stirrings of human life among the rocks on which it stands would appear
to the historian as a mere speck in the dark hollow of the unknown.
Roquebrune has been a town since men left caves and forests and began to
live in dwellings made by hands. It can boast that for long years it
was—with Monaco and Eze—one of the three chief sea towns along this
range of coast. Its history differs in detail only from the history of
any old settlement within sight of the northern waters of the
Mediterranean.
The Pageant of Roquebrune unfolds itself to the imagination as a
picturesque march of men with a broken hillside as a background and a
stone stair as a processional way. Foremost in the column that moves
across the stage would come the vague figure of the native searching for
something to eat; then the shrewd Phœnician would pass searching for
something to barter and then the staid soldierly Roman seeking for
whatever would advance the glory of his imperial city. They all in turn
had lived in Roquebrune.
[Illustration: ROQUEBRUNE, SHOWING THE CASTLE.]
As the Pageant progressed there would pass by the hectoring Lombard, the
swarthy Moor, a restless band of robber barons and pirate chiefs, a
medley of mediæval men-at-arms and a cluster of lords and ladies with
their suites. They all in turn had lived in Roquebrune. Finally there
would mount the stair the shopkeeper and the artisan of to-day, who
would reach the foot of Roquebrune in a tramcar.
This Pageant of Roquebrune would impress the mind with the great
antiquity of man, with his ceaseless evolution through the ages with an
ever-repeated change in face, in speech, in bearing and in garb. Yet
look! Above the housetops of the present town a company of swifts is
whirling with a shrill whistle like that of a sword swishing through the
air. They, at least, have remained unchanged.
They hovered over the town before the Romans came. They have seen the
Saracens, the troopers of Savoy, the Turkish bandits, the soldiers of
Napoleon. Age after age, it would seem, they have been the same, the
same happy birds, the same circle of wings, the same song in the air.
On the rock too are bushes of rosemary—“Rosemary for remembrance.” The
little shrub with its blue flower has also seen no change. The caveman
knew it when he first wandered over the hill with the curiosity of a
child. The centurion picked a bunch of it to put in his helmet. The
pirate of six hundred years ago slashed at it with his cutlass as he
passed along and the maiden of to-day presses it shyly upon her parting
lover.
In the Pageant of Roquebrune man is, indeed, the new-comer, the upstart,
the being of to-day, the creature that changes. The swifts, the rosemary
and the hillside belong to old Roquebrune.
The following are certain landmarks in the tale of the town.[47] It
seems to have belonged at first to the Counts of Ventimiglia, about in
the same way that a wallet picked up by the roadside would belong to the
finder. In 477 these Counts sold it to a Genoese family of the name of
Vento. In 1189 the town is spoken of as Genoese and as being in the
holding of the Lascaris. It was indeed for long a stronghold of this
house. About 1353 Carlo Grimaldi of Monaco purchased Roquebrune from
Guglielmo Lascaris, Count of Ventimiglia, for 6,000 golden florins. The
union of Monaco, Roquebrune and Mentone thus accomplished lasted for 500
years with unimportant intervals during which the union was for a moment
severed or reduced to a thread. From 1524 to 1641 the little town was
under the protection of Spain.
In 1848 Roquebrune, supported by Mentone, rebelled against the Grimaldi,
after suffering oppression at their hands for thirty-three years, and
declared itself a free town or, rather, a little republic. It so
remained until 1860 when it was united with France at the time that Nice
was ceded to that country. An indemnity of 4,000,000 francs was paid to
the Prince of Monaco in compensation for such of his dominions as
changed hands in that year.[48]
Roquebrune, of course, did not escape the disorders which befell other
towns in its vicinity. Its position rendered it weak, exposed it to
danger and made it difficult to defend. It was sacked on occasion,
notably by the Turks about 1543 after they had dealt with Eze in the
manner already described (page 127). It met with its most serious sorrow
in 1560 when it was assaulted, set on fire and gravely damaged.
At this date the history of Roquebrune ended or at least changed from
that of a fortified place to that of a somewhat humble hill town. So it
sank, like Eze, into obscurity. The ruins that remain date from this
period and it is upon the wreckage of that year that the present town is
founded. The castle would appear to have been restored, for the last
time, in 1528 when the work was directed by Augustin Grimaldi of Monaco
and bishop of Grasse.
