was so closely shut, must be the hiding place of treasure. One of the
robbers at once climbed to the top of the stronghold and peeped over. He
found it roofless and, looking down into the depth, saw not coffers
filled with silver and gold but a solitary man, emaciated and in rags,
sitting on the bare stones. They assumed him to be a miser who had vast
wealth buried beneath the flags on which he crouched. With violent
hammer blows they broke down the door and effected an entry.
The captain of the gang pushed through the opening and, confronting the
silent figure on the ground, demanded who he was and where his hoard was
concealed. To this the supposed man of wealth replied, “I am a murderer.
There is no crime that I am not guilty of, and with each misdeed I have
crucified anew the Son of God.” This was a dark saying very hard to
understand. The Lombard, although himself a practised murderer, felt
that he was in the presence of a criminal of unusual virulence, of a
malefactor whose wickedness was even riper than his own. His moral sense
was shocked by this revolting creature crouching on the earth, and moved
by an impulse of justice he proceeded to kill him. This was in accord
with the routine procedure adopted by Lombards in all cases of doubt.
“He raised his weapon to strike a deadly blow on the criminal’s head,
but, to the horror of all present, his arm remained dry and stiff in the
air and the weapon fell heavily to the ground.”[23]
This terrible occurrence filled those who had crowded into the tower
with shivering dread. They feared that they too might be punished in
this mysterious and abrupt manner. They felt their limbs all over to see
if they were still sound, looked at the placid figure on the floor with
awe and finally fell down upon their knees and implored mercy and
forgiveness. St. Hospice now arose, touched the withered arm, made over
it the sign of the cross and uttered some fervent words. At once the
limb became whole again.
So vivid was the impression made upon these rude men that two officers
and many of the company expressed a desire to be baptised then and
there. They never dreamt that the expedition would end in this way. They
had come to plunder and burn, not to be baptised. Those outside the
tower who had not seen the demonstration accomplished by the supposed
criminal promptly retreated. They were unfortunately met on the way by a
body of Ligurians who fell upon them and killed them. The attack on Cap
Ferrat thus proved a failure and the Lombards viewed the peninsula with
such mistrust that they left it in peace.
St. Hospice continued to live in the old tower as a hermit, beloved and
reverenced by all. In this tower he died in the year 580 and under the
grass at the foot of the tower he was buried. Some vestiges of this
Tower of the Withered Arm were still to be seen as late as 1650, but at
the present day no trace of it is to be discovered.
A sanctuary, in the form of a little chapel, was erected by the side of
the tower to keep green the memory of the saint. It is mentioned in a
Bull issued by Pope Innocent II in 1137. It was repaired by Charles
Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, about 1640 and was dignified by an
inscription in marble. Of this memorial chapel also no vestige now
exists.
In later years, when the Saracens came, they established a fortress—Le
petit Fraxinet—on Cap de St. Hospice and during the troubled centuries
that followed the promontory was strongly fortified and was the scene of
many assaults and numerous bombardments. Of these strongholds not a
stone is now standing, save alone the Emmanuel Philibert Tower, of which
an account is given on p. 110. Between the years 1526 and 1528 the cape
was occupied by the Knights of St. John who rendered great service
during the famine of 1527 and promoted, in many ways, the commerce along
the coast.
There is a curious legend of the cape which relates to the time of the
saint, for it belongs to the year 575 when St. Hospice was still living
in his old roofless tower. It is the Legend of the Stream of Blood.
On a certain day a party of honest folk—villagers and monks—started
from Cap Ferrat to walk up to Eze. Their purpose was peaceful and indeed
they seem to have been merely taking a stroll. When the evening came
they had not returned. They were never to return; for, as they climbed
up the cliff, they were set upon by a gang of miscreants and murdered to
a man. Plunder was not the object of the attack, for the victims were
poor but they were disciples of St. Hospice and the religion taught by
that good man was held in abhorrence by the profane. As no trace of the
murderers was ever discovered it is assumed that they were agents of the
devil and that they had come direct from the bottomless pit on this
especial mission.
[Illustration: CAP DE ST. HOSPICE.]
[Illustration: ST. HOSPICE: THE MADONNA AND THE TOWER.]
