Part 18

By the manner in which Roquebrune bore the stress of years and faced the troubles of life the little town differed curiously from her two neighbours of Monaco and Eze. Monaco and Eze were distinctly masculine in character. They were men-towns. They were, by natural endowment, very strong. They boasted of their strength and took advantage of it. They fought everybody and every thing. They seemed to encourage assault and indeed to provoke it. If hit they hit back again. Their masculinity got them into frequent trouble. Moreover they loved the sea and were masters of it.

Now Roquebrune was feminine. She was a woman-town. She was constitutionally weak. She was little able to defend herself. When hit she did not hit back again, because she was not strong enough. She was bullied and was powerless to resent it. She was afraid of the sea, as many women are, and cared not to venture on it.

She showed her feminine disposition in more ways than one. Roquebrune had been under the harsh tyranny of Monaco for a number of years, but she endured her ill treatment in silence. She bent her back to the blow. She crouched on the ground, passive and apparently cowed. Women will endure oppression patiently and without murmuring for a very long time. But a moment comes when they revolt, and it is noteworthy that they revolt generally with success, for the issue depends not only upon a masterly patience, but upon the choice of the proper time to end it. A town of the type of Eze would have had neither the patience to wait nor the instinct to select the moment for an uprising. Eze, after a year or so of hardship, would have flown at the throat of Monaco and would probably have been annihilated in the venture.

Roquebrune waited a great deal more than a year or so. She waited and endured for thirty-three years and when instinct told her that the right time had come she turned upon the enemy, but not with a battleaxe in her hand. She quietly placed herself under the protection of Italy and when she had secured that support she boldly declared herself a free city and a free city she remained until she was received into the open arms of France.

An episode that happened in 1184 will, perhaps, still better illustrate the feminine character of Roquebrune. In that year the town was besieged by the Ventimiglians. The reason for the assault is not explained by the historian. It is probable that mere want of something to do led to this act of wickedness. One can imagine the Count of Ventimiglia bored to the verge of melancholia by idleness and can conceive him as becoming tiresome and unmanageable. One morning, perhaps, a courtier would address his yawning lord with the remark, “What! nothing to do, sir! Why not go and sack Roquebrune?” To which the count, quite cheered, would reply, “An excellent idea. Send for the captain.”

Anyhow, whatever the reason, the count and his men, all in good spirits, appeared before the walls of the town and prepared for an assault. Now the state of affairs was as follows. Roquebrune, owing to its position, could not withstand a siege. Its fall was inevitable and merely a question of time. The governor would, however, be compelled to defend the town to the very last. He would man the walls and barricade the gates and, calling his company together in the Place des Frères would remind them of their duty, would tell them, with uplifted sword, that Roquebrune must be defended so long as a wall remained; that the enemy must not enter the town except over their dead bodies and that, in the defence of their homes, they must be prepared to die like heroes.

Now things seemed rather different to the governor’s wife. She was a shrewd and practical woman not given to heroics. She knew that Roquebrune could not withstand a siege and must assuredly be taken. She probably heard the stirring address in the square and did not at all like her husband’s talk about dying to a man and about people walking over dead bodies and especially over his body. She knew that the more determined the resistance the more terrible would be the revenge when the town was taken. She did not like people being killed, especially her nice people of Roquebrune. Besides, as she paced to and fro, a couple of children were tugging at her dress and asking her why she would not take them out on the hill-side to play as she did every morning.

So when the night came she put a cloak over her head, made her way out of the town, found the enemy’s camp and told the count how—by certain arrangements she had made—he could enter the town without the loss of a man.

Before the day dawned the bewildered inhabitants, who had been up all night fussing and hiding away their things, found that the Ventimiglians were in occupation of the town; for, as the historian says, “the besiegers entered the town without striking a blow.”

Thus ended the siege of Roquebrune. It ended in a way that was probably satisfactory to both parties and, indeed, to everyone but the governor who had, without question, a great deal to say to his lady on the subject of minding her own business.

