are unable to restrain the expression of the emotions and this is often
disconcerting. When a fine shot is made the aspect of the caddie is that
of serious anxiety, for he has to keep the ball in sight. When a really
bad stroke is taken he _must_ laugh and when he is compelled—in order
to conceal his laughter—to bury his face in the breast of a
fellow-caddie the sight of the convulsed boy, hanging on to a friend,
calls for great restraint on the part of the player.
The fragments of English picked up by foreign caddies are always curious
and nearly always unhappy. I recall a caddie in Egypt who spoke nothing
but Arabic; but who, after a very woeful shot burst out, to my surprise,
with the petulant remark, “Hell’s own luck!” I learnt later that he used
to “carry” for a profane judge.
An excellent motor-bus service takes the golfer up to the links direct,
or, if he prefers it, he can ascend by train to La Turbie and climb the
rest of the way by the path. The links are on a breezy plateau just
below the peak of Mont Agel and at the height of some 3,000 feet above
the sea. It is a plateau that means well, that intends to be orderly but
is always backsliding and reverting to savagery. It is constantly
tempted to break out into a precipice or lapse into a gorge but
restrains itself just in time. Its praiseworthy efforts to become a
green plateau are almost pathetic but it gives way often and original
sin crops out in the form of horrible rocks.
The result is an area of rugged land of great variety and
picturesqueness, a beautiful medley of half-tamed meads and wild
boulders, of smooth lawns like sheets of green velvet amid grey and
wizened crags. The view is astounding. To the north are the Maritime
Alps, peak after peak, deep in snow; to the south is the warm, blue
Mediterranean and, often enough, the ghostly island of Corsica lying on
the sea like a lilac cloud. On either side is a stretch of coast of
immeasurable extent, leading far down into Italy on the east and, on the
west, ranging beyond the Lerin Islands and the Esterels to St. Tropez,
near Hyères, a distance of some fifty miles. The club house is a model
of modern comfort and as the restaurant is controlled by the Hôtel de
Paris the golfer and the crowd of visitors can obtain as good a lunch on
this bare mountain-top as they would obtain in Monte Carlo and that too
with a better appetite. The success of the club is largely due to the
untiring efforts of the secretary, Mr. Galbraith Horn, whose geniality,
capacity and kindness are held in grateful memory by every visitor to
Mont Agel.
Coming back from the links in the motor-bus the whispered conversations
that may be overheard are illustrative and will vary much according to
the speaker. A fat man may be saying, “The gravy was the best I ever
tasted,” and the lean man, “Although I did it in five I had to halve the
hole”; while a lady may remark, “Well! how she _could_ come out in that
hat I don’t know!”
XXVIII
AN OLD ROMAN POSTING TOWN
AROUND Monte Carlo the mountains crowd down to the sea with such menace
as to threaten to push the light-hearted town into the deep, for the
sloping ledge to which it holds is narrow. Thus it is that hanging above
Monte Carlo is a steep mountain side, half slope, half precipice, green
wherever an olive tree or a pine can cling, grey where the rock lies
bare or where the cliff soars upwards.
On the summit of this stupendous barrier and at a height of 1,574 feet
is La Turbie. Gazing up from the streets of Monte Carlo the place can be
located, although neither its walls, nor its houses nor any part of it
are visible; but it is indicated by two remarkable objects which stand
out clear on the sky line. They are strange and ill-assorted. One of the
objects is a vast pillar or tower of stone, of the colour of a wheat
stalk. From the Casino garden, half a mile below, it looks like a
gigantic brick standing on end and turned edgeways. This is the Roman
monument of Augustus erected over 1,900 years ago. The other object,
placed by its side, is a coral pink hotel that may have sprung up in the
night. Its outline is intentionally fantastic for it is built in “the
Oriental style” in the belief that the simple might mistake it for a
mosque or a palace of the caliphs. In spite of its appearance it is
popular and well esteemed. It is a theatrical creation as gaudy as if it
were flooded by a rose-tinted limelight and as out of place on the top
of the stately cliff as a cheap Paris bonnet on the head of the Venus de
Milo.
[Illustration: LA TURBIE: THE ROMAN MONUMENT.]
