Part 20

The most important place, however, lying a few miles inland from Cannes, is GRASSE, an ancient town of some celebrity, and still a place of considerable business and movement. It lies about ten miles north from Cannes, and may be approached by several roads or by railway. One road goes to the westward, by the plain of Laval and the valley of the Siagne, passing through the little town of Pégomas, and within a short distance of AURIBEAU (Fig. 183), an ancient city perched on the crest of a lofty hill. From this point the road steadily ascends, till, after a long climb, Grasse, which stands about 1000 feet above the sea, comes into view, its houses clustering round the old cathedral, and rising in the form of an amphitheatre (Fig. 184), tier over tier up the hillside on which it is built. From the height at which the town stands, the view over the luxuriant lower ground between it and Cannes is very commanding and delightful, the whole of the valley being laid out as gardens for the cultivation of the roses, violets, and other sweet scented flowers, from which the perfumes for which Grasse is famous are distilled.

From an early time Grasse was an industrious and commercial town. It thus became rich, and its wealth brought upon it frequent attacks from the Saracens while they had their headquarters at the Great Fraxinet. Early in the twelfth century the inhabitants followed the example of the Italian towns with which they had commerce by constituting themselves a free republic. Their consuls formed treaties with Pisa and Genoa, and unfortunately the town got mixed up with Italian politics and the disputes of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. This led to the usual unhappy result of dividing the people into violent factions, and enabled Raymond Béranger, Count of Provence, in 1226, under pretext of aiding the Guelph party, to render himself master of the town. In the sixteenth century Grasse shared the unhappy fate of the rest of this part of France, when Francis I. found himself unable to defend it against Charles V., and therefore laid the whole country waste. The town also suffered greatly during the religious wars of the seventeenth century.

The most important building in Grasse is the cathedral. It is the first church we have seen, on our way eastwards, which represents a type essentially different from that of Provence, and markedly akin to the architecture of Italy--a characteristic which we shall find more and more strongly developed in our progress along the Riviera. The plan (Fig. 185), like that of most of the churches of Italy, consists of a central nave and side aisles, all originally terminated with eastern apses, the

existing choir, which is square, being a late addition. The character of the exterior is essentially Italian (Fig. 186), being similar in its forms and ornament to the churches of Pisa and Genoa, with which towns, as above-mentioned, Grasse had commercial relations. The arcaded ornament at the eaves is very Lombardic, and the doorways of the west front and north side (Fig. 187) are of the ordinary Italian design of the thirteenth century, with low pitched roof. The tall and simple square campanile is also Italian in conception. The design of the interior (Fig. 188) is somewhat remarkable, the massive circular piers with their cushion caps having more of the character of a Northern than of a Southern edifice. They remind one, however, of those of Carcassonne. The solid square groins of the vault, springing from very simple corbels, are of a usual Provençal form--such, for instance, as those of Fréjus Cathedral. Close to the cathedral stands one of the square towers (Fig. 189), similar to that of the Mont du Chevalier at Cannes, which we have noticed as being common in the towns of this

province. It is built with the usual rough-faced ashlar work, but its other distinctive features are now lost, the interior being occupied as dwelling-rooms. This tower adjoins the ancient Bishop’s Palace, now the Municipal Buildings. Near this--and, indeed, scattered everywhere through the narrow and busy streets of Grasse--are

to be seen many fragments of the massive architecture of its ancient palaces. These are easily distinguished from their being built with the same rough-faced, solid masonry as the tower; and they often still retain a door or window of pointed form, recalling the older palaces occasionally found in the similar crowded lanes of Genoa. There are also some examples in Grasse of the great houses of the merchant princes of the Renaissance period, so distinctive of the Italian cities. The picturesque staircase of one of these is still preserved (Fig. 190). This building stands at the east end of one of the charming open “places,” surrounded with arcades, planted with trees, and enlivened with fountains, in which Grasse abounds, and which form such attractive subjects for the artist. In one of the narrow streets stands the Church of the “Oratoire,” (Fig. 191), the strikingly Italian façade of which at once arrests attention. It is evidently a building of the fifteenth century, and is exactly such a design as may be found in any of the cities of Northern Italy. The annexed sketch (Fig. 192) of one of the caps of the main piers is suggestive, and corresponds with similar details of the same period in Italy.

