Roccabruna, a little town looking as if it were hooked on to the side
of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we
met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of
the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of
the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the
pavement behind her. Probably it would have been considered undignified
to lift it. The father, a small, wizened old man, looked timorous, and
the bridegroom, next behind with the bride's mother, still more so, even
the quantity of brave red satin cravat he wore failing to give him a
martial air. Next came the relatives and friends, two and two, all the
gowns of the women sweeping out with dignity. In truth this seemed to be
the feature of the occasion, since at all other times their gowns were
either short or carefully held above the dust. There was no music, no
talking, hardly a smile. A christening party we had met the day before
was much more joyous, for then the smiling father and mother threw from
the carriage at intervals handfuls of sugar-plums and small copper
coins, which were scrambled for by a crowd of children, while the
gorgeously dressed baby was held up proudly at the window.
We were going first to Gorbio. The Gorbio Valley is charming. Of all the
valleys, the narrow Val de Menton is the loveliest for an afternoon
walk; but for longer excursions, and compared with the valleys of Carrei
and Borrigo, that of Gorbio is the most beautiful, principally because
there is more water in the stream, which comes sweeping and tumbling
over its bed of flat rock like the streams of the White Mountains,
whereas the so-called "torrents" of Carrei and Borrigo are generally but
wide, arid torrents of stone. We passed olive and lemon groves, mills,
vineyards, and millions upon millions of violets. Then the path, which
constantly ascended, grew wilder, but not so wild as Inness. I could not
imagine what possessed him. He sang, told stories, vaulted over Baker,
and laughed until the valley rang again; but as his voice was good and
his stories amusing, we enjoyed his merriment. Miss Elaine looked on, I
thought, with an air of pity; but then Miss Elaine pitied everybody. She
would have pitied Jenny Lind at the height of her fame, and no doubt
when she was in Florence she pitied the Venus de' Medici.
We found Gorbio a little village of six hundred inhabitants, perched on
the point of a rock, with the ground sloping away on all sides; the
remains of its old wall and fortified gates were still to be seen. We
entered and explored its two streets--narrow passageways between the old
stone houses, whose one idea seemed to be to crowd as closely together
and occupy as little of the ground space as possible. Above the
clustered roofs towered the ruined walls of what was once the castle,
the tower only remaining distinct. This tower bore armorial bearings,
which I was trying to decipher, when Verney came up with Janet. "Nothing
but those same arms of the Lascaris," he said.
"Why do you say 'nothing but'?" said Janet. "To be royal, and Greek, and
have three castles--for this is the third we have seen--is not nothing,
but something, and a great deal of something. How I wish _I_ had lived
in those days!"
As the Professor was not with us, we knew nothing of the story of
Gorbio, and walked about rather uncomfortable and ill-informed in
consequence. But it turned out that Gorbio, like the knife-grinder, had
no story. "Story? Lord bless you! I have none to tell, sir." Inness,
however, had reserved one fact, which he finally delivered to us under
the great elm in the centre of the little plaza, where we had assembled
to rest. "This peaceful village," he began, "whose idyllic children now
form a gazing circle around us, was the scene of a sanguinary combat
between the French and Spanish-Austrian armies in 1746."
"Oh, modern! modern!" said Verney from behind (where he was throwing
Janet into Gorbio).
"Your pardon," said Inness, with majesty; "not modern at all. In 1746,
as I beg to remind you, even the foundation-stones of our great republic
were not laid, yet the man who ventures to say that it is not, as a
construction, absolutely venerable, from exceeding merit, will be a rash
one. In America, Time is not old or slow; he has given up his
hour-glass, and travels by express. Each month of ours equals one of
your years, each year a century. Therefore have we all a singularly
mature air--as exemplified in myself. But to return. Upon this spot,
then, my friends, there was once--carnage! The only positive and
historical carnage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all warlike
spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the inspiring air."
We did not stay long enough in the inspiring air to become belligerent,
however, but, on the contrary, went peacefully past a quiet old shrine,
and took the path to Roccabruna--one of the most beautiful paths in the
neighborhood of Mentone. By-and-by we came to a tall cross on the top of
a high ridge. We had seen it outlined against the sky while still in the
streets of Gorbio. These mountain-side crosses were not uncommon. They
are not locally commemorative, as we first supposed, but seem to be
placed here and there, where there is a beautiful view, to remind the
gazer of the hand that created it all. Some distance farther we found a
still wider prospect; and then we came down into Roccabruna, and spread
out our lunch on the battlements of the old castle. From this point our
eyes rested on the coast-line stretching east and west, the frowning
Dog's Head at Monaco, and the white winding course of the Cornice Road.