On the following morning some fishermen were starting in their boats
from the cove where now stands the village of St. Jean. The morning was
calm. The sea was smooth as a mirror and as blue as the petals of the
gentian. The boatmen were amazed to see a crimson stream coming towards
them on the surface of the deep from the direction of Eze. It was a
stream, narrow and straight, and as clear in outline as a ribbon of
scarlet satin drawn across a sheet of blue ice. As they approached it
they were horrified to perceive that it was blood, warm blood, thick and
gelatinous looking. It smelt of fresh blood and from it rose a sickly
steam.
As the men drew nearer the red streak began to recede in the direction
whence it came. They followed it. It led them to the beach at Eze. They
landed and saw before them the rivulet of blood trickling, in slow,
glutinous ripples, over the stones. It withdrew to the foot of the
cliff. They followed and as they advanced the stream still retreated.
Looking up they could see it coming down the path as a thick red band,
with clots hanging here and there from the steps and from low-lying
brambles. As they mounted up the cliff the stream withdrew before them.
Finally the fishermen came to a mossy ledge, where they found the bodies
of the dead villagers lying in a tangled heap. Beneath them was a cross
which they had never seen before. They proceeded at once to bury the
victims of this wicked outrage. The ground about was rocky; but, as they
dug, the rock softened and became as sand. They left the cross as they
had found it and, after offering up a prayer for those who had passed
away, they walked silently down the path to their boats.
St. Jean is a little place that hangs about a tiny harbour full of
fishing boats. It is quite modern or at least all that part of it that
is presented to the eye belongs to the period of to-day. It is popular
because it is supposed to be a fisher village away from the world, and
those who live in towns love fisher villages, since they suggest a
picturesque quietness, a place of nets and lobster pots and of
sun-tanned toilers of the deep, a primitive spot where people live the
simple life in vine-covered cottages.
Now there is little of the fisher village about St. Jean, not even the
smell. There are certainly nets and boats and an appropriate brawniness
about the people; but the fisher village element is wanting. St. Jean
is, in fact, a popular resort for the humbler type of holiday folk, a
place they can reach in the beloved tram and where they can eat and
drink and be merry. The whole quay front is occupied by bars, cafés and
restaurants, where _langouste_ can be enjoyed and that rare dish the
_bouillabaisse_ which is claimed to be a speciality of the place.
St. Hospice would not approve of St. Jean in its present guise and could
he find the way back to his tower he would be horrified by the placards
of “American drinks” and “Afternoon teas.” There is no missionary spirit
abroad in St. Jean, nothing of the old monastic life. The early morning
fishermen would never again expect to see a stream of blood creeping
over the tide. St. Jean, in fact, is no longer adapted for miracles;
while its romance goes little beyond the romance of a lunch in the open
air by a harbour-side.
[Illustration: VILLEFRANCHE.]
Beyond St. Jean is the point of Cap de St. Hospice, a low, rocky
promontory covered with firs, olive trees and cactus. On the extremity
of the cape is the tower erected by Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy,
in 1561. It is a structure in yellowish stone, plain, round and squat,
with a few emplacements for small guns on its summit and a few narrow
slits in its uncompromising flanks. It is as insolent and as defiant a
structure as can be imagined. By its side is placed a most astonishing
object—a newly-made statue of the Virgin, some 28 feet in height and
nearly as tall as the tower itself. The statue stands on the grass
facing the east, is of a bilious tint but otherwise unpainted. Few more
incongruous things have ever been brought together in this world. The
statue is so very modern, so artificial and so frail; while the tower is
so old, so primitive and so coarse in its braggart strength. The statue,
it appears, was provided by the subscriptions of the faithful, but want
of funds or want of purpose has prevented its being placed on the top of
the tower where it was intended that it should ultimately stand.
The tower has walls of enormous thickness. An upper story can be reached
by a stair and there the visitor will be brought face to face with the
most substantial apparition that has ever been found in a mediæval
stronghold. He will find himself, when near the roof, confronted by the
ashen face of the Madonna, a face as big as a boulder, for the tower is
occupied by a model of the statue which is of the same proportions as
the stupendous image itself. To complete the anomalies of this
remarkable household the ground floor of the tower is occupied by a
family surrounded by the amenities of a cave dwelling.