As she patted the head of her smallest child and glanced at the breakfast table she, no doubt, replied that she _had_ minded her own business.

[47] As to the name “Cabbé Roquebrune,” Dr. Müller says that _cabbé_ means a little cape (the Cap Martin).

[48] Durandy, “Mon pays, etc., de la Riviera,” 1918. Dr. Müller, “Mentone,” 1910. Bosio, “La Province des Alpes Maritimes,” 1902.

XXXV GALLOWS HILL

THE hills that overshadow the coast road between Cap d’Ail and Roquebrune are perhaps as diligently traversed by the winter visitor as any along the Riviera, because in this area level roads are rare and those who would walk far afield must of necessity climb up hill.

The hill-side is of interest on account of the number of pre-historic walled camps which are to be found on its slopes. These camps form a series of strongholds which extends from Cap d’Ail to Roquebrune. There are some seven of these forts within this range. The one furthest to the west is Le Castellar de la Brasca in the St. Laurent valley on the Nice side of Cap d’Ail. Then come L’Abeglio just above the Cap d’Ail church, the Bautucan on the site of the old signal station above the Mid-Corniche, the Castellaretto over the Boulevard de l’Observatoire, Le Cros near the mule-path to La Turbie and lastly Mont des Mules and Le Ricard near Roquebrune.

Of these the camp most easily viewed—but by no means the most easy to visit—is that of the Mont des Mules, on the way up to La Turbie. This is a bare hill of rough rocks upon the eastern eminence of which is a camp surrounded by a very massive wall built up of huge unchiselled stones. It is fitly called a “camp of the giants,” for no weaklings ever handled such masses of rock as these. The Romans who first penetrated into the country must have viewed these military works with amazement, for competent writers affirm that they date from about 2,000 years before the birth of Christ.

Along this hill-side also are traces of the old Roman road, fragments which have been but little disturbed and which, perhaps, are still paved with the very stones over which have marched the legions from the Imperial City. To the east of La Turbie and just below La Grande Corniche are two Roman milestones, side by side, in excellent preservation. There are two, because they have been placed in position by two different surveyors.

They stand by the ancient way and show clearly enough the mileage—603. The next milestone (604) stood on the Aurelian Way just outside La Turbie, at the point where the road is crossed by the railway, but only the base of it remains. Between it and the previous milestone is a Roman wayside fountain under a rounded arch. It is still used as a water supply by the cottagers and the conduit that leads to it can be traced for some distance up the hill.

The first Roman milestone to the west of La Turbie (No. 605) is on the side of the Roman road as it turns down towards Laghet.[49] This milestone is the finest in the district and is remarkably well preserved. Those who comment on the closeness of these _milliaires_ must remember that the Roman mile was 142 yards shorter than the English.

Above the Mont des Mules is Mont Justicier. It is a hill so bleak and so desolate that it is little more than a wind-swept pile of stones. It has been used for centuries as a quarry and much of the material employed in the building of the Roman trophy at La Turbie came from its barren sides. Its dreariness is rendered more dismal by its history and by the memories that cloud its past. These memories do not recall a busy throng of quarrymen who roared out chanties as they worked at their cranes and whose chatter could be heard above the thud of the pick and the clink of the chisel. They recall the time when this dread mound was the Hill of Death and a terror in the land.

On the summit of Mont Justicier is a tall, solitary column. It appears, at a distance, to be a shaft of marble; but it is made up of small pieces of white stone cemented together. It is a large column nearly three feet in diameter and some fifteen feet in height. Near it is the base of a second column of identical proportions to the first. The distance between the two pillars is twelve feet and they stand on a platform which faces southwards across the sea. These columns were the posts of a gigantic gallows. Their summits were connected by a cross beam and from that beam at least six ropes could dangle. This is why the mound is named Mont Justicier, or, as it would be called in England, Gallows Hill.

The Mount became a place of execution in the Middle Ages and towards the end of the seventeenth century there would never be a time when bodies could not be seen swinging from the beam of the great gallows, since it was here that the brigands known as the Barbets were hanged.

