MENTONE
Configuration of the land—Favoured situation of Mentone: suitable
for mid-winter—Old and new Mentone—Oranges and lemons—History of
Mentone—Roquebrune—Passion Mystery—Castellan—Depredations of
corsairs—Open-air ball—Dr. Bennet—The torrent of S. Louis—The
Barma Grande—Prehistoric men.
THE traveller by rail from Nice to Mentone is hardly able to appreciate
the configuration of the land, and to understand what are the special
advantages enjoyed by Mentone over Nice and Cannes.
Let us take a sickle to represent the mountain system from the Swiss
Alps to the Abruzzi. If the sickle be held with the point upward and
the cutting edge turned away from one, then the great curve of the
inner edge represents the vast basin of the Po and its tributaries. At
Mont Blanc the Alpine sweep turns south and runs to Monte Viso, forming
the Dauphiné Alps. From Monte Viso the ridge curves to the east till it
meets the shank above Genoa, and the handle of the sickle is the range
of the Apennines.
From Nice one can see the snowy peaks. Les Cimes du Diable are visible,
but away to the north-east, for the chain is on the curve there. Above
the Riviera di Ponente the chain draws very near to the sea, but throws
out spurs and allows of a ledge resting against it, intervening
between it and the Mediterranean. Now in leaving Nice by the Corniche
Road we can see this formation, we learn how the Alps describe a great
arc; but this is lost to us in the train, hugging the sea-shore and
diving in and out of tunnels.
It is only by the Corniche Road, when we have reached La Turbie,
that we discern how specially privileged are Mentone and the Italian
Riviera. We see before us an amphitheatre, with mountain stages, and
the blue sea for arena. The mountains run up to 3,000 and 4,000 feet,
and wall about the fertile bottom, the seats about the sea, sheltering
them from every blast. The higher mountains of grey limestone are bare,
but below all is rich with luxuriant vegetation.
“The entire bay and the town of Mentone, with its background of
swelling, olive-clad hills closed in by the amphitheatre of mountains,
are thus thoroughly protected from the north-west, north, and
north-east winds. To thoroughly understand and appreciate the district
and its singularly protected character, a boat should be taken,
and the panorama viewed a mile or two from the shore. The extreme
beauty of the coast will amply repay the trouble. Thus seen, all the
details are blended into one harmonious whole; the two bays becoming
one, and the little town scarcely dividing them. The grandeur of
the semicircular range of mountains, generally steeped in glorious
sunshine, also comes out in broad outline. These mountains positively
appear to all but encircle the Mentonian amphitheatre in their arms,
to thus separate it and its inhabitants from the world at large, and
to present it to the blue Mediterranean waves and to the warm southern
sunshine.
“Behind the mountains which thus form the background of the Mentonian
valleys, are still higher mountains, rising in successive ranges to an
altitude of from 5,000 to 9,000 feet. The higher ranges constitute
the high Alps of Savoy and Dauphiné. The presence of this second and
higher mountain range greatly increases the protection afforded to the
coast-line by the lower one, and partly explains its immunity from the
winter cold of continental Europe.
“Thus the Mentone amphitheatre, being only open to the south,
south-east, and south-west, the Mistral, as a north-west wind, is not
at all felt, and but slightly as a deflected south-west wind. All the
northerly winds pass over the higher mountains and fall into the sea
at some distance—several miles from the shore. When they reign there
is a calm, not only in the bay at Mentone, but for some distance out
at sea; whilst at a few miles from the shore it may be crested and
furious.”[17]
But this protected and warm nook can be enjoyed only during the months
in the depth of winter. When the sun begins to gather warmth, the heat
becomes oppressive, the lungs gasp for air, and one feels desirous to
be invested with sufficient faith to be able to move the mountains
some miles back. There are two Mentones, the very dashing, frivolous,
up-to-date modern town, with expensive tastes; bound for life to
the elderly Mentone, grave, a little dilapidated, and intent only
on business. But young and gay Mentone is stealing an arm round the
old partner and laying hold of the even more sheltered and balmy bay
beyond, now dotted with villas, and punctuated with hotels.
