became famous at Villemagne for
springing up and bearing fruit as often as it was cut down. He
is also said to have extirpated the wild beasts and venomous reptiles, and delivered the country from an enormous dragon that
infected the neighborhood with its poisonous breath and devoured every one who fell in its way, by casting his episcopal ring into its yawning mouth, at which the earth opened and swallowed
the monster up for ever. A fountain sprang up on the spot that
has always been considered miraculous. Whether this legend is
to be regarded as literally true or merely symbolic every one
must determine for himself. St. Majan at his death was buried
in his oratory, which stood on a height overlooking the present
town, and his tomb Was held in such veneration that a village was
soon formed around it.
In the year 8io Count Raymond of Toulouse gave Lombez
and the surrounding territory to the Order of St. Benedict. The
monks did not delay taking possession of their new domains, and
when they saw the fertility of the valley they decided to build a
convent at Lombez, which took the name of Notre Dame de Ia