There are many ways of reaching La Turbie from the lower ground. For
carriages there is the Cemetery road. It is so called, not because it is
dangerous to motorists, but because it passes a cemetery. It winds in
and out among the prehistoric fortifications of Mont des Mules and Mont
Justicier, but is so irresolute, so capricious, so inclined to go any
way rather than up hill to La Turbie that the route is exasperating. The
track of the road is like the track of a drunken man who has become
obstinate and deaf to all persuasions to go straight home.
There are two mule-paths up to the town, one on either side of the
Vallon des Gaumates, the Moneghetti path on the west and the Bordina on
the east. These paths are at least direct and know where they are going.
They are paved with cobble stones, are arranged in long steps, are as
monotonous as a treadmill and probably as tiring. They are paths that
might have climbed up the penitential heights in Dante’s “Purgatorio.”
Still they pass by pleasant ways among the shadows of the olives and the
slips of garden piled one above the other on green ledges. Moreover they
are the old primitive roads of the country, the roads trod by the
mediæval pedlar, by the wandering monk and by the errant knight. Of all
works of man throughout the ages they are among the oldest and the least
disturbed by change.
It is possible also to reach La Turbie from Monte Carlo by the
rack-and-pinion railway. The traveller sits in a carriage that slopes
like a roof and is pushed up hill from behind by an engine that puffs
like an asthmatic person overpowered by rage. There are three stations
to be passed on the way. Nothing happens at two of these stations except
that the train stops. It is merely a ceremonial act. There would be
anxiety and inquiries of the guard if anyone got in or got out. One
station is in a drear rocky waste, far removed from the haunts of men.
The only passenger that could be expected to alight here would be a
scapegoat laden with the sins of Monte Carlo and eager to get away from
the unquiet world and be lost in the wilderness.
La Turbie, or Turbia, was a Roman town. It stood on the famous road that
led from Rome into Gaul. It was a busy and prosperous place that
probably attained to its greatest importance about two thousand years
ago, for the town goes back to a period before the time of Christ. When
La Turbie was at the height of its vigour Monaco was a barren rock.
Indeed when the first building appeared upon Monaco La Turbie was
already more than twelve centuries old.
The ancient Roman road—the Aurelian Way as it was called—ran from the
Forum at Rome to Arles on the banks of the Rhone. Its total length,
according to Dr. George Müller, was 797 miles. It was commenced in the
year B.C. 241 and its construction occupied many decades.
Starting from the Forum it followed the coast northwards. It passed
through Pisa, Spezia and Genoa. Then turning westwards it came to
Ventimiglia, where it followed the line of the present main street. It
passed through Bordighera, along the Strada Romana of that town, and
creeping under the foot of the Rochers Rouges it entered Mentone. It
crossed the little torrent of St. Louis close to the beach and then
began to mount upwards. Its course through Mentone is indicated by the
Rue Longue. Thence it ascended to the Mont Justicier and so reached the
crest of the hill at La Turbie. Between Mentone and La Turbie there are
still to be found traces of this ancient highway which have been left
undisturbed among the olive woods.
The road entered La Turbie by that gate which is still called the
Portail Romain, made its way through the town with no little pomp and
passed out by the Portail de Nice on the west. It now crossed the
present Grand Corniche road, which it followed for a while, and then
dipped pleasantly into the valley of Laghet. Leaving the convent on its
right it turned to La Trinité-Victor and so moved onwards until it
reached the great and important Roman city of Cimiez, then known as
Cemenelum. Here we may take leave of it.
On this venerable highway La Turbie occupied a position of much
interest. It marked the highest point attained by the Via Aureliana in
its long journey. To the Romans it was the “Alpis summa.” It stands on
the ridge or col which connects Mont Agel with the Tête de Chien and
represents the summit of the pass between those heights. More than
that—as a landmark visible for miles—it pointed out to the world the
ancient frontier between Italy and Gaul and, in later years, the line
that divided Provence from Liguria.
To the Roman traveller by the Aurelian Way La Turbie was a place of some
significance. It was a goal to be attained. When once the weary man had
passed through the gate of Turbia he could sit himself down on a cool
bench in its shady street, wipe his brow, loosen his pack, let drop his
staff and feel that the worst of the journey was over. He had crossed
the frontier into Gaul and was almost within sight of the comforting
city of Cemenelum of which old travellers, gossiping in the Forum, had
told so much.