Beyond the tower is the chapel of St. Hospice. It is a humble, barn-like
little church with a roof of red tiles and a bell gable. It is
comparatively modern, for it has been in existence for just one hundred
years. It is only opened once annually—viz. on October 16th—for the
celebration of the Mass.
The spot on which it may reasonably be assumed that the monastery of St.
Hospice stood is occupied by a café-restaurant where dancing is indulged
in on Sundays and holidays to the music of a pianola. One wonders what
the saint—who was eloquent and forcible of speech—would say if he
could visit again the cape that bears his name.
There are some half-buried fragments of old walls on the promontory, and
these the imaginative man, if free from scruples, can assume to belong
to whatever building and whatever period in the history of the place he
may particularly affect.
From the point of the spit is a fascinating view of the mainland and
especially of Eze which stands exactly opposite to St. Hospice. La
Turbie also can be seen at great advantage. It lies in the col between
Mont Agel and the Tête de Chien and marks the place of crossing of the
Roman road.
On the coast, on either side of Cap Ferrat, are respectively Beaulieu
and Villefranche. Beaulieu is a super-village of sumptuous villas. It
lies on an evergreen shelf by the sea, pampered by an indulgent climate,
made gorgeous by an extravagant vegetation and provided by all the
delights that the most florid house agent could invent. It breathes
luxury and wealth, languid ease and a surfeit of comfort. It can be best
viewed from the Mid-Corniche road on the way up to Eze. Here the envious
can lean over a wall and look down upon Naboth’s vineyard, upon a
village which is possibly the richest in Europe and upon gardens whose
glory is nowhere to be surpassed.
[Illustration: VILLEFRANCHE: THE MAIN STREET.]
Villefranche, the harbour town, lies across the blue lagoon. It is as
little like Beaulieu as any place could be, for whatever Beaulieu boasts
of Villefranche lacks. It is a very ancient town; but it has been so
persistently modernised that it has an aspect of the present day. It is
like an old face that has been painted and powdered and “made up” to
look young. The result as regards the town is like the result as regards
the face—an imperfect success; for in the dim lanes of Villefranche are
still to be traced the wrinkles of old age, while the grey of its
withered stones is still quite apparent even under a toupee of auburn
tiles.
There are boats everywhere, not only in the harbour and on the quay but
up the streets, where they are being patched and hammered at. The quay
is carpeted with nets and among them old women in straw hats are sitting
on low chairs repairing broken strands. Ducks are wandering about and
against any support that is solid enough a thoughtful mariner is
leaning.
At the south end of Villefranche is the citadel, a lusty, rambling
fortress built in 1560 by Emmanuel Philibert about the time that he
erected the very gallant fort which still stands on the summit of Mont
Alban, high above the town. The citadel is now grey and green with age,
is much humiliated by certain modern buildings, but still is cut off
from the world by a terrifying moat spanned by a timid bridge and is
still said to retain in its depths some dreadful dungeons.
Villefranche is on a slope and thus it is that all lanes leading up from
the quay are very steep and, indeed, are stairs rather than streets.
Some are quite picturesque, especially such as pass under archways and
through vaulted passages. There are a bewildering number of bars, cafés
and wine-shops along the sea front which bear testimony to that thirst
which is a feature in the physiology of the mariner. A well known author
has described an English village as made up of “public houses and
drawbacks.” He would probably speak of Villefranche as a compound of
bars and stairs.
One of the most exciting days in the history of Villefranche happened in
the year 1523 when “The Great Ship” was launched and when the people
either screamed themselves hoarse with elation or were rendered dumb by
surprise. This Leviathan of the Deep was built by the Knights Templars.
The dimensions of the fearsome vessel have probably grown with the
passage of time, but quite temperate historians describe her as
possessed of six decks and as furnished with a powder store, a chapel
and a bakehouse. She carried a crew of 300 men. Writers with a riper
imagination assert that she was covered with lead and that so terrific
was her weight that she could sink fifty galleys. Things grow as the
centuries pass. It would be of interest to learn to what proportions the
ephemeral image of the Virgin, on the opposite cape, will have attained
in the next four hundred years.
