OVER CAP SICIÉ
The great promontory of Cap Sicié is a peninsula, five kilometres across
the “neck,” and jutting seaward double that distance.
Just beyond Sanary, or St. Nazaire-du-Var, is the great Baie de Sanary,
snuggled close under the promontory height and forming a welcome shelter
from the seas which pile up on the coast from Toulon to Marseilles.
There is a little excursion offshore which one should make before he
descends on the great arsenal of Toulon, on the other side of the Cap;
but unless the traveller is forewarned he is likely to overlook it
altogether, and thereby miss what to many will be a new form of human
happiness.
Travellers to Naples make the trip to Ischia, if they are not afraid of
earthquakes; or to Capri, if they like the damp of the grottoes; but
travellers _en route_ to Toulon may make the short trip to the Iles des
Embiez, from the little haven of Le Brusc, and have something of the
suggestion of both the former popular tourist points,--with an utter
absence of tourists.
Embiez is not much of an island in point of size, and the map-makers
scarcely know it at all. One makes his way from Le Brusc, through an
expanse of calm and limpid water, on a flat-bottomed sort of craft which
looks as though it might have degenerated from a punt.
The way is not long; it is astonishingly short for a sea voyage, and it
is only with a previous knowledge of the shallows--or, rather, the
deeps--that the craft can find its way across the scarcely hidden banks
of yellow sand. Fifteen minutes of this voyaging brings one to the isle,
and from its little jetty a _douanier_ accosts your boat to know if you
have anything dutiable on board, as well as for your ship’s papers, and
a doctor’s certificate. He need have no fears, however, for no one would
ever take the trouble to smuggle anything into Embiez. “Nothing doing,”
and the _douanier_ returns to his fishing off the jetty’s end.
The isle is a rock-surrounded mamelon which rises to a height of some
sixty or seventy metres, and is as wild and savage and romantic as the
most imaginative sketch ever outlined by Doré.
There is a fringe of small white houses, the dwellings of the workers in
the salt-works of the isle, and of that lonesome _douanier_, while
above, on an elevated plateau, is the Château de Sabran, which draws its
name from one of the illustrious and ancient families of Provence.
It is all very picturesque, but there is nothing very archaic about the
château, with the exception of one old tower. There are numerous
evidences which point to the fact that some kind of fortifications were
erected here in early times; the _douanier_ is divided in his opinion as
to whether they were the work of Saracens or Barbary pirates, and the
reader may take his choice. At any rate, there is an unspoiled setting
right here at hand for any writer who would like to try to turn out as
good a tale as “Treasure Island” or “Monte Cristo.”
Returning to the mainland, and following the highroad as it goes
eastward to Toulon, one comes upon the curiously named little town of
Six-Fours, situated on the very apex of the heights.
The very name of Six-Fours is enigmatic. It is certain that it was a
mountain fortress in days gone by; and from that--and the intimation
that there was once six forts or six towers here--one infers that its
name was evolved from Six-Forts, which name was written in Latin Sex
Furni and finally Six Fours. Another opinion--French antiquarians, like
their brethren the world over, are prolific in opinions--is that the
bizarre name was that of one of the lieutenants of Cæsar engaged in the
blockade of Marseilles. One named Sextus Furnus, or Sextus Furnis, did
occupy a mountain stronghold in that campaign, and it may have been the
site where the village of Six-Fours now stands.
Six-Fours, so curiously named, and so little known outside its immediate
neighbourhood, has many strange manners and customs. The genuine
Six-Fourneens are six feet or more in height, and will not--or would not
for a long time--marry any _étranger_, by which term they designate all
outsiders.
Their speech and accent, too, are different from other Provençaux, and
they have been called wild, savage, and ridiculous. This is mostly a
libel, or else they have now outgrown these undesirable characteristics.