Mentone is pre-eminently the district of lemons and oranges, grown here
for the fruit, and not, as at Grasse, for the flower. Lemons at Mentone
are more numerous than oranges. They are not so beautiful, as the fruit
has not the golden hue of the orange—it is green or pale sulphur
yellow. The fruit of the orange tree will bear 7° Fahr. below freezing
point without being seriously affected, but the lemon tree is much
more sensitive, and is killed by 8°; it may also perish by over-much
moisture in the atmosphere. When a sharp frost sets in, the owners of a
plantation of oranges or lemons are in dire alarm, and light fires in
the groves, strewing green leaves and grass over the flames to produce
smoke, which to a considerable extent prevents radiation, and the
temperature falling too low.
The lemon tree flowers throughout the year, never resting, flower and
fruit being on the tree at the same time. On no other part of the coast
do these trees grow as freely as they do at Mentone and Bordighera. But
there are no ancient lemon trees, as about once in thirty-five years a
bitter winter sets in, and the poor trees perish.
The orange tree flowers once only in the year, and bears but a single
crop. The fruit ripens in autumn and winter. We, in England, never have
the orange in its perfection, as it is picked when green or turning
golden and ripens in the cases in which it is packed. But for the
orange to be in perfection, luscious and sweet, it should be left on
the tree till the end of April, or even into May. It is a beautiful
sight, during the winter, to see the orange groves laden with their
glorious fruit. The most delicious oranges are those with thin skins,
the Mandarin or Tangerine, which ripen earlier than do the Portuguese
thick-skinned species.
The history of Mentone is not of great interest, and it may be
dismissed in a few words. Mentone and rock-perched Roquebrune belonged
to the Prince of Monaco. The Grimaldi, John II., having quarrelled
with Genoa, appealed for help to the Duke of Savoy, and to buy this
help, in 1448 ceded these two places to him for an annual rent of 200
gold florins. However, the Grimaldi got this territory back again,
but lost it in 1848, when Mentone and Roquebrune revolted against the
fiscal burdens imposed on them by the Prince, and declared themselves
independent republics. The President of the Republic of Mentone was
Charles Trenca, who died in 1853. Finally, in 1860, both places were
united to France, and the claims of the Prince of Monaco were bought
off for the sum of four million francs.
There is little of architectural interest in Mentone. The church, built
in 1619, and added to in 1675, is in the tasteless style of the period,
but tower and spire are effective from a distance. In the church is
preserved a processional cross, the staff of which is formed out of a
Turkish lance taken by Prince Honoré I. of Monaco, in the battle of
Lepanto, 1571. But if Mentone be somewhat deficient in picturesque
features, the same cannot be said of Roquebrune, which for so many
centuries shared its fortunes. It is dominated by the castle of the
Lascaris. At Roquebrune, every year, on the first Sunday in August, the
Mystery of the Passion is represented in a procession that illustrates
the various scenes of the portentous tragedy. It starts from the chapel
of N.D. de la Pansa, on the east side of the little town, a chapel
decorated with frescoes of the fifteenth century. The narrow streets,
passing under vaults, the quaintness of the houses, above all the
superb panorama commanded by Roquebrune, make it a place meriting a
visit.
Still more quaint and picturesque is Castellar, forming a quadrilateral
fortress, planted on a plateau commanding two valleys. It is composed
of three long parallel streets. The exterior of the village or town is
the wall that encloses the place, and the houses thus form the wall,
and look outward only through eyelet holes. Turrets flank the angles.
The chapel of S. Sebastian is romanesque. Here also the Lascaris had
a palace. Castellar stands 1,200 feet above the sea. We can hardly
realise till how late a period the pirates of the Mediterranean were a
scourge to this coast, and forced the natives to build every village
and town in a place not easily accessible, and form of it a fortress.
For many centuries first the Saracens, then the Turks and Moors of
Tunis and Algiers, ravaged this coast. Not so much for gold and
silver—for of this the poor fishermen, shepherds, and tillers of the
soil had none, but to capture slaves. The women were handsome and the
men able-bodied.
