To
the south of the bourg saint Sauveur, the city of the Counts of
Provence was the first significant extension appended to the original
site in the twelfth century. Approaching town by the Via Aurelia
, the Roman road leading from Rome itself to Arles and furthest
Spain, the traveller was confronted by a massive, multiple construction
composed of two Roman towers and a mausoleum which the Counts
of Provence transformed into a palace and late eighteenth century
Aixois into the equally massive courthouse that has taken its
place. Here burgeoned the "most refined court in Europe"
under the "benign, enlightened guidance", so men say,
of the good King René.