There is a Christmas custom at Six-Fours which is worth noting: a _bon
feu_ (which easily enough shows the evolution of the English word
bonfire) is lighted in the street on Christmas eve before the dwelling
of the oldest inhabitant (the oldest inhabitant of last year’s
celebration may or may not have died, so there is always the element of
chance to give zest), followed by a collation paid for by public
subscription. As this repast comes off, also, in the street, the effect
is weirdly amusing. The children partake, too (which is right and
proper), and “_par permission spéciale_” all are allowed to eat with
their fingers, as there are seldom enough knives and forks to go round.
From the plateau height on which sits this decayed village a most
expansive view is to be had. Before one is the promontory of Cap Sicié
plunging abruptly beneath the Mediterranean waves. About and around are
rose-bushes, gripping tenaciously the rocky crevices of the hills, here
and there as thickly interwoven as chain mail, while in the valleys are
occasional little cleared orchards where the olive-trees are ranged in
rows like soldiers, though in the tree kingdom of the southland the
olive is the dwarf, and, moreover, lacks the brilliant colouring of the
fig or almond which mostly form its neighbours.
Off to the left are the roof-tops of La Seyne, and the smoky stacks of
its shipyards and factories, while still farther to the southeast is the
combination of the grime of Toulon with that luminous sky of iridescent
Mediterranean blue. It is ravishing, all this, though perhaps not more
so than similar panoramas elsewhere along the Riviera. On the whole,
their like is not to be found elsewhere in the travelled world, at least
not with such abundant contributory charms.
Six-Fours itself raises its ruins high in air, miserable, and silent,
almost, as the grave, a mere wraith of a once lively and ambitious
settlement. The decadence of man is a sad thing, but that of cities
quite as sad, and to-day this ancient domain of the _seigneur-abbés_ of
St. Victor de Marseilles is as impressive an example as one will find.
As one proceeds eastward he opens another vista quite unlike any other
view to be had in all the world. The great Rade de Toulon, its batteries
and forts, its suburbs, and its environs, all form an impressive
ensemble of the work of nature and man.
The highroad continues on toward La Seyne, the great ship-building
suburb, and another leads to Les Sablettes and Tamaris, directly on the
water’s edge, and far enough removed from the smoke and industry of the
great arsenal to belong to the real countryside.
The Rade de Toulon is one of the joys of the Mediterranean. Its splendid
banks are cut into graceful curves, and the background of hills and
mountains makes a joyful picture indeed, whether viewed from land or
sea. The charming little bays of its outline are quite in harmony with
the brilliant blue of the sky, and not even the smoke-pouring chimneys
of the shipyards at La Seyne sound a false note, but rather they accent
the natural beauties to a still higher degree.
Away beyond the Grande Rade are the ragged isles of the archipelago of
Hyères, wave-battered and gleaming in the sunlight, while around the
whole nebulous horizon are effects of brilliant colouring of land and
sea hardly to be equalled, certainly not to be excelled. Wooded
peninsulas come down and jut out into the sea, and, despite the air of
activity which is over the whole neighbourhood, there is an idyllic
charm about the remote suburbs which is indescribable.
[Illustration: _Fishing-boats at Tamaris_]
Guarded seaward by grim forts, and admirably sheltered from the mistral,
which blows over its head and out to sea, is Tamaris, whose fame
first started from a four months’ residence here of George Sand. Like
Alphonse Karr and Dumas, the elder, George Sand, if not the discoverer
of a new and unpatronized _pied de terre_, gave the first impetus to
Tamaris as a resort of not too alluring attractions, and yet
all-sufficient to one who wanted to enjoy the quietness and beauties of
nature to a superlative degree, all within a half-hour’s journey of a
great city. So pleased was the great woman of French letters that she
laid the scene of one of her last and most celebrated romances here. All
the delicate plants of a latitude five hundred miles farther south here
find a foothold, and flourish as soon as they have become acclimated and
taken root. Hence it has become a “garden-spot,” in truth, and one which
is too often neglected by Riviera tourists in general. There is small
reason for this, and when one realizes that Tamaris is a first-class
literary shrine as well--for the dwelling (the Maison Trucy) inhabited
by Madame Sand still stands--there is even less.