“There are still men living at Mentone,” says Dr. Bennet, “who in the
early part of this century (_i.e._ 19th) were seized on the coast
by Moors, and subsequently lived for years as slaves at Algiers and
Tunis.” Indeed, piracy reigned supreme on the Mediterranean until the
year 1816, when Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers; but it was not finally
stamped out till the conquest of Algiers by the French in 1830. When
Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers, there were thousands of Christian
slaves, mostly captured on the Riviera, serving in the Algerine
galleys. It was against the sudden descent of these pirates that
the watch towers were erected along the coast, which may be seen at
intervals as far as Genoa.
At Castellar, on the Place de la Mairie, is given on January 20th,
every year, an open-air ball which winds up the series of festivities,
religious and secular, accorded in honour of the patronal saint, S.
Sebastian.
Mentone was “invented” by Dr. J. Henry Bennet, whose delightful book on
_Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean_, 1861, has gone
through several editions, and is still the best guide to such as are in
quest of a winter resort. He settled at Mentone in 1859, and speedily
appreciated its climatic advantages. These advantages are inestimable
for the worst winter months. But when the sun gathers strength, it is
advisable for the traveller to break his return journey to the cold and
fogs of England by a cool bath in S. Raphael “ventosa.”
Sir Thomas Hanbury has also done much for the place. His gardens are
well worth seeing. An electric tram will take a visitor along the bay
to a fountain erected by Sir Thomas Hanbury, near the frontier of
Italy. That frontier runs down the torrent of S. Louis, where may be
seen, on a fine day, sketchers and painters engaged in transferring
to their books or canvases the impression produced by this ravine,
with arches one above the other, for the railway and for the Corniche
Road, whilst below are women washing garments in the little stream.
The magnificent cliffs rise here in sheer precipices, and are composed
of nummulitic limestone. Formerly the headland stretched to the sea,
leaving only a strip between the rocks and the waves, along which
strip ran the Via Aurelia. The rock was perforated with caves, nine in
number. But it has been cut back for building stone, and the grottoes
have been much reduced in depth. The caves served as a habitation for
man from a remote period, and not solely as a habitation, but also as
a sepulchre. The Barma Grande was filled to a depth of thirty feet of
deposit, that deposit consisting of fallen stones, bones of beasts,
flint weapons and tools, remains of hearths and charcoal, and human
skeletons.
It has been dug into by many and various explorers, and not always
with judgment, and with precise record of the depths at which various
discoveries have been made.
The present proprietor used the soil for the purpose of making a
garden, and it was only when he came upon human remains that it
occurred to him that he could turn the cavern into a show place, and
get more out of it in that way than he could by growing cabbages in the
soil removed from it. In these caves a considerable number of skeletons
have been found; in the first, the Grotte des Enfants, two bodies were
discovered of children of six and four years old, lying at a depth of
eight feet, side by side. They had evidently been clothed in little
loin-cloths embroidered with pierced shells.
In the fourth cave, the Grotte du Cavillon, was found the skeleton of
an adult twenty feet below the surface, lying on his left side, the
cheek resting on the left hand, and the head and body had been dusted
over with red ochre, which had stained the bones. The head had been
covered with a sort of cap made of, or adorned with, perforated shells
and dogs’ teeth, and similar ornaments must have been stitched on to
garters about his legs.
The sixth cave, Bausso da Torre, furnished two bodies of adults and one
of a child, and with these were flint weapons, bracelets, and necklets
of shells.
In 1884 M. Louis Julien found a human skeleton lying at a depth of
twenty-five feet, the head bedded in red ochre, and near it numerous
flakes of flint. Since then others have been found, and the present
proprietor has preserved them _in situ_, under glass, in the cave, at
the precise levels at which discovered. In 1892, three were found, all
lying on their left sides. One of these had pertained to a young woman.
All three had been buried along with their personal ornaments, and all
with the ferruginous powder over them.
Finally, in 1894, another human skeleton was unearthed at a higher
level; and soon after again another.
All these interments belong to man at a period before the use of metals
was known, and when the only tools employed were of bone and flint. The
purpose of covering them with red oxide was to give to the bodies a
fictitious appearance of life. The men were of a great size, tall and
well built, taller indeed than are the natives of the Riviera at the
present day; and the heads are well developed—the skulls contained
plenty of brains, and there is nothing simian about the faces.
A little prehistoric museum has been built on a platform near the
caves, where most of the relics found in them are preserved; but some
are in the museum at Mentone itself.