From Grasse several very interesting excursions may be made, and a number of ancient buildings investigated. A very fine, although a long day’s expedition, is the drive to St Césaire and Callian. The former is reached by a side road, which branches off the main road to Draguignon, about six miles west of Grasse, and after a climb of three miles further up amongst the mountains finally arrives at St Césaire, beyond which all progress westwards is stopped on the crest of the great cliffs which hem in the gorge of the Siagne.

It is therefore necessary to return to the main road, itself sufficiently winding and romantic, along which a further course of eight to nine miles conducts to Montauroux and Callian. The whole journey there and back to Grasse thus extends to about thirty-seven miles, but can easily be accomplished in one day with a pair of the hardy ponies of the country.

The main road from Grasse descends by numerous wide loops towards the valley, and skirts the lofty mountains on the right, where several picturesque looking villages are seen clustering on the hillsides.

At Tignet the ruins of an ancient commandery of the templars are passed, but there is nothing of architectural interest sufficient to detain the traveller till St Césaire, amongst its remote and snow-clad hills, is reached.

The town of ST CÉSAIRE is charmingly situated about nine miles west from Grasse. It stands on the edge of a lofty precipice overlooking the valley of the Siagne, which is here full of remarkable scenery and interesting grottoes and fountains, forming a romantic region, from which starts the aqueduct which supplies fresh water to Cannes and Antibes. St Césaire possesses still some remains of its ancient walls and gates (Fig. 193), some quaint pieces of carving over doorways etc. (Fig. 194). But its most interesting feature architecturally, is the ancient church which stands in its quiet churchyard outside the town, relieved against a background of snowy mountains (Fig. 195). It is similar in its Cistertian simplicity to those of Cannes and Vallauris, and differs only in having, instead of plain pilasters, rounded vaulting shafts, with simple caps and bases (Fig. 196), the former very similar to those of Thoronet. The church is 45 feet long by 20 wide (Fig. 197), divided into three bays, with apse 9 feet deep to the eastward. As at Vallauris there are two doors, one at the west end and one in the south side, the latter pointed externally and round internally. The windows have round arches, with the usual deep external splay, at the inner edge of which the opening is narrowed by two half roll mouldings, probably with a view to prevent draughts in this lofty and exposed region. For the same reason there are only three very small windows, two on the south side and one in the apse.

This church probably dates from the early part of the thirteenth century. Both the exterior and the interior are well preserved. The walls have been heightened at a later date, but why is not clear. As the alteration does not affect the interior, it has probably been done to make the slope of the roof harmonise with the west front, which has been altered and a belfry added.

As in all the churches of the style, the tiles of the roof rest directly on the outside of the arches.

An ancient carved front (shewn in Fig. 194) is lying outside the church.

The main road, from the point where the branch to St Césaire leaves it, continues westwards and descends with many wide and bold sweeps till it reaches the Siagne, which it crosses at Les Veyans, and again ascends the steep and wooded valley on the opposite side. Soon the rugged ruins of the castle of Tournon (Fig. 198) are seen frowning over the pass from their rocky eminence, which can only be reached after a hard climb through the thick wood and thorny heath which clothe the hillside. But that trouble is rewarded by the discovery of a rude and remarkable edifice. This consists of a Keep of semi-circular form built on the edge of a precipice which forms the diameter of the circle, and has apparently been considered a sufficient defence of the structure on that side. A semi-circular lofty wall of enceinte surrounds the keep on the side next the hill. The entrance gateway was doubtless in this wall where there is now a ruinous gap. The building is reduced to bare and shattered walls, so that its interior arrangements cannot be determined, but it must have been a very singular and unique structure.

Near the highest point of the road, in continuing westwards, the village of La Colle-Noire stands across the way, and in olden times stopped all passage by means of gates in its walls. Beyond this, an open country rich in vines and olives is traversed, from which another long ascent leads to the town of Montauroux, standing on a promontory, crowned with the ruins of the Fort St Barthélemy, destroyed in 1592. A wide curve of the road, round a fine amphitheatre of terraced lands, leads from Montauroux to Callian, another little town perched on the hillside, and commanded by the immense ruins of an old castle (Fig. 199), which like all the others in the province, was sacked in 1792, and of which only the shattered shell remains. It would appear from the mullioned windows and round tower, to have been built in the fifteenth century, and has evidently been altered in the seventeenth, by the insertion of numerous large oblong openings. In the sixteenth century this pile was inhabited by Jean de Grasse.