The magic ring of Michel Pacha, the innovator of lighthouses within the
waters of the Ottoman empire, has served to develop and enrich a little
corner of this delightful bit of the tropics, and, where the cypress and
pine once grew alone, are now found palm, orange, and lemon trees; and
hedges and walls of the laurier-rose line the alleys which lead to the
Oriental-looking château of this dignitary of the East. The effect is
just the least bit garish and out of place, but like all groupings of
nature and art on Mediterranean shores, it is undeniably effective, and
the domain all in all looks not unlike a stage setting for the “Arabian
Nights.”
Just back of Tamaris is, or was, the celebrated “Batterie des Hommes
Sans Peur,” which so awakened the interest and curiosity of George Sand
that she implored the authorities to make a memorial of the spot
forthwith, and spend less time digging for prehistoric remains.
The construction of the battery was one of the first great exploits of
the young Napoleon (1793), which, with the subsequent taking of the
Petit-Gibraltar (as the present Fort Napoleon was then known), was one
of the real history-making events of modern France.
Madame Sand marvelled that the site of this tiny battery had been so
neglected. It was due to that distinguished lady that the exact location
of the battery was made known, and, though still merely a ruined
earthwork, may be reckoned as one of the patriotic souvenirs of a lurid
page of history.
George Sand had the idea of buying these twenty metres square of ground,
surrounding them with a paling and making a path thereto which should
lead from the highway. Ultimately she intended to plant a simple stone
with the following inscription: “_Ici Reposent les Hommes Sans Peur_.”
This was never done, however, and so those only who have the memory of
the incident well within their grasp ever even come across the site.
There is something more than a legendary grandeur about it all, and
those who are unfamiliar with the incident had best refer to any good
life of Napoleon, and learn what really happened at the famous siege of
Toulon.
Toulon is about the best guarded arsenal in all the world. The Caps
Mouret, Notre Dame de la Garde, Sicié, and Sepet play nature’s part, and
play it well, and the hand of man has added cannons wherever he could
find a resting-place for them. “_Canons! encore canons, et toujours des
canons!_” said a French commercial traveller at the _table d’hôte_, when
the artist told him that she had been remonstrated with when making a
sketch on the summit of an exceedingly beautiful hillside to the
eastward of the city. This admonition was enough. Much better to take
good advice than to languish in prison till your consul comes and gets
you out,--which is just what has happened to inquisitive artists in
France before now.
Toulon is warlike to the very core, and, in spite of an active historic
past, there is scarcely a monument in the town to-day, except the old
cathedral of Saint Marie Majeure, which takes rank among those which
appeal for architectural worth alone. The arsenal is the chief
attraction; remove it, and Toulon might become a great commercial
centre, or even a “watering-place,” but with it the very atmosphere
smacks of powder and shot.
The city is not unlovely as great cities go. It is modern, well-kept,
and certainly well-beautified by trees and shrubs and flowers, and wide,
straight streets, and, above all, it is blessed with a charming
situation.
[Illustration: _In Toulon’s Old Port_]
Of all the cities of the Mediterranean (always excepting Marseilles),
Toulon is the most gay. It has not the feverish commercialism of
Marseilles, but it has an up-to-dateness that is quite as much to be
remarked. There are no _boulevards maritimes_ or great hotels, as at
Cannes or Nice, neither are there any special tourist attractions to
make Toulon a resort, but there are cafés galore and much gaiety of a
convivial kind. “_Une ville régulière, d’aspect Américain_,” Toulon has
been called, and it merits the appellation in some respects, with its
straight streets and tall houses of brick or stone. A large number of
great branching palms just saves the situation.
The great defect of Toulon is that the quarter where centres the life of
the city is far away from the sea. To get a satisfactory view of the
magnificent harbour, or the commercial port of the Vieille Darse, one
has to go even farther afield and climb one or the other of the
hillsides round about, when a truly great panorama spreads itself out.