The term “Barbet” has a somewhat curious history. It was originally a nickname given by the Catholics to the Protestant Vaudois and later to the Protestants of the Cevennes and elsewhere. The name had origin in the circumstance that the Vaudois called their ministers “_barbes_” or “uncles,” in somewhat the same way that the Catholics call their priests “fathers.”

The term was later applied to Protestant heretics generally and notably to the Albigensians who held to the mountains of Piedmont and Dauphiné. They refused baptism, the Mass, the adoration of the Cross, the traffic in indulgences. “What was originally a logical revolt of pure reason against dogmatic authority soon took unfortunately varying forms, and then reached unpardonable extremes.”[50] These men were outlawed, were hunted down and massacred and treated as rogues and vagabonds of a pernicious type. For their ill name they were themselves not a little to blame. They kept to the mountains from which great efforts were made to dislodge them about the end of the seventeenth century.

The term Barbets was subsequently given to the inhabitants of the valleys of the Alps who lived by plunder and contraband and finally to any brigands or robbers who had their lairs among the mountains. “In the year 1792,” writes Rosio,[51] “irregular bands were formed, under the name of Barbets, which were trained and commanded by military officers devoted to Sardinia. These bands of men harassed the French army, pillaged the camps and held up convoys. When the House of Savoy lost its hold on the Continent the Barbets divided into smaller companies and gave themselves up to open brigandage. Their habitat was in the mountains of Levens, of L’Escarene, Eze and La Turbie. Near Levens the unfortunates who fell into their hands were hurled into the Vesubie from a rock 300 metres high which is still called Le Saut des Français.”

At the foot of Mont Justicier, near to the gallows and by the side of the actual Roman road, is the little chapel of St. Roch. It is a very ancient chapel and its years weigh heavily upon it, for it has nearly come to the end of its days. It is built of rough stones beneath a coating of plaster and has a cove roof covered with red tiles. The base of the altar still stands, traces of frescoes can be seen on the walls and on one side of the altar is an ambry or small, square wall-press. It was in this sorrowful little chapel that criminals about to be executed made confession and received the last offices of the Church.

A sadder place than this in which to die could hardly be realised. The land around is so harsh, the hill so heartless, the spot so lonely. And yet many troubled souls have here bid farewell to life and have started hence on their flight into the unknown. Before the eyes of the dying men would stretch the everlasting sea. On the West—where the day comes to an end—the world is shut out by the vast bastion of the Tête de Chien; but on the East, as far as the eye can reach, all is open and welcoming and full of pity. It is to the East that the closing eyes would turn, to the East where the dawn would break and where would glow, in kindly tints of rose and gold, the promise of another day.

There is one lonely tree on this Hill of Death—a shivering pine; while, as if to show the kindliness of little things, some daisies and a bush of wild thyme have taken up their place at the foot of the gallows.

[49] The ancient road lies above and to the west of the modern road to the convent.

[50] “Old Provence,” by T. A. Cook, Vol. 2, p. 169.

[51] “Les Alpes Maritimes,” 1902.

XXXVI MENTONE

MENTONE is a popular and quite modern resort on the Riviera much frequented by the English on account of its admirable climate. Placed on the edge of the Italian frontier it is the last Mediterranean town in France. It lies between the sea and a semicircle of green hills upon a wide flat which is traversed by four rough torrents. It is, on the whole, a pleasant looking place although it is not so brilliant in colour as the posters in railway stations would make it. It is seen at its best from a distance, for then its many dull streets, its prosaic boulevards and its tramlines are hidden by bright villas and luxuriant gardens, by ruddy roofs and comfortable trees. Standing up in its midst is the old town which gives to it a faint suggestion of some antiquity.