From Grasse another excursion of surpassing interest, not only on account of the magnificent natural scenery passed through, but also from the variety of the architectural remains, may be made to the eastward leading by Le Bar and Vence to Cagnes, where the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Railway is reached. The whole distance is about twenty-five miles. The first place of note arrived at after leaving Grasse is LE BAR, about six miles to the eastward. It stands on a platform at a considerable height and enjoys a fine view to the southwards. The church, not remarkable otherwise, has a Roman inscription built into the tower, and a fine Italian Gothic doorway (Fig. 200) in the south side. This doorway, with its twisted nook shafts and arch mouldings, plain caps, and enclosing notched weather table, might have been found in almost any part of Italy. Wooden doors covered, like this one of Le Bar, with elaborate carvings, are a feature of common occurrence in every part of the province, and are often of much interest and beauty. The church contains two remarkable Mediæval paintings which were thought worthy of notice at the great Exhibition of Paris, to which they had been sent. The town is still dominated by the relics of a great castle of the Middle Ages, of which some towers remain, but it is now greatly ruined and shorn of its grandeur. Some of the old walls of the town also still survive, and give this quaint old place, perched as it is on the steep slope of the hill, an unusual and striking aspect.

From Le Bar the main road descends in wide curves towards the valley of the river Loup, but long before reaching the bottom of the gorge the eye is attracted by the unusual appearance of towers and pinnacles rising from the summit of a lofty pyramidal mountain to the northwards (Fig. 201). These distant peaks are found on nearer approach to be the edifices of the town of GOURDON, an eyrie built for security from the assaults of the Corsairs on this inaccessible and naturally fortified eminence.

A post road, branching off the main road at Le Bar, passes, after many windings and ascents round the rocky sides of the opposite cliffs, within a short distance of Gourdon; but for those who intend going on to Vence, the latter course is too great a deviation from the route. Their only way of reaching Gourdon is by the steep and stony footpath which is seen rising to it in innumerable zig-zags from near the bridge over the Loup.

It is a splendid ascent, although a somewhat arduous one, and affords a lovely series of views; but it may be questioned whether one is sufficiently rewarded by the specimens of architecture which he finds in Gourdon. It is now a melancholy and deserted village, occupied apparently only by a few women and children. Some of the houses are picturesque in their grouping, like those in Fig. 202, but there is nothing fine about the place except the magnificent view to the south, east, and west from the terrace in front of the old church. One very large building seems to swamp all the rest of the little town. This is a great château (Fig. 203), built by the family of Lombard in the style of the seventeenth century, and which, we believe, is still occupied in summer, when the cool breezes of this elevated pinnacle form a grateful change from the heat of the plains.

From the point where the main road crosses the Loup, a delightful excursion may be made up the gorge amongst the mountains, as far as a famous waterfall called the “Saut du Loup.”

The road now gradually ascends the northern side of the valley of the Loup, which is seen flowing at some distance below on the right through a richly cultivated plain. In some of the cuttings by which the road is carried round the rocks, numerous oyster and other fossil shells may be observed, characteristic of the tertiary limestone which here occurs of great thickness, and forms the immense cliffs which at some parts of the coast overhang the Mediterranean.

On approaching TOURETTES the road sweeps round the abrupt side of a gorge where the rock is hollowed out into caverns, some of which are occupied as houses and stores. From this point a fine view is obtained of the grey old town of Tourettes, with its crumbling walls and houses rising from the margin of precipitous rocks of the same sad dusty colour. There seems to be nothing of special interest in the town, but outside the walls on the north side there is a wide open “place,” on which stand the Hôtel de Ville and the church of the fourteenth century. The latter is a specimen built on the plan of the simple hall without aisles. In this instance it is vaulted with groined arches (Fig. 204), the ribs having the unusual form of a plain bead, and springing from small primitive looking corbels, such as are common in Provençal churches.

The font (Fig. 205) in this church is of a rather remarkable design.

A few miles’ further drive through fine mountain scenery brings us to the ancient city of Vence (described further on), whence the railway station of Vence-Cagnes is about six miles distant.

We shall now return to Cannes and follow the route eastwards along the coast of the Mediterranean. This takes us first by the fine sheltered roadstead of Golfe Jouan to the city of ANTIBES, which stands upon a rocky peninsula jutting out into the sea, and enclosing a sheltered bay and harbour, defended on the opposite point by a great star-shaped fortification called the Fort Carré, erected by Vauban. The town itself is surrounded with walls, and strongly fortified in the style of the seventeenth century, of which it is a good and little altered specimen. The views of the town from the sea coast are charming (Fig. 206). Surrounded on the land side with its great stone ravelins and bastions, and protected on the south by its rocky seaboard, with the snowy peaks of the Maritime Alps forming a background, and the bright blue of the Mediterranean in the foreground, a finer picture can hardly be imagined.