La Seyne, the great ship-building suburb of Toulon, is a model of what a
manufacturing town of its class should be, though it has no real meaning
for the tourist for rest or pleasure. For the student of things and men,
the case is somewhat different. For instance, you may read, posted up on
the wall opposite the entrance to the ship-building establishment, that
the _Gazetta del Popolo_ of Genoa has a correspondent at Toulon, this in
big, staring red and green letters surmounting a more or less rude
woodcut of an Italian soldier. From this one gathers that the Italian
workmen are numerous hereabouts, as indeed they are, and almost
everywhere else along the coast. As like as not the hotel _garçon_
serves your soup with an “_Ecco_,” instead of a “_Voilà!_” and sooner or
later you come to realize that the hybrid speech which you hear on
street corners is not Provençal but Franco-Italian.
Toulon, in history, makes a long and brilliant chapter, but a
cataloguing even of the events can have no place here. Its prominence as
a stronghold and bulwark of the French nation was due to Louis XII., the
second husband of Anne of Bretagne, who, it is said, inspired his
predecessor on the throne (and in her affections) to first appreciate
the advantages of Brest as a stronghold of a similar character.
Ages before this Toulon was founded by the Phœnicians, it is supposed
sometime before the tenth century. The royal purple of the East and the
desire to possess it, or make it, was the prime cause; for the ancients
found that the waters around Toulon gave birth to a mollusk which dyed
everything with which it came in contact into a most brilliant purple.
It seems a small thing to found a great city upon, and the industry is
non-existent to-day, but such is the more or less legendary account.
After the Phœnicians Toulon fell into the background, and the
possibilities of building here a great port which might rival Marseilles
were utterly neglected.
It seems probable that the original name of the town was Telo, which in
the itinerary of Antony is given as Telo-Martius, from an ancient temple
to Mars, thus distinguishing it from a similar name applied to many
other places in the Narbonnais.
Finally Toulon emerged from its semi-obscurity, and Guillaume de
Tarente, Comte de Provence, in 1055, surrounded with wall “the place
called Tholon or Tollon.”
Until the tenth century Toulon’s ecclesiastical history was more
momentous than was its civic. It had been the seat of a bishop for a
matter of six centuries, with St. Honorat, St. Gratien, and St. Cyprien
as bishops, all within the first century of its existence.
The plan to make Toulon one of the great fortified places of the world
was carried on assiduously by Richelieu, who commanded a certain Jacques
Desmarets, professor of mathematics at the university at Aix, to make a
plan which should show the Provençal coast-line in all its detail. The
instructions read, “..._sur vélin, enluminé en or et representant la
côte jusqu’à deux ou trois lieues dans les terres_.”
The general scheme was carried out further by Mazarin, the wily Italian
who succeeded Richelieu. In company with Louis XIV., Mazarin visited
Toulon, and then and there decided that it should take the first place
in the kingdom as a stronghold for the navy.
Toulon then became the greatest naval arsenal the world had known. In
1670 it armed forty-two ships of the line, among them many
three-deckers, which all lovers of the romance of the seas have come to
accept as the most imposing craft then afloat, whatever may have been
their additional virtues. Among those fitted for sea and armed at Toulon
was the _Magnifique_, a vessel which excited universal enthusiasm all
over Europe, not only because it mounted a hundred and four guns, but
because the sculptor Puget had designed her decorations, and decorations
on ships were much more ornate in those days than they are in the
present vagaries of the “_art nouveau_.”
Puget lived at Toulon at the time, and had indeed already designed the
caryatides which stand out so prominently in the Toulon’s Hôtel de
Ville. His house in the Rue de la République, known by every one as the
“Maison Puget,” is one of the shrines at which art-worshippers should
not neglect to pay homage. It has some remarkably beautiful features, a
fine stairway in wrought iron, an elaborate newel-post, and many similar
decorations.