The castle was on the side of the mountain, eight hundred feet above the
sea. Although forming part of the village, it was completely isolated by
its position on a high pinnacle of rock, which rose far above the roofs
on all sides.
[Illustration: STREET IN ROCCABRUNA]
"How these poor timid little towns clung close to and under their lords'
walls!" said Baker, with the fine contempt of a young American. "They
are all alike: the castle towering above; next the church and the
priest; and the people--nowhere!"
"The people were happy enough, living in this air," said Mrs. Clary.
"How does it strike you? To me it seems delicious; but many persons find
it too exciting."
"It certainly gives me an appetite," I said, taking another sandwich.
Miss Elaine found it "too warm." Miss Graves found it "too cold." Mrs.
Trescott, having been made herself again by a glass of the "good little
white wine" of Gorbio, said that it was "almost too idealizing." Lloyd
remarked that it was not "too anything unless too delightful," and that,
for his part, he wished that, with the present surroundings, he might
"breathe it forever!" This was gallant. Janet looked at him: he was the
only one who had not bowed at her shrine, and it made her pensive.
Meanwhile Inness's gayety continued; he made a voyage of discovery
through the narrow streets below, coming back with the legend that he
had met the prettiest girl he had seen since his "pretty girl of Arles,"
whose eyes, "enshrined beside those of Miss Trescott" (with a grand
bow), had remained ever since in his "heart's inmost treasury." This,
like Baker's L' Annunziata speech, was both un-American and unnecessary
in the presence of a second young lady, and I looked at Inness,
surprised. But Miss Elaine only smiled on.
The Professor now appeared, having come out from Mentone on a donkey. We
immediately became historical. It appeared that the castle upon whose
old battlements we were idly loitering was one of the "homes" of the
Lascaris, Counts of Ventimiglia, who in 1358 transferred it with its
domains to the Grimaldis, Princes of Monaco.
"These Lascaris and Grimaldis seem to have played at seesaw for the
possession of this coast," said Baker. "Now one is up, and now the
other, but never any one else."
But Janet was impressed. "_Again_ the Lascaris!" she murmured.
"What is your idea of them?" said Verney.
"I hardly know; but of course they were knights in armor; and of course,
being Greeks, they had classic profiles. They were impulsive, and they
were generous; but if any one seriously displeased them, they
immediately ordered him cast into that terrible _oubliette_ we saw
below."
"That," said the Professor, mildly, "is only the well." Then, as if to
strengthen her with something authentic, he added, "The village was
sacked by the Duke of Guise towards the end of the sixteenth century,
when this castle was reduced to the ruined condition in which we find it
now."
"Happily it is not altogether ruined," said Mrs. Trescott, putting up
her eye-glass; "one of the--the apartments seems to be roofed, and to
possess doors."
"That," said the Professor, "is a donkey-stable, erected--or rather
adapted--later."
"Do the donkeys come up all these stairs?" I said, amused.
"I believe they do," replied the Professor. "Indeed, I have seen them
coming up after the day's work is over."
"I am sorry, Janet, but I shall never be able to think of this home of
your Lascaris after this without seeing a procession of donkeys coming
up-stairs on their way to their high apartments," I said, laughing.
"The _procession_ might have been the same in the days of the Lascaris,"
suggested Baker.
Roccabruna--brown rock--is an appropriate name for the village, which is
so brown and so mixed with and built into the cliff to which it clings
that it is difficult to tell where man's work ends and that of nature
begins.
"The town was the companion of Mentone in its rebellion against the
Princes of Monaco," said the Professor. "Mentone and Roccabruna freed
themselves, but Monaco remained enslaved."
"They are all now in France," said Baker.
"Sir!" replied the Professor, with heat, "it is in a much worse place
than France that wretched Monaco now finds herself!"
We went homeward down the mountain-side, passing the little chapel of
the Madonna della Pausa--a pause being indeed necessary when one is
ascending. Here, where the view was finest, there was another way-side
cross. Farther on, as we entered the old olive wood below, Margaret
dismounted; she always liked to walk through the silver-gray shade; and
Lloyd seemed to have adopted an equal fondness for the same tint.
