Good evening. Welcome to the Just Sleep podcast. I'm Tasia, your host.

Every week, I will read you an old story to help you relax, put the stressful day behind you,

and drift off to sleep.

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Tonight, I will be continuing the story of the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.

So lie down, close your eyes, and let me read you a story.

Chapter 3. The Catalans

Beyond a bare weather-worn wall, about a hundred paces from the spot where the two friends sat looking and listening as they drank

their wine was the village of the Catalanes. Long ago, this mysterious colony quitted Spain

and settled on the tongue of land on which it is to this day. Whence it came no one knew,

and it spoke an unknown tongue.

One of its chiefs, who understood Provencal, begged the commune of Marseille to give them this bearer and barren promontory, where, like the sailors of old, they had run their boats ashore.

The request was granted,

and three months afterwards,

around the 12 or 15 small vessels

which had brought these gypsies of the sea,

a small village sprang up.

This village, constructed in a singular and picturesque manner,

half Moorish, half Spanish, still remains, and is inhabited by descendants of the first-comers

...