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| - Bourg Saint-Sauveur - | 
| The
              oldest part of the "old town" the stones reveal over
              two thousand years of wear and tear. The Roman forum now
              lies beneath a part of the Cathedral and the only twentieth century
              intruder in this part of town is located at the bottom of the rue
              du Bon Pasteur, the Aqua Bella hotel, rises four square atop
              the Roman thermal establishment of the "Aquae Sextiae".
              The earliest depiction of this part of town, a fifteenth century
              painting of "scenes from the life of" Saint
              Mitre is in the saint's chapel directly behind the Cathedral
              high altar. Though unbelievers will always disbelieve, the saint
              is here seen at a "crowning moment" of his life, holding
              his severed head "to the merriment of Roman soldiers and the
              awe-struck horror of onlookers". It is told that he kissed
              it. A less challenging truth, Aix-en-Provence in the fifteenth
              century, with its Cathedral tower, and the magnificent palaces
              that surrounded
              it. We are, here, most surely, on the site of Aix's prehistory,
              the crossroads and thermal springs that quenched the thirst of
              weary travellers on their way from Italy to Spain and from Marseille
        to Paris. | 
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