EZE AND LA TURBIE
The ancient Saracen fortress of Eze lies midway between Beaulieu and
Monte Carlo, somewhat back from the coast, and crowns a pinnacle such as
is usually devoted to the glory of St. Michel.
As one climbs the steep sides of the hill, the fantastic outlines of the
roof-tops silhouette themselves against the sky quite like a scene from
Dante’s masterpiece, or, if not that, like the fabled spectral Brocken.
The road twists and turns, and the sea and shore blend themselves into
one of those incomparable glories of the Riviera, until actually one
stands on the little plateau which moors the tiny church and its
surrounding dwellings.
The Eza of yesterday has become the Eze of to-day, but the former
spelling was vastly more euphonic, and it is a pity that it was ever
changed. Eze is ruinous to-day, as it has been for ages, and pagan and
Christian monuments are cheek by jowl.
Rising abruptly three hundred metres from the sea-level, the mountain
offered a stronghold well-nigh unassailable. First the Phœnicians
occupied it, then the Phoceans, followed by the Romans, the Saracens,
and all the warring factions and powers of mediæval times. No wonder it
is reminiscent of all, with memorials ranging all the way from the
temple dedicated to the Egyptian cult of Isis to the Christian church
seen to-day.
[Illustration: _Eze_]
Centuries passed but slowly here, and the Moorish hordes, seeking for a
vantage-ground on the Ligurian coast, took the peak for their own. The
early founders did not need to go afield for the material for the
building of houses and their military constructions. It was all close at
hand. The rocky base sufficed for all.
What is left to-day of the old bourg, remodelled and rebuilt in many
cases, but still the original structures to no small extent, is a
veritable museum of architectural curiosities.
What an accented note it is in the whole vast expanse of green and blue!
It is literally worth coming miles to see, even if one makes the
wearisome journey on foot.
Eze is sequestered from all the world, and, like Normandy’s Mont St.
Michel, would be an ideal place in which to shut oneself up if one
wanted to escape from his enemies (and friends).
The shrine of Notre Dame de Laghet lies in the country back of Eze, but
rather nearer to La Turbie. The whole south venerated Our Lady of Laghet
in days gone by, and came to worship at her shrine. The neighbouring
country is severe and less gracious than that of most of the flowering
Riviera; but, in the early days of spring, with the hardier blossoms
well forward, it is as delightful an environment for a shrine as one can
well expect to find.
Historic souvenirs in connection with Notre Dame de Laghet are many.
The Duc de Savoie, Victor Amédée, came here to worship in 1689, and a
century and a half later, his descendant, Charles Albert, shorn of his
crown, and a fugitive, sought shelter here from the dangers which beset
him. Here he knelt devoutly before the Madonna, and prayed that his
enemies might be forgiven. A tablet to-day memorializes the event.
The little church of the establishment contains hundreds of votive
offerings left by pious pilgrims, and, though architecturally the
edifice is a poor, humble thing, it ranks high among the places of
modern pilgrimage.
A kilometre beyond the gardens which face the Casino at Monte Carlo is a
little winding road leading blindly up the hillside. “_Où conduit-il?_”
you ask of a straggler; “_A La Turbie, m’sieu_;” and forthwith you
mount, spurning the aid of the _funiculaire_ farther down the road. When
one has progressed a hundred metres along this serpentine roadway, the
whole ensemble of beauties with which one has become familiar at the
coast are magnified and enhanced beyond belief. Nowhere is there a
gayer, livelier colouring to be seen on the Riviera; this in spite of
the conventionality of the glistening walls of the great hotels and the
artificial gardens with which the vicinity of the paradise of Monte
Carlo abounds.
As one turns another hairpin corner, another plane of the horizon opens
out until, after passing various isolated small houses, and zigzagging
upward another couple of kilometres, he enters upon the “Route
d’Italie,” and thence either turns to the left to La Turbie, or to the
right to Roquebrune, a half-dozen kilometres farther on.
La Turbie is quite as much of an exotic as Eze. It is as vivid a
reminder of a glory that is past as any monumental town still extant,
and its noble Augustan Trophy, as a memorial of a historical past, is
far greater than anything of its kind out of Rome itself. There is
something almost sublime about this great sky-piercing tower, a monument
to the vanquishing of the peoples of Gaul by the Roman legions.
Fragments of this great “trophy” have been carted away, and are to be
found all over the neighbouring country. Barbarians and Saracens, one
and all, pillaged the noble tower (“the magnificent witness to the
powers of the divine Augustus,” as the French historians call it), using
it as a quarry from which was drawn the building material for many of
their later works. Without scruple it has been shorn of its attributes
until to-day it is only a bare, gaunt skeleton of its former proud self.