La Turbie was a posting town that marked a critical stage in the journey
from the Eternal City. It was a place of great bustle and commotion in
the spacious Roman days, for companies, large or small, were constantly
arriving or leaving and whichever way they went they must halt at the
col. How often children playing outside the gate would suddenly rush
back to their mothers, with shrill cries, to say that they could see a
party winding up the hill towards the town! How often the people would
hurry out to see what kind of folk they were and to guess as to their
means and their needs!
[Illustration: A CORNER IN LA TURBIE.]
Sometimes it would be a body of Roman soldiers, marching in rigid
column, under the command of a dignified centurion. At another time some
great patrician, with his vast retinue, would mount up to the town. He
would grumble, no doubt, at the steepness of the hill, but would be
coaxed by the bowing governor to come to the edge of the cliff and look
down upon Monaco Bay and upon the glorious line of coast spread out upon
either side of it. The patrician lady, alighting from her litter, would
thrill the little place with curiosity and excitement. The young women
of La Turbie would note keenly the fashion of her dress—the last new
_mode_ of Rome—and the manner in which her hair was “done” in order to
imitate both the one and the other when the _grande dame_ had swept on
to Arles. The suite at the patrician’s heels would be accosted by the
gossips of La Turbie and by the young men about town eager to glean the
latest news from the great city, news from the lips of men who but a
month or so ago had strolled about the Forum or had viewed some amazing
spectacle from the galleries of the Coliseum.
The slaves, who led the pack-horses and carried the litters, would chat
with the local slaves in the stables and in the meaner wine shops and
discuss the general trend of affairs in this outcast, deity-deserted
country and compare the vices of their respective masters and the
meanness or beauty of their respective ladies. Even the dogs in the
cavalcade would excite the interest of the dogs on the hill. One may
imagine the supercilious sniff with which the dog that had tramped all
the way from Rome would regard the dog stranded on this bleak col and
the snarl with which the La Turbie dog—more wolf than dog—would
challenge the pampered intruder.
At another time a company of traders would pass through the
town—strangely-garbed men speaking an unknown tongue and followed by a
train of mules and donkeys laden with bales of rare stuffs and with
panniers filled with mysterious and glittering things. One can see the
pretty girl of La Turbie coaxing a grey-bearded merchant in a black
burnous to open a pannier and let her have a peep and picture the
staring eyes of the crowd that would hang over her shoulder.
On another day a troupe of Roman dancing girls would trip through the
gate with a ripple of bright colour and with roguish glances, to the
great disturbance of the young men of La Turbie who would be too shy to
speak to them, too unready to reply to their city banter and too
conscious of their own _gaucherie_.
On occasion, too, a party of gladiators would swagger along on their way
to the arena of Cimiez, splendid men, perfect in form, firm of foot,
alert in carriage they would swing down the street with a rhythmical
step and would be followed by the children through the gate and far
along the road, and followed, too, by the eyes of every young woman in
La Turbie who could find a window or a gap on the wall that gave a view
of the highway.
The main street of the town, along which the great road bustled, must
have presented, on these days of coming or going, a scene of much
animation. Here were the chief inns and the wine booths, the little
local shops, the fruit stalls, the cobbler’s vaulted niche where sandals
were repaired, the cutler’s store very bright with bronze, the houses of
the dealers in corn and fodder and most assuredly some begrimed hut
where an old crone sold curiosities and souvenirs of the place, native
weapons and ornaments, a hillman’s head-dress, strange coins dug up
outside the walls, bright pieces of ore found among the mountains, the
local snake in a bottle, some wolf’s teeth and a shell or two from
Monaco beach. In the lesser streets would be the stables for the
pack-horses and the mules, the cellars for goods in transit, the hovels
for the slaves, the moneylenders’ dens, the compounds for the soldiers
and the huts of the wretched wild-eyed Ligurians who, under the lash of
their masters, did the mean work of the town.