By the manner in which Roquebrune bore the stress of years and faced the
troubles of life the little town differed curiously from her two
neighbours of Monaco and Eze. Monaco and Eze were distinctly masculine
in character. They were men-towns. They were, by natural endowment, very
strong. They boasted of their strength and took advantage of it. They
fought everybody and every thing. They seemed to encourage assault and
indeed to provoke it. If hit they hit back again. Their masculinity got
them into frequent trouble. Moreover they loved the sea and were masters
of it.
Now Roquebrune was feminine. She was a woman-town. She was
constitutionally weak. She was little able to defend herself. When hit
she did not hit back again, because she was not strong enough. She was
bullied and was powerless to resent it. She was afraid of the sea, as
many women are, and cared not to venture on it.
She showed her feminine disposition in more ways than one. Roquebrune
had been under the harsh tyranny of Monaco for a number of years, but
she endured her ill treatment in silence. She bent her back to the blow.
She crouched on the ground, passive and apparently cowed. Women will
endure oppression patiently and without murmuring for a very long time.
But a moment comes when they revolt, and it is noteworthy that they
revolt generally with success, for the issue depends not only upon a
masterly patience, but upon the choice of the proper time to end it. A
town of the type of Eze would have had neither the patience to wait nor
the instinct to select the moment for an uprising. Eze, after a year or
so of hardship, would have flown at the throat of Monaco and would
probably have been annihilated in the venture.
Roquebrune waited a great deal more than a year or so. She waited and
endured for thirty-three years and when instinct told her that the right
time had come she turned upon the enemy, but not with a battleaxe in her
hand. She quietly placed herself under the protection of Italy and when
she had secured that support she boldly declared herself a free city and
a free city she remained until she was received into the open arms of
France.
An episode that happened in 1184 will, perhaps, still better illustrate
the feminine character of Roquebrune. In that year the town was besieged
by the Ventimiglians. The reason for the assault is not explained by the
historian. It is probable that mere want of something to do led to this
act of wickedness. One can imagine the Count of Ventimiglia bored to the
verge of melancholia by idleness and can conceive him as becoming
tiresome and unmanageable. One morning, perhaps, a courtier would
address his yawning lord with the remark, “What! nothing to do, sir! Why
not go and sack Roquebrune?” To which the count, quite cheered, would
reply, “An excellent idea. Send for the captain.”
[Illustration: ROQUEBRUNE: RUE DE LA FONTAINE.
View of Castle.]
Anyhow, whatever the reason, the count and his men, all in good spirits,
appeared before the walls of the town and prepared for an assault. Now
the state of affairs was as follows. Roquebrune, owing to its position,
could not withstand a siege. Its fall was inevitable and merely a
question of time. The governor would, however, be compelled to defend
the town to the very last. He would man the walls and barricade the
gates and, calling his company together in the Place des Frères would
remind them of their duty, would tell them, with uplifted sword, that
Roquebrune must be defended so long as a wall remained; that the enemy
must not enter the town except over their dead bodies and that, in the
defence of their homes, they must be prepared to die like heroes.
Now things seemed rather different to the governor’s wife. She was a
shrewd and practical woman not given to heroics. She knew that
Roquebrune could not withstand a siege and must assuredly be taken. She
probably heard the stirring address in the square and did not at all
like her husband’s talk about dying to a man and about people walking
over dead bodies and especially over his body. She knew that the more
determined the resistance the more terrible would be the revenge when
the town was taken. She did not like people being killed, especially her
nice people of Roquebrune. Besides, as she paced to and fro, a couple of
children were tugging at her dress and asking her why she would not take
them out on the hill-side to play as she did every morning.
So when the night came she put a cloak over her head, made her way out
of the town, found the enemy’s camp and told the count how—by certain
arrangements she had made—he could enter the town without the loss of a
man.
Before the day dawned the bewildered inhabitants, who had been up all
night fussing and hiding away their things, found that the Ventimiglians
were in occupation of the town; for, as the historian says, “the
besiegers entered the town without striking a blow.”