Back of Toulon is the great gray mass of the Faron, fortified, as is
every height and point of view round about. From the summit of this
great height (546 metres) one may see, on a clear day, Corsica and the
Alps of Savoie. The fortifications are too numerous to call by name
here, and, indeed, they are uninteresting enough to the lover of the
romantically picturesque, regardless of their worth from a strategic
point of view. Like the cannon, the forts are everywhere.
Formerly the port of Toulon was closed by sinking a great chain across
the harbour-mouth. It went down with the sinking of the sun and only
rose at daybreak. The guardianship of this defence was given to some
“_homme de confiance_” of Toulon as a sort of deserved honour or glory.
This was in the seventeenth century, and to-day, though the guard-ships
and the search-lights of the forts do the same service, the name
“_Chaine Vieille_” is still in the mouths of the old sailors and
fishermen as they make their way to and fro from the Grande to the
Petite Rade.
Toulon has among its great men of the past the name of the Chevalier
Paul, perhaps first and foremost of all the seafarers of France since
the day of Dougay-Trouin. He had fixed his residence in the valley of
the Dardennes, with a roof over his head “_tout à fait digne d’un
prince_.” In the month of February, 1660, the celebrated sailor received
Louis XIV., Anne of Austria, the Duc d’Orléans, Cardinal Mazarin, “la
grande Mademoiselle,” innumerable princes and seigneurs, four
Secrétaires d’État, the ambassador of Venice, and the papal nuncio. This
royal company was splendidly fêted, much after the manner of those
assemblies held in the previous century in the châteaux of Touraine. The
Chevalier bore until his death the title of supreme “Commandant de la
Marine,” and when his death came, at the age of seventy, he made the
poor of the city his heirs.
One memory of Toulon, which is familiar to students of history and
romance, are the prisons and galleys of other days. Dumas draws a vivid
picture of the life in the galleys in one of his little known but most
absorbing tales, “Gabriel Lambert.”
To be sure, those who were condemned “_à ramer sur les galères_” were
mostly culprits who deserved some sort of punishment, but the survival
of the institution was one that one marvels at in these advanced
centuries.
Really the galley, and the uses to which it was put at Toulon in the
eighteenth century, was a survival of the galley of the ancients. It was
a long slim craft, of light draught, propelled by a single, double, or
treble bank of oars, and sometimes sails.
The punishment of the galleys, that is to say, the obligation to “_ramer
sur les galères_,” was applied to certain classes of criminals who were
known as _forçats_ or _galériens_. The crime of Gabriel Lambert, of whom
Dumas wrote with such fidelity, was that of counterfeiting.
In 1749 there were sixteen _galères_ here, eight of them at “_practice_”
at one time, giving occupation to thirty-seven hundred convicts who were
quartered on old hulks moored to the quays or on shore in a convict
prison.
[Illustration: _Toulon to Frejus_]
Between Toulon and Hyères, lying back from the coast, in the valley of
the Gapeau, is a bit of transplanted Africa, where the brilliant sun
shines with all the vigour that it does on the opposite Mediterranean
shore. The valley is perhaps the most important topographically west of
the Rhône, at least until one reaches the Var at Nice. There is a
sprinkling of small towns here and there, and more frequent country
residences and vineyards, but there is an air of solitude about it that
can but be remarked by all who travel by road.
One great highroad runs out from Toulon through Solliès-Pont, Cuers,
Puget-Ville, Pignans, and Le Luc to Fréjus. The coast road leads to the
same objective point, but the characteristics of the two are as
different as can be. A more varied and more charming combination of
scenic charms, than can be had by journeying out via one route and back
by the other, can hardly be found in this world, unless one has in mind
some imaginary blend of Switzerland and the Mediterranean.
The region is known as Les Maures, the name in reality referring to the
mountain chain whose peaks follow the coast-line at a distance of from
thirty to fifty kilometres.
The whole region known as Les Maures is in a state of semi-solitude;
twenty-three thousand souls for an area of one hundred and twenty
thousand hectares is a remarkable sparsity of population for most parts
of France.