La Turbie was indeed in these times a great caravanserai, a halting
place on the march of civilisation, a post by the side of the
inscrutable road that led from the wonder-teeming East to the dull,
unawakened land of the West, a road that carried with it the makings of
a people who would dominate the world when the power and the glory of
Rome had passed away.
XXIX
THE TOWER OF VICTORY
OF Turbia of the Roman days practically no trace exists with the notable
exception of the Great Monument which is very much more than a trace.
After the Romans went away La Turbie—although well stricken in
years—was subjected to that pitiless discipline which straitened and
embittered the younger days of every town along the shores of the
Mediterranean. Its history differs but in detail from the early history
of Nice or Eze, or of Roquebrune. The Lombards and the Saracens in turn
fell upon it like wild beasts and shook it nearly to death. It was
burned to a mere heap of cinders and stones. It was looted with a
thoroughness that not even a modern German could excel. It was besieged
and taken over and over again. At one time the Guelphs held it and at
another the Ghibellines. It was bought and sold and had as many
successive masters as there were masters to have. It belonged now to
Genoa and then to Ventimiglia, now to Monaco and then to Eze.
Throughout the restless Middle Ages it was a small fortified town of
little military importance. It had its circuit of walls and its gates,
its keep and its battlements; but, at its best, it was a place with more
valour than strength. No doubt it looked sturdy enough on the top of the
hill, a neat compact town as round as a jar with the great white Roman
monument erect in its midst, like a dead lily in a stone pot.
During the intervals when it was not being looted or burned it was
treated with some dignity; for when the Counts of Provence were the
masters of La Turbie they nominated a _châtelain_ or governor from among
“the first gentlemen of Nice.” The distinction thus conferred was a
little marred by the fact that the gentleman was not required to reside
in the town. Gentlemen with very sonorous names and connected with “the
best families” were, from time to time, nominated for this post; but
they do not seem to have added much to the comfort of the place as a
residence.[41]
The visitor to La Turbie, whether he arrives by the rack-and-pinion
railway or by the mule-path, will assuredly make his way at once to the
Belvedere to see that view which has moved the guide books to such
unanimous rapture. He will probably be met on his way by a man—very
foreign in appearance—who will wish to sell him an opera glass on one
morning and a square of carpet on the next. He will also come upon a
camera obscura, set up for the benefit of those who prefer to see
through a glass darkly and who would sooner view a scene when reflected
on a white table-cloth in a dark room than gaze upon it with the naked
eye.
At the camera obscura kiosk postcards are sold together with articles
which the vendor asserts are souvenirs and mementoes of La Turbie. These
things for remembrance are hard to understand. One wonders why a
polished slate inkstand from Paris, a mineral from (possibly) a Cornish
mine, a sea-shell from the tropics or some beads from Cairo should call
to mind a mediæval town in Provence and the wars of the Guelphs and the
Ghibellines.
When the pilgrim in his progress has passed both the man with the carpet
and the things that will keep green the memory of La Turbie he can enjoy
the view that opens out on the edge of the cliff. It is a view that not
even a camera obscura can enhance. There is the line of coast that
sweeps from Bordighera on the east to the Esterels on the west; while
below, as a bright splash of yellow, white and red, is Monte Carlo. The
spectator looks directly down upon Monte Carlo as he would view a thing
on the pavement from the top of a tower. It is not often that one can
see at a glance an entire European state from frontier to frontier and
from seaboard to hinterland; but here is laid out before the eye every
foot of the principality of Monaco as complete as on a map.
Monte Carlo is largely a display of roofs among which it is possible to
pick out those of familiar hotels and those of the villas of friends.
There is an odd sense of indelicacy about the bold inspection of a
friend’s roof. There is nothing indecent about a roof but there is an
impression of spying, of looking down the chimneys and of taking
advantage of an exceptional position, for a roof is not the best part of
a house and in the case of friends it somehow comes into the category of
things that you ought not to see.
[Illustration: A STREET IN LA TURBIE.]
[Illustration: LA TURBIE: OLD WINDOWS IN RUE DROITE.]