Thus ended the siege of Roquebrune. It ended in a way that was probably
satisfactory to both parties and, indeed, to everyone but the governor
who had, without question, a great deal to say to his lady on the
subject of minding her own business.
As she patted the head of her smallest child and glanced at the
breakfast table she, no doubt, replied that she _had_ minded her own
business.
-----
[47] As to the name “Cabbé Roquebrune,” Dr. Müller says that _cabbé_
means a little cape (the Cap Martin).
[48] Durandy, “Mon pays, etc., de la Riviera,” 1918. Dr. Müller,
“Mentone,” 1910. Bosio, “La Province des Alpes Maritimes,” 1902.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN MILESTONES “603”.]
[Illustration: A PIECE OF THE OLD ROMAN ROAD.]
XXXV
GALLOWS HILL
THE hills that overshadow the coast road between Cap d’Ail and
Roquebrune are perhaps as diligently traversed by the winter visitor as
any along the Riviera, because in this area level roads are rare and
those who would walk far afield must of necessity climb up hill.
The hill-side is of interest on account of the number of pre-historic
walled camps which are to be found on its slopes. These camps form a
series of strongholds which extends from Cap d’Ail to Roquebrune. There
are some seven of these forts within this range. The one furthest to the
west is Le Castellar de la Brasca in the St. Laurent valley on the Nice
side of Cap d’Ail. Then come L’Abeglio just above the Cap d’Ail church,
the Bautucan on the site of the old signal station above the
Mid-Corniche, the Castellaretto over the Boulevard de l’Observatoire, Le
Cros near the mule-path to La Turbie and lastly Mont des Mules and Le
Ricard near Roquebrune.
Of these the camp most easily viewed—but by no means the most easy to
visit—is that of the Mont des Mules, on the way up to La Turbie. This
is a bare hill of rough rocks upon the eastern eminence of which is a
camp surrounded by a very massive wall built up of huge unchiselled
stones. It is fitly called a “camp of the giants,” for no weaklings ever
handled such masses of rock as these. The Romans who first penetrated
into the country must have viewed these military works with amazement,
for competent writers affirm that they date from about 2,000 years
before the birth of Christ.
Along this hill-side also are traces of the old Roman road, fragments
which have been but little disturbed and which, perhaps, are still paved
with the very stones over which have marched the legions from the
Imperial City. To the east of La Turbie and just below La Grande
Corniche are two Roman milestones, side by side, in excellent
preservation. There are two, because they have been placed in position
by two different surveyors.
They stand by the ancient way and show clearly enough the mileage—603.
The next milestone (604) stood on the Aurelian Way just outside La
Turbie, at the point where the road is crossed by the railway, but only
the base of it remains. Between it and the previous milestone is a Roman
wayside fountain under a rounded arch. It is still used as a water
supply by the cottagers and the conduit that leads to it can be traced
for some distance up the hill.
The first Roman milestone to the west of La Turbie (No. 605) is on the
side of the Roman road as it turns down towards Laghet.[49] This
milestone is the finest in the district and is remarkably well
preserved. Those who comment on the closeness of these _milliaires_ must
remember that the Roman mile was 142 yards shorter than the English.
[Illustration: THE ROMAN FOUNTAIN NEAR LA TURBIE.]
Above the Mont des Mules is Mont Justicier. It is a hill so bleak and so
desolate that it is little more than a wind-swept pile of stones. It has
been used for centuries as a quarry and much of the material employed in
the building of the Roman trophy at La Turbie came from its barren
sides. Its dreariness is rendered more dismal by its history and by the
memories that cloud its past. These memories do not recall a busy throng
of quarrymen who roared out chanties as they worked at their cranes and
whose chatter could be heard above the thud of the pick and the clink of
the chisel. They recall the time when this dread mound was the Hill of
Death and a terror in the land.
On the summit of Mont Justicier is a tall, solitary column. It appears,
at a distance, to be a shaft of marble; but it is made up of small
pieces of white stone cemented together. It is a large column nearly
three feet in diameter and some fifteen feet in height. Near it is the
base of a second column of identical proportions to the first. The
distance between the two pillars is twelve feet and they stand on a
platform which faces southwards across the sea. These columns were the
posts of a gigantic gallows. Their summits were connected by a cross
beam and from that beam at least six ropes could dangle. This is why the
mound is named Mont Justicier, or, as it would be called in England,
Gallows Hill.
