PROVENCE

From Agepedia

PROVENCE ; one of the old provinces of France, lying in the southeastern part of the country, on the Mediterranean, bounded on the north by Dauphiny, and on the west by Languedoc. Its natural boundaries were the sea, the Rhone, the Var and the Alps. The capital was Aix, and the province was divided into Upper and Lower Provence. The departments of the Mouths of the Rhone, the Lower Alps and the Var, with a part of that of Vaucluse, have been formed from it. Greek colonies were founded here at an early period (see Marseilles); and the Romans, having conquered the country (B. C. 124), gave it the name of Provincia (the province), whence its later name wTas derived. After the division of the empire of Louis le Debonnaire, it fell to Lothaire, and was afterwards a separate kingdom, under the name of the kingdom of Aries. In 1246, it passed to the house of Anjou by marriage ; and, in 1481, on the extinction of the male line of that house, Louis XI united it to the dominions of the French crown. (For its language and literature, see France, division Language, and the article Provengal Poets.)