That evening, when we were alone, Margaret explained the secret of
Inness's remarkable and unflagging gayety. It seemed that Miss Elaine
had, during the day before, confided to Verney--as a fellow-countryman,
I suppose--her self-reproach concerning "that poor young American
gentleman, Mr. Inness." What _should_ she do? Would he advise her? She
must go to some one, and she did not feel like troubling her dear mamma.
It was true that Mr. Inness had been with her a good deal, had helped
her wind her worsteds in the evening, but she never meant
anything--never dreamed of anything. And now, she could not but
feel--there was something in his manner that forced her to see--In
short, had not Mr. Verney noticed it?
Now I have no doubt but that Verney told her he had "seen" and had
"noticed" everything she desired. But in the meanwhile he could not
resist confiding the story to Baker, who having been already a victim,
was overcome with glee, and in his turn hastened to repeat the tale to
Inness.
Inness raged, but hardly knew what to do. He finally decided to become a
perfect Catharine-wheel of gayety, shooting off laughter and jokes in
all directions to convince the world that he remained heart-whole.
"But it will be of no avail," I said to Margaret, laughing, as I
recalled the look of soft pity on Miss Elaine's face all day; "she will
think it but the gayety of desperation." Then, more soberly, I added:
"Mr. Lloyd told you this, I suppose? You are with him a great deal, are
you not?"
"You see that I am, aunt. But it is only because she has not come yet."
"Who?"
"The brighter and younger woman who will take my place." But I did not
think she believed it.
* * * * *
On another day we went to Castellare, a little stone village much like
Gorbio, perched on its ridge, and rejoicing in an especial resemblance
to one of Caesar's fortified camps. The castle here was not so much a
castle as a chateau; its principal apartment was adorned with frescos
representing the history of Adam and Eve. We should not have seen these
frescos if it had not been for Miss Graves: I am afraid we should have
(there is no other word) shirked them. But Miss Graves had heard of the
presence of ancient works of art, and was bent upon finding them. In
vain Lloyd conducted her in and out of half a dozen old houses,
suggesting that each one was "probably" all that was left of the
"chateau." Miss Graves remained inflexibly unconvinced, and in the end
gained her point. We all saw Adam and Eve.
"Why did they want frescos away out here in this primitive little
village to which no road led, hardly even a donkey path?" I said.
"That is the very reason," replied Margaret. "They had no society,
nothing to do; so they looked at their frescos exhaustively."
"What do those eagles at the corners represent?" said Janet.
"They are the device of the Lascaris," replied the Professor.
"Do you mean to tell me that _this_ was one of their homes also?" she
exclaimed. "Let a chair be brought, and all of you leave me. I wish to
remain here alone, and imagine that I am one of them."
"Couldn't you imagine two?" said Inness. And he gained his point.
On our way home we found another block in the main street, and paused.
We were near what we called the umbrella place--an archway opening down
towards the old port; here against the stone wall an umbrella-maker had
established his open-air shop, and his scarlet and blue lined parasols
and white umbrellas, hung up at the entrance, made a picturesque spot of
color we had all admired. This afternoon we were late; it was nearly
twilight, and, in this narrow, high-walled street, almost night. As we
waited we heard chanting, and through the dusky archway came a
procession. First a tall white crucifix borne between two swinging
lamps; then the surpliced choir-boys, chanting; then the incense and the
priests; then a coffin, draped, and carried in the old way on the
shoulders of the bearers, who were men robed in long-hooded black gowns
reaching to the feet, their faces covered, with only two holes for the
eyes. These were members of the Society of Black Penitents, who, with
the White Penitents, attend funerals by turn, and care for the sick and
poor, from charitable motives alone, and without reward. Behind the
Penitents walked the relatives and friends, each with a little lighted
taper. As the procession came through the dark archway, crossed the
street, and wound up the hill into the "old town," its effect, with
the glancing lights and chanting voices, was weirdly picturesque. It was
on its way to the cemetery above.
[Illustration: THE KING OF THE OLIVES]
"Did you ever read this, Mr. Lloyd?" I heard Margaret say behind me, as
we went onward towards home:
"'One day, in desolate wind-swept space,
In twilight-land, in no-man's-land,
Two hurrying Shapes met face to face,
And bade each other stand.