The Mount became a place of execution in the Middle Ages and towards the
end of the seventeenth century there would never be a time when bodies
could not be seen swinging from the beam of the great gallows, since it
was here that the brigands known as the Barbets were hanged.
The term “Barbet” has a somewhat curious history. It was originally a
nickname given by the Catholics to the Protestant Vaudois and later to
the Protestants of the Cevennes and elsewhere. The name had origin in
the circumstance that the Vaudois called their ministers “_barbes_” or
“uncles,” in somewhat the same way that the Catholics call their priests
“fathers.”
The term was later applied to Protestant heretics generally and notably
to the Albigensians who held to the mountains of Piedmont and Dauphiné.
They refused baptism, the Mass, the adoration of the Cross, the traffic
in indulgences. “What was originally a logical revolt of pure reason
against dogmatic authority soon took unfortunately varying forms, and
then reached unpardonable extremes.”[50] These men were outlawed, were
hunted down and massacred and treated as rogues and vagabonds of a
pernicious type. For their ill name they were themselves not a little to
blame. They kept to the mountains from which great efforts were made to
dislodge them about the end of the seventeenth century.
The term Barbets was subsequently given to the inhabitants of the
valleys of the Alps who lived by plunder and contraband and finally to
any brigands or robbers who had their lairs among the mountains. “In the
year 1792,” writes Rosio,[51] “irregular bands were formed, under the
name of Barbets, which were trained and commanded by military officers
devoted to Sardinia. These bands of men harassed the French army,
pillaged the camps and held up convoys. When the House of Savoy lost its
hold on the Continent the Barbets divided into smaller companies and
gave themselves up to open brigandage. Their habitat was in the
mountains of Levens, of L’Escarene, Eze and La Turbie. Near Levens the
unfortunates who fell into their hands were hurled into the Vesubie from
a rock 300 metres high which is still called Le Saut des Français.”
[Illustration: GALLOWS HILL.]
[Illustration: MONT JUSTICIER: THE TWO PILLARS OF THE GALLOWS.]
At the foot of Mont Justicier, near to the gallows and by the side of
the actual Roman road, is the little chapel of St. Roch. It is a very
ancient chapel and its years weigh heavily upon it, for it has nearly
come to the end of its days. It is built of rough stones beneath a
coating of plaster and has a cove roof covered with red tiles. The base
of the altar still stands, traces of frescoes can be seen on the walls
and on one side of the altar is an ambry or small, square wall-press. It
was in this sorrowful little chapel that criminals about to be executed
made confession and received the last offices of the Church.
A sadder place than this in which to die could hardly be realised. The
land around is so harsh, the hill so heartless, the spot so lonely. And
yet many troubled souls have here bid farewell to life and have started
hence on their flight into the unknown. Before the eyes of the dying men
would stretch the everlasting sea. On the West—where the day comes to
an end—the world is shut out by the vast bastion of the Tête de Chien;
but on the East, as far as the eye can reach, all is open and welcoming
and full of pity. It is to the East that the closing eyes would turn, to
the East where the dawn would break and where would glow, in kindly
tints of rose and gold, the promise of another day.
There is one lonely tree on this Hill of Death—a shivering pine; while,
as if to show the kindliness of little things, some daisies and a bush
of wild thyme have taken up their place at the foot of the gallows.
-----
[49] The ancient road lies above and to the west of the modern road to
the convent.
[50] “Old Provence,” by T. A. Cook, Vol. 2, p. 169.
[51] “Les Alpes Maritimes,” 1902.
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL OF ST. ROCH.]
XXXVI
MENTONE
MENTONE is a popular and quite modern resort on the Riviera much
frequented by the English on account of its admirable climate. Placed on
the edge of the Italian frontier it is the last Mediterranean town in
France. It lies between the sea and a semicircle of green hills upon a
wide flat which is traversed by four rough torrents. It is, on the
whole, a pleasant looking place although it is not so brilliant in
colour as the posters in railway stations would make it. It is seen at
its best from a distance, for then its many dull streets, its prosaic
boulevards and its tramlines are hidden by bright villas and luxuriant
gardens, by ruddy roofs and comfortable trees. Standing up in its midst
is the old town which gives to it a faint suggestion of some antiquity.