Its marbles have been dispersed, some are in Nice, some in Monaco, and
some in Genoa, but the greatest of all the indignities which the edifice
underwent was that thrust upon it by Berwick, in 1706, when attempts
were actually made to pull it to the ground.
[Illustration: _Augustan Trophy, La Turbie_]
What its splendours must once have been may best be imagined from the
following description:
“_A massive quadrangular tower surrounded with columns of the Doric
order and ornamented with statues of the lieutenants of Augustus, and
personifications of the vanquished peoples. Surmounting all was a
colossal statue of the emperor himself._”
La Turbie has a most interesting “_porte_,” once fortified, but now a
mere gateway. It dates from the sixteenth century, and is an exceedingly
satisfying example of what a mediæval gateway was in feudal times.
The church of the town is of great size and well kept, but otherwise is
in no way remarkable.
As with the founders of Eze, the builders of La Turbie and its great
Augustan Trophy had their material close at hand, and there was no need
for the laborious carrying of material from a distance which accompanied
the building of many mediæval monuments and fortifications.
A quarry was to be made anywhere that one chose to dig in the hillside,
and, though no traces of the exact location whence the material was dug
is to be seen to-day, there is no question but that it was a home
product. The marbles and statues alone were brought from afar.
Roquebrune, onward toward Menton, is more individual in the character of
its people and their manners and customs than any of the other towns and
villages near the great Riviera pleasure resorts. The ground is
cultivated in small plots, and olive and fruit trees abound, and
occasionally, sheltered on a little terrace, is a tiny vineyard
struggling to make its way. The vine, curiously enough, does not prosper
well here, at least not the extent that it formerly did, and accordingly
it is a good deal of a struggle to get a satisfactory crop, no matter
how favourable the season.
Here in the vicinity of Roquebrune one sees the little donkeys so well
known throughout the mountainous parts of Italy and France. They are
sure-footed little beasts, like their brother burros of the Sierras and
the Rockies, and appear not to differ from them in the least, unless
they are smaller. All through the region to the northward of the coast
they file in cavalcades, bearing their burdens in panniers and
saddle-bags in quite century-old fashion, and as if automobiles and
railways had never been heard of. An automobile would have a hard time
of it on some of the by-roads accessible only to these tiny beasts of
burden, which often weigh but eighty kilos and cost little or nothing
for provender.
These little Savoian donkeys are gentle and good-natured, but obstinate
when it comes to pushing on at a gait which the driver may wish, but
which has not yet dawned upon the donkey as being desirable. This,
apparently, is the national trait of the whole donkey kingdom, so there
is nothing remarkable about it. He will go,--when you twist his
tail,--and if you twist it to the right he will turn to the left, and
vice versa. A sailor would be quite at home with a donkey of Roquebrune.
Roquebrune is tranquil enough to-day, though there have been times when
the rocky giant on whose bosom it sleeps awakened with a roar which
shook the very foundations of its houses. These earthquakes have not
been frequent; the last was in 1887; but the memory of it is enough to
give fear to the timid whenever a summer thunder-storm breaks forth.
Roquebrune occupies a height very much inferior to that on which sits La
Turbie; but the panorama from the town is in no way less marvellous, nor
is it greatly different, hence it is not necessary to recount its
beauties here. There is considerably more vegetation in the
neighbourhood, and there are many lemon-trees, with rich ripening fruit,
instead of the dwarfed unripe oranges which one finds at many other
places along the Riviera.
The lemon-tree is the real thermometer of the region, and the inhabitant
has no need of the appliances of Réaumur or Fahrenheit, or the more
facile Centigrade, for when three degrees of frost strikes in through
the skin of the lemon, it withers up and dies. The orange, curiously
enough, resists this first attack of cold.
Roquebrune, like La Turbie, abounds in vaulted streets and terraced
hillsides, allowing one to step from the roofs of one line of houses to
the dooryards of another in most quaint and picturesque fashion. The
people of Roquebrune are a prosperous and contented lot, and have the
reputation of being “as laborious as the bee and as economical as the
ant.”
[Illustration: _A Roquebrune Doorway_]
At the highest point, above most of the roof-tops of Roquebrune, are
found the ruins of its château, in turn a one-time possession of the
Lascaris and the Grimaldi, and belonging to the latter family when the
town and Menton were ceded to France. From the platform of the ancient
citadel one readily enough sees the point of the legend which
describes Roquebrune as once having occupied the very summit of the
height, and, in the course of ages, slipping down to its present
position.