Villefranche and Cap de St. Hospice are both concerned in the astounding
journey that was made by the dead body of Paganini.
[Illustration: A ROAD IN BEAULIEU.]
Paganini, the immortal violinist, died at Nice on May 27th, 1840, in the
Rue de la Préfecture in a house which has been already indicated (page
25). He died of tuberculosis at the age of 56. His religious opinions
appear to have been indistinct and his religious observances even less
pronounced. In the closing hours of his life he was denied or failed to
receive the last rites of the Church and, after his death, the clergy
refused to allow his body to be buried in consecrated ground.
On the day following his decease the coffin was deposited in the cellar
of a house near by, a house that stands at the junction of the Rue de la
Préfecture and the Rue Ste. Réparate.[24] The cellar was in the
possession of a friendly hatter. The body then appears to have been
removed to an “apartment” in a hospital at Nice, but the facts at this
point in the narrative are confused.[25]
Paganini’s son took action against the bishop for refusing to permit the
body to be buried within the pale of the Church. In this action young
Paganini failed. He appealed against the decision of the clergy and the
matter was finally referred to the Papal Court at Rome. Pending judgment
the body was taken to Villefranche and placed in a lazaretto there. In
about a month the smell emitted by the corpse was complained of and
accordingly the coffin was taken out of the building and placed on the
open beach near the water’s edge.
This gave great distress to the friends of the dead artist and so one
night a party of five of them took up the coffin and carried it by
torch-light round the bay to the point of Cap de St. Hospice. Here they
buried it close to the sea and just below the old round tower which
still stands on this spit of land. Over the coffin was placed a slab of
stone. All this happened within a year of the maestro’s death.
In 1841 the son decided to take the body from the Cap de St. Hospice and
convey it to Genoa, because it was in Genoa that his father was born.
Here it was hoped he could be laid at rest. A ship was obtained and the
coffin was lifted from the grave near the old tower and placed on the
deck. When Genoa was reached the party with the coffin were not allowed
to land because the vessel had come from Marseilles and at that port
cholera was raging.
The ship thereupon turned back and sailing westwards brought the dead
man to Cannes. Here also permission to land a coffin, which was already
highly suspected, was refused. The position seemed desperate but near
Cannes are the Lerin Islands and among them the barren and lonely rock
known as Sainte Ferréol. Here the body was once more buried and again
covered with a stone. On this strange little desert island it remained,
in utter loneliness, for four years, in the company only of the seabirds
and of some blue iris flowers that made the rock less pitiable.
Now it seemed to Achillino Paganini a heartless thing to leave his
father’s body in this bleak, forsaken spot. The great musician had some
property at Parma and it was considered well that the body should be
taken there and buried in his own land and in his native Italy. So the
dead man was carried away from the island and was buried in a garden in
his own country and amid kindly and familiar scenes. This voyage was
accomplished without mishap in 1845.
For some unknown reason it was determined in 1853 that the body should
be re-embalmed. So the coffin was once more dug up and the gruesome
ceremony carried out. The wanderings of the dead man had, however, not
yet come to an end for in 1876 permission was granted by the Papal Court
to lay the body within the walls of a Christian church. So once more the
corpse was exhumed and conveyed, with all solemnity, to the church of
the Madonna della Staccata in Parma where it was placed in a tomb. By
this time no less than thirty-six years had passed since the poor dead
master commenced his strange journey.
But even now he had not come upon peace; for in 1893 a certain Hungarian
violinist suggested that the body in the church was not that of the
adored musician. Thus it happened that once again the corpse was exhumed
and once again the coffin opened. The son, who was still alive,
permitted an investigation to be made. Those who looked into the coffin
saw lying there the form of the man who had enchanted the world. The
black coat that he wore was in tatters, but it was his coat. The face,
too, they recognised, the gaunt, thin face, the side whiskers and the
long hair that fell over the neck and covered the white bones of the
shoulder and the gleaming ribs.
-----
[23] “Mentone,” by Dr. George Müller, 1910.
[24] The house is now a tailor’s shop. Neither of these houses is
indicated by any tablet or inscription, as has been sometimes stated.
