 The thirty-six letters of the Armenian alphabet found in a Latin inscription at the St. Martha Church in Tarascon show that Armenians lived there before the 13th century, when the last three characters of the Armenian alphabet were added.The contacts between Armenians and the French became frequent during the Crusades.The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, located on the north-eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, became of strategic importance to the crusaders en route to Palestine.