the association of the two sea towns is very close. During the
hostilities between France and England, in the time of Edward III, a
fleet consisting of 50 galleys—French, Spanish and Genoese—arrived at
Southampton in 1338 and landed a large body of men. The fleet was under
the general orders of the French admiral, but the Genoese division was
commanded by Carlo Grimaldi of Monaco, the famous seaman.
The landing party swarmed over the walls of the town or burst through
the gates; they “killed all that opposed them; then entering the houses
they instantly hanged many of the superior inhabitants, plundered the
town and reduced great part of it to ashes.”[27] According to Stowe, in
his “Annals,” this very effective assault took place at “nine of the
clock” and the townsmen ran away for fear. “By the breake of the next
day,” adds Stowe, “they which fled, by help of the country thereabout,
came against the pyrates and fought them; in which skirmish were slain
to the number of 300 pyrates, together with their captain, a young
soldier the King of Sicilis son.” The entry into the town was made at
the lower end of Bugle Street.
Now it is stated that the marauding party that attacked Southampton was
composed, for the most part, of men from the Genoese division of the
fleet and that the assault was led and the looting directed by Carlo
Grimaldi in person. Grimaldi’s share of the plunder was so substantial
that on his return to Monaco he purchased with the money the town of Eze
in 1341.
It thus comes to pass that some of the savings of honest Hampshire
citizens have been invested at one time in this very unattractive
property.
-----
[26] “The Riviera,” Macmillan, 1885.
[27] John Ballar, “Historical Particulars relative to Southampton,”
1820. John Stowe, “Annals,” London, 1631. J. S. Davies, “History of
Southampton,” 1883.
XV
THE TROUBADOURS OF EZE
ABOUT the beginning of the thirteenth century there lived at Eze two
troubadours, Blacas and Blacasette by name, father and son. They were
Catalans by birth; but the family had settled in Provence and the two
singers found themselves in the suite of Raymond Berenger, the Count of
Provence. How it was that they came to Eze and how long they resided
there is not known. Durandy states that the Blacas were owners of the
manor of Eze and in describing the sack of the town in 1543 he speaks of
the castle as “the castle of the Blacas.”[28]
Certain it is that they were both men of position and were both much
esteemed. Blacas, his biographer asserts, was admired more for “the
nobleness of his manners” than for the merit of his poems.[29] The two
of them wrote and dreamed of love and of fair women, of gardens and
green fields. They formed for themselves a little literary circle, as if
they were living in Old Chelsea, held Courts of Love and meetings with
their poet friends in which they competed with one another. Indeed the
first known poem of Blacas (written before 1190) was a tanzon with the
troubadour Peyrols. A tanzon, it may be explained, was a competition in
verse, the rhymers concerned contributing alternate couplets.
For those who are curious as to the kind of poetry that rippled over the
walls of Eze I append a verse by Blacas translated into the French of a
later period from the Provençal in which it was written.
_“Le doix et beau temps me plait,_
_Et la gaie saison_
_Et le chant des oiseaux;_
_Et si j’etais autant aimé_
_Que je suis amoureux,_
_Me ferait grande courtoisie,_
_Ma belle douce amie._
_Mais puisque nul bien ne me fait_
_Hélas! eh donc que deviendrai-je?_
_Tant j’attendrai en aimant_
_Jusqu’à ce que je meure en suppliant,_
_Puisqu’elle le veut ainsi.”_
[Illustration: EZE: THE MAIN GATE.
The scene of the treachery of Gaspard de Caïs.]
The picture of a troubadour writing little love ditties in this most
woeful place is as anomalous, and indeed as incongruous, as the picture
of a lady manicuring her hands during the crisis of a shipwreck. The
sound of these songs as they floated—like a scented breeze—down the
lanes of the putrid town must have been interrupted, now and then, by
the shriek of a strangled man in a cellar or the shout of the trembling
watchman on the castle roof.
The two troubadours loved war. Blacasette penned enthusiastic verses
about it. He thought it an excellent pursuit, a measure much to be
desired, a thing of which it was impossible to have too much. Had he
lived at the present day he would probably have modified his views. He
was, however, no mere dreamer. He carried his theories into practice and
took to fighting when he could. He was engaged in the war which, in
1228, Raymond Berenger waged against the independent towns of Avignon,
Marseilles, Toulon, Grasse and Nice. He came out of the fray alive, for
he did not die until some time between the years 1265 and 1270.