[25] “The Romance of Nice,” by John D. Loveland, London, 1911.
XIV
THE STORY OF EZE
EZE is a curious name and the name of a still more curious place. Eze,
indeed, by reason of its grim history and its astonishing position on a
lone pinnacle of rock, is one of the most fascinating towns in the
Riviera. Its past has been more tumultuous and more tragic than that
probably of any settlement of its size in Provence. It has seen much,
has done much and, above all, has suffered much, for its cup of sorrows
has been overflowing.
It is a place of extreme antiquity; since people lived within its
rampart of rocks before the dawn of history. Some maintain that the
Phœnicians, after expelling these raw natives, fortified Eze, but then
that ubiquitous and pushing people seems—at one time or another—to
have occupied every place on the seaboard of Europe that can admit of
some obscurity in its history.
Certain it is that the Romans when they landed possessed themselves of
this town on the cliff and established a harbour in the bay which lies
at its foot. When they, in their turn, had embarked in their galleys and
sailed away the Lombards appeared, murdered all they could find, burned
everything that would burn and robbed to the best of their exceptional
abilities. This episode is ascribed to the year 578. The death-rate at
Eze must always have been very high, but during the time that the
Lombards were busy in the district it must have risen almost to
annihilation.
The Lombards and their kin held on to Eze, in an unsteady fashion, for
nearly 200 years and when they had finished with it the Saracens entered
upon the scene. These talented scoundrels crept up the cliff in swarms
and, with such bloodshedding as the limited material at their disposal
would allow, settled themselves upon the point of rock and proceeded to
consolidate its position as a den of thieves. This disturbing change of
tenancy is said to have taken place in 740 and as the Saracens were not
driven from Provence until 980 they were longer in residence than the
Lombards. They are credited with having built the castle—or rather the
first castle—of Eze. They made slaves of as many of the natives as they
could capture, spoke in a strange tongue, made themselves a horror in
the land and, in general terms, did inconceivable things. Eze was one of
the last strongholds of the Saracens on the Riviera and in order to make
the evacuation of the place complete the town was razed to the ground.
After the last Saracens had clattered down the little zigzag path to
their boats Eze fell upon still more evil days. It entered upon a period
of unease so protracted that for centuries it was never certain of its
fate from one day to another. It was taken and retaken over and over
again. It was starved into submission at one time and burnt to the rock
edge at another. It was occupied now by the Guelphs and now by the
Ghibellines. It belonged one year to the House of Anjou and the next to
the Counts of Provence. It was at one time a dependency of Naples and at
another time of Monaco. It was bartered about like an old hat and sold
or bought with a flaunting disregard of the sentiment of the people who
were sold with it. Finally in the fourteenth century it was sold to
Amadeus of Savoy in whose family it remained—with the exception of
twenty-two years during the Revolution—down to its cession to France in
1860.[26]
It was visited by plague and devastated by fever. It had a varied
experience of assassination, of poisoning and of modes of torture; while
its information on the subject of sudden death and its varieties must
have been very full. In order—it would seem—that its knowledge of
every form of fulminating violence might be complete it was shaken by
earthquake and mutilated by lightning.
The vicissitudes of Eze were indeed many. At one period it was the
terror of the coast, supreme in villainy and unique in frightfulness;
while, at another time, it was a seat of letters frequented by poets. It
had its moments of exaltation as in 1246 when Rostagno and Ferrando,
Lords of Eze, had rights over Monaco and Turbia and its moments of
misery when it was little more than a howling ruin too bare to attract
even a starving robber.
[Illustration: EZE.]
Eze too has seen unwonted folk. Every type of scoundrel that Europe
could produce, during the Middle Ages, must, at one time or another,
have rollicked and drank and sworn within its walls. The strange
troopers who strutted up and down its astonished lanes in the spring
would often be replaced by still stranger blusterers before the winter
came. During the time that Eze was a favourite resort of pirates it
reached its climax in picturesqueness; for then its vaulted passages
must have been bright with strange goods, its streets with
curiously-garbed captives and its inns filled with seamen who roared
forth villainous songs and then fell to fighting with knives over some
such trifle as a stolen crucifix or a lady’s petticoat.