"And who art thou?" cried one, agape,
Shuddering in the gloaming light.
"I do not know," said the second Shape:
"I only died last night."'"
I turned. Lloyd was looking at her curiously, or rather with wonder.
"Come, Margaret," I said, falling behind so as to join them, "the
English are not mystical, as some of us are. They are content with what
they can definitely know, and they leave the rest."
During the next week, after a long discussion, we decided to go up the
valley of the Nervia. The discussion was not inharmonious: we liked
discussions.
"This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone excursions," said Mrs.
Clary, as our three carriages ascended the Cornice Road towards the
east, on a beautiful morning after one of the rare showers. "Many
explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and Monte Carlo; but
comparatively few go up the Nervia."
The scene of the instalment of our twelve selves in these three
carriages, by-the-way, was amusing. Between the inward determination of
Inness, Verney, Baker, and the Professor to be in the carriage which
held Janet, and the equally firm determination of Miss Elaine to be in
the carriage which held _them_, it seemed as if we should never be
placed. But no one said what he or she wished; far from it. Everybody
was very polite, wonderfully polite; everybody offered his or her place
to everybody else. Lloyd, after waiting a few moments, calmly helped
Margaret into one of the carriages, handed in her shawl, and then took a
seat himself opposite. But the rest of us surged helplessly to and fro
among the wheels, not quite knowing what to do, until the arrival of the
hotel omnibus hurried us, when we took our places hastily, without any
arrangement at all, and drove off as follows: in the first carriage,
Mrs. Trescott, Janet, Miss Elaine, and myself; in the second, Miss
Graves, Inness, Verney, and Baker; in the third, Mrs. Clary, Margaret,
Lloyd, and the Professor. This assortment was so comical that I laughed
inwardly all the way up the first hill. Miss Elaine looked as if she was
on the point of shedding tears; and the Professor, who did not enjoy the
conversation of either Margaret or Mrs. Clary, was equally discomfited.
As for the faces of the three young men shut in with Miss Graves, they
were a study. However, it did not last long. The young men soon
preferred "to walk uphill." Then we stopped at Mortola to see the
Hanbury garden, and took good care not to arrange ourselves in the same
manner a second time. Still, as four persons cannot, at least in the
present state of natural science, occupy at the same moment the space
only large enough for one, there was all day more or less manoeuvring.
From Mortola to Ventimiglia I was in the carriage with Janet, Inness,
and Verney.
"What ruin is that on the top of the hill?" said Janet. "It looks like a
castle."
"It is a castle--Castel d'Appio," said Verney; "a position taken by the
Genoese in 1221 from the Lascaris, who--"
"Stop the carriage!--I must go up," said Janet.
"I assure you, Miss Trescott, that, Lascaris or no Lascaris, you will
find yourself mummied in mud after this rain," said Inness. "_I_ went up
there in a dry time, and even then had to wade."
Now if there is anything which Janet especially cherishes, it is her
pretty boots; so Castel d'Appio remained unvisited upon its height, in
lonely majesty against the sky. The next object of interest was a square
tower, standing on the side-hill not far above the road; it was not
large on the ground, rather was it narrow, but it rose in the air to an
imposing height. I could not imagine what its use had been: it stood too
far from the sea for a lookout, and, from its shape, could hardly have
been a residence; in its isolation, not a fortress. Inness said it
looked like a steeple with the church blown away; and then, inspired by
his own comparison, he began to chant an ancient ditty about
"'The next thing they saw was a barn on a hill:
One said 'twas a barn;
The other said "Na-ay;"
And t'other 'twas a church with its steeple blown away:
Look--a--there!'"
This extremely venerable ballad delighted Miss Graves in the carriage
behind so that she waved her black parasol in applause. She asked if
Inness could not sing "Springfield Mountain."
"There is nothing left now," I said, laughing, "but the 'Battle of the
Nile.'"
Verney, who had sketched the tower early in the winter, explained that
the old road to Ventimiglia passed directly through the lower story,
which was built in the shape of an arch. All the carriages were now
together, as we gazed at the relic.
"The road goes through?" said Miss Graves. "Probably, then, it was a
toll-gate."