Blacas was married. His wife was Ughetta de Baus. The marriage came to
an abrupt end; for one day Ughetta walked off with her sister Amilheta,
entered a convent and took the veil. This precipitate step caused Blacas
considerable distress, for he is described as being “plunged in profound
sorrow.”
Ughetta was probably not to blame; for Blacas as a husband and at the
same time a troubadour must have been very trying. From a professional
point of view he loved women as a body. That was a part of his business
and no doubt Ughetta became tired of his violent and continual ravings
about women with whom she was but slightly acquainted. Moreover her home
life in Eze must have been very unsettled. Blacas would one day be
humming songs about a new lady at the dinner table and the next day he
would be turning the house upside down in order to hold a Court of Love;
while, perhaps, on the third morning he would be off to a war he had
just heard of. Ughetta no doubt talked this over with her sister—who
may possibly have married a troubadour herself—and the two came to the
conclusion that the quiet of a convent would be a pleasant change after
life with a crazy poet in Eze.
Blacasette—who wrote with facile elegance—was more fortunate than his
father. He fell harmlessly in love with a _grande dame_ or imagined that
he had and most of the poems of his that survive are amatory sonnets
devoted to his “sweet lady.” The position was made awkward by the fact
that the sweet lady was already married and was, moreover, the wife of
no less a person than Blacasette’s master, Raymond Berenger. Nothing, of
course, came of this. The lady remained unmoved and was probably much
bored by the receipt of these florid effusions; while the troubadour did
not feel called upon to retire to a monastery, nor to take any action
that was excessive. In fact the love-making was purely academic and
little more than a display in verse making.
The “sweet lady” was truly a _grande dame_, for she was the famous
Beatrix of Savoy. She married in 1219 and had four remarkable daughters,
the most illustrious bevy of girls of almost any age. One, Beatrix,
succeeded her father and became the Countess of Provence; another,
Eleanor, married Henry III of England; a third, with the pretty name of
Sancia, married King Henry’s brother, Richard, Duke of Cornwall; while
Marguerite—the fairest of them all—became the wife of Louis IX.
-----
[28] Durandy, “Mon Pays, Villages, etc., de la Riviera,” 1918.
[29] “Histoire littéraire de la France,” t. xix, 1838. Reynouard, “Choix
des Poésies orig. des Troubadours,” 1816-21.
XVI
HOW EZE WAS BETRAYED
IN August, 1543, the citadel of Nice was besieged by the French army of
Francis I aided by the Turkish fleet under the command of the corsair
Barbarossa. The siege failed as has been already recounted (page 29).
The next obvious step for the French was to attack and destroy Eze,
which lay behind Nice and was an obstacle to any further progress. It is
necessary to realise that—at this period—both Nice and Eze were beyond
the frontiers of France, were foreign towns and, at the moment, enemy
towns.
The Turkish fleet, supplemented by many French galleys, accordingly set
sail for the Bay of Eze, carrying with it irregular troops, both French
and Turkish, to the number, it is said, of 2,000. Now Barbarossa, being
a finished pirate of ripe experience, would be aware that the taking of
Eze from the sea was—as a military project—quite impossible. Eze stood
on a cone of rock 1,400 feet above the level of the Mediterranean and
could only be reached from the shore by a narrow path which was actually
precipitous. To bring cannon to bear upon the town from any point, high
or low, on either side of it, was impracticable. It could only be taken
by a body of infantry and to the attacks of such a force Eze was
impregnable.
Still Redbeard the pirate sailed on with complete content. He was not
only content; he was happy. He had a treasure in his galley, a treasure
in the form of a man who was probably sitting alone in the pirate’s
cabin, deep in thought. Barbarossa would take a peep at him now and
then, rub his hands and smile. The name of this man was Gaspard de Caïs
and he was one of the most poisonous scoundrels that had ever lived. He
was a native of the country the admiral was proceeding to invade. He was
a loathsome traitor who had gone over to the French and, for a certain
sum, had engaged to betray his country and the town of Eze together with
friends among whom he had spent his youth. The bribe might have been
large but, valued as a really corrupt ruffian, Gaspard was beyond price.