This old town, together with the port, divides Mentone into two
parts—the West and the East Bays. The inhabitants also are divided into
two sections—the Westbayers and the Eastbayers, and these two can never
agree as to which side of the town is the more agreeable. They have
fought over this question ever since houses have appeared in the two
disputed districts and they are fighting on the matter still. The
Westbayer wonders that the residents on the East can find any delight in
living, while the Eastbayer is surprised that his acquaintance in the
other bay is still unnumbered with the dead. I had formed the opinion
that the Western Bay was the more pleasant and the more healthy but
Augustus Hare crushes me to the ground for he writes, “English
doctors—seldom acquainted with the place—are apt to recommend the
Western Bay as more bracing; but it is exposed to mistral and dust, and
its shabby suburbs have none of the beauty of the Eastern Bay.” So I
stand corrected, but hold to my opinion still.
Hare is a little hard on Mentone by reason of its being so painfully
modern. “Up to 1860,” he says, “it was a picturesque fishing town, with
a few scattered villas let to strangers in the neighbouring olive
groves, and all its surroundings were most beautiful and attractive; now
much of its two lovely bays is filled with hideous and stuccoed villas
in the worst taste. The curious old walls are destroyed, and pretentious
paved promenades have taken the place of the beautiful walks under
tamarisk groves by the sea-shore. Artistically, Mentone is vulgarised
and ruined, but its dry, sunny climate is delicious, its flowers
exquisite and its excursions—for good walkers—are inexhaustible and
full of interest.”[52]
There can be few who will not admit that the modern town of Mentone is
commonplace and rather characterless, but, at the same time, it must be
insisted that a large proportion of the Mentone villas are—from every
point of view—charming and free from the charge of being vulgar.
Some indeed, with their glorious gardens, are serenely beautiful. With
one observation by Mr. Hare every visitor will agree—that in which he
speaks of the country with which Mentone is surrounded. It is
magnificent and so full of interest and variety that it can claim, I
think, to have no parallel in any part of the French Riviera.
[Illustration: MENTONE: THE OLD TOWN.]
Mentone is a quiet place that appears to take its pleasure demurely, if
not sadly. It is marked too by a respectability which is commendable,
but at the same time almost awe-inspiring. Perhaps its nearness to Monte
Carlo makes this characteristic more prominent. If Monte Carlo be a town
of scarlet silks, short skirts and high-heeled shoes Mentone is a town
of alpaca and cotton gloves and of skirts so long that they almost hide
the elastic-side boots.
There is a class of English lady—elderly, dour and unattached—that is
comprised under the not unkindly term of “aunt.” They are propriety
personified. They are spoken of as “worthy.” Although not personally
attractive they are eminent by reason of their intimate knowledge of the
economics of life abroad. To them those human mysteries, the keeper of
the _pension_, the petty trader and the laundress are as an open book.
They fill the frivolous bachelor with reverential alarm, but their
acquaintance with the rate of exchange, the price of butter and the
cheap shop is supreme in its intricacy. These “aunts” are to be found in
larger numbers in Mentone than in any other resort of the English in
France.
The old town of Mentone is small and circumscribed. It stands in the
centre of the place as a low hillock or promontory. In relation to the
rest of Mentone it is like the brown body of a butterfly whose gaudy
wings are spread over the West Bay on the one side and the East Bay on
the other.
The history of Mentone is meagre and of little interest. Compared with
neighbouring towns it is of no great antiquity. The Romans passed by the
site on which it stands without a halt. The Lombards and the Saracens
left the spot alone for it offered no attractions to the neediest
robber. According to Dr. Müller, whose work on Mentone is above praise,
there is no mention of the town in the old chronicles until the
commencement of the thirteenth century. It was a small place but poorly
fortified and therefore little able to protect itself. It became in
consequence the victim of any tyrant in the country round and its
experience of tyranny must have been long-enduring and acute.