The town of Antibes is of very ancient origin. According to M. Lenthéric, a sacred stone of the Phœnicians has here been found, with a Greek inscription, giving proof of the ancient worship of the Hellenes having been observed in this locality in the fifth century B.C. This town was also an important station under the Romans. In very early Christian times it became the see of a bishop,

but being greatly exposed to the attacks of the Saracen Corsairs, from whom it suffered severely, the see was in 1243 removed for security to Grasse. There were originally four bishoprics in this part of the Riviera, viz.:--Nice, Antibes (afterwards Grasse), Vence, and Fréjus. The whole are now comprised in the two dioceses of Nice and Fréjus.

As a frontier town Antibes was necessarily much damaged during the wars between Francis I. and Charles V., being frequently attacked and pillaged. Its ancient buildings have thus been almost entirely demolished, either by the direct effects of war or in the construction of the fortifications, so that scarcely a trace of Roman occupation remains, save in some tombs, inscriptions, and urns which have been dug up. The oldest existing structures stand on the highest point of the rock facing the sea. Here we find some parts of the cathedral of the thirteenth century, and two towers in the style of those of the Mont du Chevalier at Cannes. The church is very simple in design, and seems to have been originally similar to that of Vence, but it has been greatly altered and a new front added in the seventeenth century (Fig. 207). The two towers at Antibes are of peculiar interest. At Cannes there is only one tower or keep, which was attached to the castle of the Chevalier. At Antibes one of the towers (Fig. 208) is in connection with an old palace (now a barrack), which doubtless occupies the site of the ancient castle, being on the summit of the rock, and suitably placed for keeping a look-out seawards. The other tower is close to the cathedral (Fig. 207), and is still connected with it by a covered way on the first floor. It seems probable that the first was the keep of the temporal Commandant and the other that of the spiritual Lord. The frequent incursions of the Corsairs would render such a place of security desirable in

connection with the cathedral, and would also enable the bishop to be independent of the temporal power. Both keeps are constructed in the same manner as that of the Mont du Chevalier with rough faced ashlar blocks, and in both the entrance doorway is on the first floor. That of the castle (Fig. 208) is recessed under a plain round arch, and has a moulded step to receive the ladder or moveable stair by which it was approached. There are also two corbels, one on each side of the doorway, as if for the purpose of carrying a pent house roof. The stair is carried up round the inside of the walls and supported on corbels as at Cannes. The castle tower has in modern times been lowered and covered with a sloping roof. The bishop’s tower is now used as the belfry of the church, and has had large round headed openings cut in it near the top to let out the sound of the bells.

On the left of this tower in the sketch (Fig. 207) may be observed some remains of similar workmanship in the masonry, which indicate the position of another ancient structure above which a modern house has been erected. Some fragments of ancient walls, and a gateway with two large round towers, may be observed on the eastern side of the Rue Aubernon, and these, together with the arcades on the opposite side, and the double row of trees which line the boulevard, form a striking and picturesque promenade. These walls doubtless enclosed the ancient _cité_, and the Rue Aubernon occupies the position of the original ditch. The fortifications of the existing town extend a long way beyond this ancient boundary.

In passing along the coast eastwards from Antibes a fine view is obtained on the right over the sea towards Nice, while on the other hand glimpses occur between the olive groves and up the valleys to the mountains beyond. The first of these openings, the valley of the Brague, shews the interesting old town of Biot in the distance, set as usual on a rocky height. A little further on the tower of the castle of Villeneuve-Loubet rises above the river Loup, and immediately thereafter the town of Cagnes bursts suddenly upon the view. This town consists as usual of a series of houses clustering in terraces round the sides of a detached and precipitous hill, crowned with an ancient castle on its summit. The station of Vence-Cagnes is easily reached by railway either from the direction of Nice or Cannes, and from it several pleasant excursions may be made to the places above referred to, which have just been passed, and also to the ancient towns of St Paul-du-Var and Vence, already mentioned.

CAGNES is a place of some industry, being the point of export for the products of the valleys of the Loup, the Malvan, and the Cagne. On leaving the railway station and approaching the town, the lower part of the hill on which it stands is seen to be richly clad with the dark green foliage of the orange trees, enlivened with their golden fruit, planted in stone-built terraces rising steeply one over the other up to the walls of the town.