When the Bay of Eze was reached this sneaking hound was landed with a
few French and Italian soldiers—Italian because they spoke a language
more akin to the speech of Eze. Barbarossa would like to have kicked the
knave off the boat but he was not a censor of morals and he wanted to
take the town.
De Caïs and his small company proceeded to climb up to Eze. It was
September and, therefore, one of the hottest months of the year. What
with the heat and the burden of his conscience Gaspard must have found
the ascent trying; for even in modern times with a modern path the
clamber up to the town from the shore is a feat of endurance that the
hardiest tourist will scarcely undertake twice.
In due course the perspiring traitor reached the gate of Eze—the
identical gate that stands before the entrance of the town to this day.
He would be stopped by the guard and asked his business. Mopping his
face he would reply, with a smile, that he wished a word with the
governor. After some delay the governor, attended by an officer or two,
appeared and Gaspard, greeting him as an old comrade, whispered in his
ear that the Turkish fleet was in the Bay and would attempt to take the
town. This was possibly the only time that Gaspard ever spoke the truth;
for, in fact, the fleet was below and the admiral did undoubtedly desire
to capture the town. De Caïs then lapsed into lying which became him
better. He explained that as a patriot and a lover of Eze he had come to
warn the governor of the peril ahead and to place his poor services and
those of his humble followers at the disposal of the garrison. “Would he
come in?” He came in.
Now it must be explained that Gaspard had as a friend and co-partner in
crime no less a person than his fellow countryman, the Lord of Gorbio.
This prince was known by the unpleasing name of the Bastard of Gorbio
for he was a disreputable scion of the noble house of Grimaldi. He was,
if possible, a more contemptible rogue than Gaspard. He had confederates
in Eze and a number of traitorous men in his pay hidden among the rocks
about the entrance.
As soon as Gaspard de Caïs and his companions were well within the gate
they suddenly drew their swords and, with a shout, fell like madmen upon
the unsuspecting guard who were still standing at attention. This was a
signal to the Bastard and to his friends within and without the town.
These worthies all rushed to the gate and in a few moments the governor
and the gallant guard of Eze were dead or dying.
All this time the Turks, in single file, were crawling up the zigzag
path from the boats, like a great brown serpent, a mile long, gliding up
out of the water. They poured in through the gate, panting and yelling,
and continued to pour in for hours. Barbarossa now could laugh aloud and
did no doubt guffaw heartily enough for Eze the impregnable was taken
with scarcely the loss of a man.
What followed is, in the language of novelists, “better imagined than
described”; simply because it is easy to imagine but difficult to
describe.
Eze the betrayed became the scene of a blurred orgy of house burning,
murder and pillage. The town with all that was in it was to be wiped off
the face of the earth. The order could not have been carried out more
thoroughly or more heartily if it had been executed by the Germans of
the present day. There was no resistance. There was to be no quarter and
no prisoners. Everything went “according to plan.”
The narrowness of the lanes rendered the process of hacking a population
to death cramped, slow and very horrible. Every street and alley was
soon blocked with the dead and the dying. The first clatter of hurrying
feet was soon hushed; for those who pressed on and those who fled trod
upon yielding bodies. A whole family would be lying dead in an entry;
the man at the front, the baby and the mother behind.
Here would be the corpse of a Turk sprawling over the bundle of loot he
was in the act of carrying away. Here would be a woman’s dead hand cut
off at the wrist, but still clinging to the handle of a door. Here a
disembowelled man, still alive, trying to crawl into a cellar and there
a half-charred body dangling from the window of a burning house.
It is always customary to say, in the account of scenes like this, that
“the streets ran with blood,” but it is not so. The state is far more
hideous, since blood clots so soon that it will not run.
The noise must have been peculiarly dreadful, an awful medley of the
shouts of men, the shrieks of the butchered, the moans of the dying,
mingled with the roaring of flames and the fall of blazing timbers. Now
and then, among the din, would be heard the crash of an axe upon a
skull, the crack of a sword upon the tense bones of a bent back, the
muffled thud of a dagger, the hammer-blow of a club.
The sunlight and the blue of heaven were shut off by a pall of smoke;
while suffocating clouds filled many a lane with the blackness of night.