The most precious object in La Turbie is the Monument, although it is
now in a state of woeful decay. It stands in a dismal waste where
clothes are spread out to dry and where fowls wander about scratching,
as if searching for Roman remains. It is surrounded by houses which
appear to have contracted the leprous complaint which has attacked the
great trophy. As a monument of melancholy it is not to be surpassed. As
a place of dreariness the spot where it is found can hardly be exceeded
in pathos. It needs only the solitary figure of Job, sitting on a broken
column with his face buried in his hands, to complete the picture of its
desolation.
The monument was erected, or was at least completed, in the year B.C. 6.
It was raised by the Roman senate to commemorate the victories of the
Emperor Augustus over the tribes of southern Gaul and to record the
final conquest of that tract of country. It was a colossal structure of
supreme magnificence that took the form of a lofty tower very richly
ornamented. It stood upon a square base formed of massive blocks of
stone which are still in place, for none but an uncommon power could
ever move them. The tower itself was circular and encased in marble upon
which, in letters of gold, was engraved an inscription, “IMPERATORI •
CÆSARI • DIVI • FILIO • AUGUSTO • PONT • MAX • IMP • XIV • TRIB • POT •
XVII • S.P.Q.R.” These words, which suggest a form of shorthand or a
crude telegraphic code, were followed by an account of the Emperor’s
triumph and the names of the forty-five Alpine tribes that he had
conquered. Of this imposing inscription nothing now remains. It is
replaced by the feeble initials of sundry shopboys from neighbouring
towns, cut with penknives in the presence of their admiring ladies.
About this tower was a round colonnade and above it another circle of
pillars with statues; while on the summit was a colossal effigy of the
victorious emperor, eighteen feet or more in height. The whole was a
stupendous work worthy of the amazing people who built it. It is now a
shapeless pile as devoid of art as a crag on a mountain-top. But it is
still impressive by its overwhelming height, by its massiveness, and its
suggestion of determined strength. High up on one side are two columns
recently put in place, which show how an arcade once circled around it;
but, apart from this, the whole mass looks more rock-like and more
supremely simple than any work of man. Everything that made it beautiful
in substance and human in spirit is gone—the colonnades, the statues,
the capitals, the friezes and the carved trophies of arms.[42]
The destruction of this exquisite fabric commenced early and was pursued
through successive centuries with peculiar pertinacity. As has been
already said La Turbie, throughout its long career, was the subject of
many onslaughts. No matter what may have been the purpose of the
attacking party or their nationality they did not leave the town until
they had devoted some time to the annihilation of the tower of Augustus.
To contribute something to the breaking up of this monument seems to
have been an obligation, a rite imposed upon every invading force, a
local custom that could not be ignored. The Lombards appear to have
commenced the work with great spirit and heartiness but with limited
means. Then the Saracens came and took bolder measures, but measures
founded upon imperfect scientific knowledge, for they attempted to
destroy this tower of victory with fire. The Guelphs and the
Ghibellines, during their intermittent occupation of La Turbie, built a
fort with stones obtained from the edifice. It was a strong fort in the
making of which much material was employed and the trophy became a watch
tower.
As the knowledge of destructive processes improved more powerful steps
were taken to uproot the tower. It was undermined and attempts were made
to blow it up. These efforts were attended with some results; but the
monument still stands. Finally, about the beginning of the eighteenth
century a very determined attempt was made by the French to clear this
arrogant pile from off the face of the earth. The work of destruction
was entrusted to the Maréchal de Villars and there is no doubt that he
did his best; but the monument still stands.
Quite apart from these periodic assaults the monument was, from the
earliest days, regarded as a quarry and was worked with regularity and
persistence age after age. In the twelfth century by permission of the
Lords of Eze the marble—or what remained of it—was stripped from the
walls by the Genoese and was carried away to decorate their palaces and
their shrines, to build cool courts, to form terraces in gardens, to
furnish the pillars for a pergola or the basin for a well. The marble of
the high altar in the old cathedral of Nice came from the Roman
monument. The present town of La Turbie is built in great extent from
the ruins of this tower of victory; while all over the country pieces of
stone, worked by the Romans in the year B.C. 6, will be found in villas,
in cottage walls, in motor garages, and in goat sheds. And yet the
monument still stands. This is the feature about it that inspires the
greatest wonder, this feature of determined immortality; for it would
seem that so long as the world endures the pillar of victory will crown
the everlasting hill.