Cuers is the metropolis of the region and boasts of some three thousand
inhabitants, and a great trade in the oil of the olive.
There is absolutely nothing of interest to the tourist in any of these
little towns between Toulon and Fréjus. There is to be sure the usual
picturesque church, which, if not grand or architecturally excellent, is
invariably what artists call “interesting,” and there is always a
picturesque grouping of roof-tops, clustered around the church in a
manner unknown outside of France.
Occasionally one does see a small town in France which reminds him of
Italy, and occasionally one that suggests Holland, but mostly they are
French and nothing but French, though they be as varied in colour as
Joseph’s coat, and as diversified in manners and customs as one would
imagine of a country whose climate runs the whole gamut from northern
snows to southern olive groves.
In reality, Cuers shares its importance with Les Solliès, whose curious
name grew up from the memory of a Temple of the Sun, upon the remains of
which is built the present church of Solliès-Ville.
[Illustration: _In Les Maures_]
Solliès-Pont owes its name to the _pont_, or bridge, by which the “Route
Nationale” crosses the Gapeau. It is the centre of the cherry culture in
the Var, and at the time of year when the trees are in blossom, the
aspect of the surrounding hillsides would put cherry-blossoming Japan
to shame. The crop is the first which comes into the market in France.
The lovers of early fruits, in Paris restaurants and hotels, know the
“_cerises du Var_” very well indeed. They buy them at the highest market
prices, delightfully put up in boxes of poplar-wood and garnished with
lace-paper. Annually Solliès-Pont despatches something like a hundred
thousand cases of these first cherries of the year, each weighing from
three to twelve kilos, and bringing--well, anything they can command,
the very first perhaps as much as eight or ten francs a kilo. This for
the first few straggling boxes which some fortunate grower has been able
to pick off a well-sunned tree. Within a fortnight the price will have
fallen to fifty centimes, and at the end of a month the traffic is all
over, so far as the export to outside markets is concerned.
“Cherries are grown everywhere,” one says. Yes, but not such cherries as
at Solliès-Pont.
Here at this little railway station in the Var one may see a whole train
loaded with a hundred thousand kilos of the most luscious cherries one
ever cast eyes upon.
The aspect of the region round about has nothing of the grayness of the
olive orchards east and west; all this has given way to a flowering
radiance and a brilliant green, as of an oasis in a desert.
The gathering of this important crop is conducted with more care than
that of any other of the Riviera. The trees are not shaken and their
fruit picked up off the ground, nor do agile lads climb in and out among
the branches. Not even a ladder is thrust between the thick leaves of
the trees, but a great straddling stepladder, like those used by the
olive pickers of the Bouches-du-Rhône, is carried about from tree to
tree, and gives a foothold to two, three, or even four lithe, young
girls, whose graces are none the less for their gymnastics at reaching
for the fruit head-high and at arm’s length.
One marvels perhaps--when he sees these boxes of luscious cherries in
the Paris market--as to how they may have been packed with such
symmetry. It is very simple, though the writer had to see it done at
Solliès-Pont before he realized it. The boxes are simply packed from the
top downwards, so to speak. The first layer is packed in close rows, the
stems all pointing upwards, then the rest of the contents are put in
without plan or design, and the cover fastened down. When the packages
are opened, it is the bottom that is lifted, and thus one sees first
the rosy-red globules, all in rows, like the little wooden balls of the
counting machines.
The south of France is destined to provision a great part of Europe, and
already it is playing its part well. The cherries of Solliès-Pont
go--after Paris has had its fill--to England, Switzerland, Belgium,
Germany, and Russia, though doubtless only the “milords” and
millionaires get a chance at them.
Besides the consumption of the fruit _au naturel_, the cherries of the
Var are the most preferred of all those delicacies which are preserved
in brandy, and a cocktail, of any of the many varieties that are made in
America (and one place, and one only, in Paris--which shall be
nameless), with one of the cherries of Solliès-Pont drowned therein, is
a superdelicious thing, unexcelled in all the “made drinks” the world
knows to-day.