Such fortifications as could be destroyed were levelled to the ground,
and the castle that crowned the hill was blown up by its own magazine.
The gate—the fatal gate—was untouched and stands to this day to
testify to the supreme villainy of the traitor, Gaspard de Caïs.
The work was well done. Redbeard the pirate may have had his faults, but
in the business details of town-sacking he was thorough and singularly
expert. When he beached his galleys in the bay, Eze was a prosperous and
busy town, living at ease and confident in its strength. When the pirate
left it, it was a black, smouldering ruin, empty and helpless, stripped
of all that it possessed and occupied only by the dead, by such wounded
as survived and by the few who, hidden in vaults and secret places, had
escaped death from suffocation. There was no need to leave a guard in
the town for there was nothing to guard. Eze, as a stronghold had ceased
to exist.
After all was over the Turks and their ruffianly allies rattled down the
hill to the boats, tired no doubt, blood-bespattered and blackened by
smoke, but jubilant and disposed to bellow and sing. Every man was laden
with loot like a pack-horse. Even the wounded would grab the shoulder of
a friend with one hand and a bundle of booty with the other. They
chattered as they stumbled along, chuckling over the “fun” they had had
and announcing what they would have done if only they had had more time.
Others would be appraising the value of their respective spoils, would
draw strange articles half out of their pockets for inspection, or would
rub a sticky mess of blood and hair from a vase to see better the
fineness of its moulding. They reached the sea without further
adventure, boarded their galleys and sailed away towards the East, a
proud and happy company, pleased with their day’s work and grateful to
Allah for his abounding mercies.
It only remains to tell what happened to Gaspard de Caïs and his friend
from Gorbio with the unpleasant title. They were, of course, overjoyed
by the result of their labours and must have congratulated one another
fervently with hearty slaps upon the shoulder. They did not go down the
hill to join the ships. They had either been paid in advance for their
distinguished service or had got enough loot out of Eze to reward them
for their efforts. They had done with Barbarossa and were disposed to do
a little now on their own account.
Their action at Eze had been attended with such excellent results that
they proposed to try the same manœuvre at the gate of La Turbie. So
Gaspard and the Lord of Gorbio started in high spirits for this
well-to-do little town. They were to approach it as friends. They were
to warn the governor that the Turks were coming and were to offer their
patriotic services as they had done at Eze. They had with them a
substantial body of men—blackguards all of the first water—among whom
were no doubt some of Barbarossa’s crew who had reached the hill too
late to make a really good bag. Indeed La Turbie was to be Eze over
again.
The two gentle traitors, having hidden their men near by, advanced to
the gate of the town as the night was falling. Unhappily for them the
governor had been secretly warned of their coming and of their methods
for helping their fellow countrymen. The result was that they were
received, not with gratitude, but with bullets and stones.
They fled and, as it was dark, made good their escape. The Bastard of
Gorbio took refuge in a church. There he was found and seized by two
brave priests, Gianfret Mossen of Eze and Marcellino Mossen of
Villefranche. Gaspard de Caïs hid in a cave. He also was discovered and
arrested. Very probably his colleague from Gorbio revealed his hiding
place to those who were in pursuit. Anyhow these two snivelling ruffians
were both marched off to the Castle at Nice where they were tried for
high treason, convicted and sentenced to death.[30]
According to one account Gaspard was drawn and quartered and the Bastard
of Gorbio was hanged; while another record states that De Caïs was
broken on the wheel and that his friend committed suicide in his cell.
It matters little which account is true. They both came to a fitting end
and passed out into the darkness with the curses of their countrymen
ringing in their ears.
With the sacking and massacre of 1543 the story of Eze comes to an end.
It ceased to be a town to reckon with, to be cajoled or threatened, to
be bought or sold. It became a place of no account and has remained
humble and unhonoured ever since. The walls were not restored, the
fortifications were not remade and the castle was allowed to crumble
into dust. He who was Lord of Eze was lord over a hollow heap of tainted
ruins and his title was as much a shadow as was his town.
The new Eze, which in course of time came into being, had its
foundations set upon the ruins of 1543. The castle appears to have been
more completely dismantled in 1604. On February 23rd, 1887, the
earthquake which destroyed Castillon—a place singularly like Eze in its
position—did some damage to the hapless town and also to its castle.