[Illustration: FEUDAL TOWER NEAR VENTIMIGLIA]
This was so probable, although unromantic, that thereafter the venerable
structure was called by that name, or, as Inness suggested, "not to be
too disrespectful, the mediaeval T.G."
Ventimiglia, seven miles from Mentone, was "one of the most ancient
towns in Liguria," the Professor remarked. Mrs. Trescott, Mrs. Clary,
and I looked much wiser after this information, but carefully abstained
from saying anything to each other of the cloudy nature of our ideas
respecting the geographical word. However, we noticed, unaided, that its
fortifications were extensive, for we rolled over a drawbridge to enter
it, passing high stone-walls, bastions, and port-holes, while on the
summit of the hill above us frowned a large Italian fort. The Roya, a
broad river which divides the town into two parts, is crossed by a long
bridge; and we were over this bridge and some distance beyond before we
discovered that we had left the old quarter on the other side, its
closely clustering roofs and spires having risen so directly over our
heads on the steep side-hill that we had not observed them. Should we go
back? The carriages drew up to consider. We had still "a long drive
before us;" these "old Riviera villages" were "all alike;" the hill
seemed "very steep;" and "we can come here, you know, at any time"--were
some of the opinions given. The Professor, who really wished to stop,
gallantly yielded. Miss Graves, alone in the opposition, was obliged to
yield also; but she was deeply disappointed. The cathedral, formerly
dedicated to Jupiter, "'possesses a white marble pulpit incrusted with
mosaics, and an octagon font, very ancient,'" she read, mournfully,
aloud, from her manuscript note-book. "'The Church of St. Michael, also,
guards Roman antiquities of surpassing interest.'" This word "guards"
had a fine effect.
But, "we can come here at any time, you know," carried the day; and we
drove on. I may as well mention that, as usual in such cases, we never
did "come here at any time," save on the one occasion of our departure
for Florence--an occasion which no railway traveller going to Italy by
this route is likely soon to forget, the Ventimiglia custom-house being
modelled patriotically upon the circles of Dante's "Inferno."
When we were at a safe distance--"I suppose you know, Miss Trescott,
that Ventimiglia was the principal home of your Lascaris?" said Verney.
"First of all, they were Counts of Ventimiglia: that Italian port stands
on the site of their old castle. I have been looking into their
genealogy a little on your account; and I find that the first count of
whom we have authentic record was a son of the King of Italy, A.D. 950.
His son married the Princess Eudoxie, daughter of Theodore Lascaris,
Emperor of Greece, and assumed the arms and name of his wife's family.
Their descendants, besides being Counts of Ventimiglia, became Seigniors
of Mentone, Castellare, Gorbio, Peille, Tende, and Briga, Roccabruna,
and what is now L'Annunziata. They also had a chateau at Nice."
"Let us go back!" said Janet.
"To Nice?" I asked, smiling.
But Verney appeased her with an offering--nothing less than a sketch he
had made. "The Lascaris," he said, as if introducing them. And there
they were, indeed, a group of knights on horseback, dressed in velvet
doublets and lace ruffles, with long white plumes, followed by a train
of pages and squires with armor and led-horses. All had Greek profiles:
in truth, they were but various views of the Apollo Belvedere. This
splendid party was crossing the drawbridge of a castle, and, from a
latticed casement above, two beautiful and equally Greek ladies, attired
in ermine, with long veils and golden crowns, waved their scarfs in
token of adieu.
"Charming!" said Janet, much pleased. (And in truth it was, if fanciful,
a very pretty sketch.) "But who are those ladies above?"
"I suppose they had wives and sisters, did they not?" said Verney.
"I suppose they did--of _some_ sort," said Janet, disparagingly.
But Verney now produced a second sketch; "another study of the same
subject," he called it. This was a picture of the same number of men,
clad in clumsy armor, with rough, coarse faces, attacking a pass and
compelling two miserable frightened peasants with loaded mules to yield
up what they had, while, from a rude tower above, like our mediaeval T.
G., two or three swarthy women with children were watching the scene.
The wrappings of the two sketches being now removed, we saw that one was
labelled, "The Lascaris--her Idea of them;" and the other, "The
Lascaris--as they were."
We all laughed. But I think Janet was not quite pleased. After the next
change Verney found himself, by some mysterious chance, left to occupy
the seat beside Miss Elaine, while Baker had his former place.