But it would seem as if the forces of both heaven and earth were
conspiring to rid the world of this battered and ill-omened house, for
in the terrific storm of May, 1887, its remaining walls were so split by
lightning that the arrogant old stronghold was reduced to the mean
condition in which it is found to-day.
-----
[30] “Mentone,” by Dr. George Müller, London, 1910. Durante’s “History
of Nice,” Vol. 2, p. 313.
[Illustration: A STREET IN EZE.]
XVII
THE TOWN THAT CANNOT FORGET
AMID the deep valleys and the titanic ridges of bare rock which slope
down to the sea from the Alps stands Eze. It stands alone in a scene of
wild disorder. From a huge gash in the flank of the earth, lined with
trees as with grass, rises a pinnacle of rock, a solitary isolated bare
pinnacle, 980 feet high, with sides sheer as a wall. It rises, clear and
grey, out of the abyss and on its summit is Eze. It seems as if some
fearful power had lifted the town aloft for safety; while, to compare
the stupendous with the trivial, it tops the cone like a tee-ed ball.
The most impressive view of Eze is obtained from the road that leads
from La Turbie to Cap d’Ail, at about the time of the setting of the
sun. It is then seen from afar as a tiny town on a crag among a tumbled
mass of mountains which lie deep in shade. It is the only sign of human
habitation in the waste. The sun shines full upon it.
Against the dark background of pines it appears as a brilliant object in
silver grey. Its houses, its church and its castle are as clean cut as a
many-pointed piece of plate lying upon folds of dark green velvet. No
visible road leads to it. It looks unreal, like a town in an allegory,
such a town as Christian saw in the Pilgrim’s Progress, such a little
city as is graved upon the background of an old print by Albert Dürer.
Eze is approached only from the north, from the side towards the
Corniche Road. Viewed from this nearer point it suggests a small Mont
St. Michel rising out of the land instead of the sea. The town seems a
part of the rock. It is not at once apparent where the rock ends and the
dwellings begin, for they are all of the same tint and substance. It is
easy, from the highroad, to pass the town by without perceiving it, for
its “protective colouring” is so perfect and its camouflage so apt that
it may be taken for the notched summit of the rock itself.
A closer inspection shows walls dotted with dark apertures. These are
windows; but they suggest the black nest-holes that sand-martins make on
the face of a cliff. There are faint touches of colour too, a heap of
rust-tinted roofs, a grey church tower, a splash of red to mark the
nave, the brown ruin of a castle like a broken and jagged pot, a tiny
ledge of green with a line of white stones to mark the burying place.
A zigzag path mounts up to an arched gateway in the face of the wall. It
is the only entrance into Eze. This portal will admit a laden mule or a
hand-cart but not a carriage; for no “vehicle” can find admittance into
this exclusive town. A curve of smoke alone shows that it is inhabited.
In the distance is the blue Mediterranean lying in the sun.
Before entering Eze it is well to remember that it is an ancient place
in the last stages of decrepitude and decay and that it has had a
terrible history and centuries of sorrow. It is poor, half empty and
partly ruinous. Those who expect to find a mediæval fortress will be
disappointed since its houses differ but little from such as exist in
many an old neighbouring town; while those who are unaware of its past
may adopt the expression of a tourist I met, leaving the rock, who
informed his friend—as a piece of considered criticism—that Eze was “a
rotten hole.” Such a man would, no doubt, describe Jerusalem also as “a
rotten hole.”
The gate of Eze—the Moor’s Gate as it is still called—is supported by
a double tower with evil-looking loop-holes. It is very old and very
worn. Its machicolations are covered with ferns which make its harsh
front almost tender. Within this entry is another gate and a second
tower upon which is a commonplace house reached by a flight of steps.
Here we stand in an ancient feudal fortress. Here is the station of the
guard and here has taken place such hand-to-hand fighting and such
slaughter of men as should make the walls shudder to all eternity. It
was here that the stand was made by the faithful garrison when the last
siege of Eze took place, the siege led by Barbarossa in 1543. It was at
this very gate that the traitor Gaspard de Caïs parleyed with the
governor.
Within the second gate is a platform for the inner guard, from the
ramparts of which one can look down into the chasm from which Eze arises
and judge of the formidable position of the place.