This old town, together with the port, divides Mentone into two parts—the West and the East Bays. The inhabitants also are divided into two sections—the Westbayers and the Eastbayers, and these two can never agree as to which side of the town is the more agreeable. They have fought over this question ever since houses have appeared in the two disputed districts and they are fighting on the matter still. The Westbayer wonders that the residents on the East can find any delight in living, while the Eastbayer is surprised that his acquaintance in the other bay is still unnumbered with the dead. I had formed the opinion that the Western Bay was the more pleasant and the more healthy but Augustus Hare crushes me to the ground for he writes, “English doctors—seldom acquainted with the place—are apt to recommend the Western Bay as more bracing; but it is exposed to mistral and dust, and its shabby suburbs have none of the beauty of the Eastern Bay.” So I stand corrected, but hold to my opinion still.

Hare is a little hard on Mentone by reason of its being so painfully modern. “Up to 1860,” he says, “it was a picturesque fishing town, with a few scattered villas let to strangers in the neighbouring olive groves, and all its surroundings were most beautiful and attractive; now much of its two lovely bays is filled with hideous and stuccoed villas in the worst taste. The curious old walls are destroyed, and pretentious paved promenades have taken the place of the beautiful walks under tamarisk groves by the sea-shore. Artistically, Mentone is vulgarised and ruined, but its dry, sunny climate is delicious, its flowers exquisite and its excursions—for good walkers—are inexhaustible and full of interest.”[52]

There can be few who will not admit that the modern town of Mentone is commonplace and rather characterless, but, at the same time, it must be insisted that a large proportion of the Mentone villas are—from every point of view—charming and free from the charge of being vulgar.

Some indeed, with their glorious gardens, are serenely beautiful. With one observation by Mr. Hare every visitor will agree—that in which he speaks of the country with which Mentone is surrounded. It is magnificent and so full of interest and variety that it can claim, I think, to have no parallel in any part of the French Riviera.

Mentone is a quiet place that appears to take its pleasure demurely, if not sadly. It is marked too by a respectability which is commendable, but at the same time almost awe-inspiring. Perhaps its nearness to Monte Carlo makes this characteristic more prominent. If Monte Carlo be a town of scarlet silks, short skirts and high-heeled shoes Mentone is a town of alpaca and cotton gloves and of skirts so long that they almost hide the elastic-side boots.

There is a class of English lady—elderly, dour and unattached—that is comprised under the not unkindly term of “aunt.” They are propriety personified. They are spoken of as “worthy.” Although not personally attractive they are eminent by reason of their intimate knowledge of the economics of life abroad. To them those human mysteries, the keeper of the _pension_, the petty trader and the laundress are as an open book. They fill the frivolous bachelor with reverential alarm, but their acquaintance with the rate of exchange, the price of butter and the cheap shop is supreme in its intricacy. These “aunts” are to be found in larger numbers in Mentone than in any other resort of the English in France.

The old town of Mentone is small and circumscribed. It stands in the centre of the place as a low hillock or promontory. In relation to the rest of Mentone it is like the brown body of a butterfly whose gaudy wings are spread over the West Bay on the one side and the East Bay on the other.

The history of Mentone is meagre and of little interest. Compared with neighbouring towns it is of no great antiquity. The Romans passed by the site on which it stands without a halt. The Lombards and the Saracens left the spot alone for it offered no attractions to the neediest robber. According to Dr. Müller, whose work on Mentone is above praise, there is no mention of the town in the old chronicles until the commencement of the thirteenth century. It was a small place but poorly fortified and therefore little able to protect itself. It became in consequence the victim of any tyrant in the country round and its experience of tyranny must have been long-enduring and acute.

It seems to have belonged first to Ventimiglia and then to have been the property of the Vento family of Genoa. Later it came under the rule of the Counts of Provence and in 1346 was purchased by Carlo Grimaldi of Monaco for sixteen thousand gold florins. It remained a part of the principality of Monaco for some hundreds of years. It was but slightly disturbed by the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, because it was so little worth fighting about. In 1848 the whole population of Mentone, under the leadership of the Chevalier Trenca, rose against the oppression of the Grimaldi and the town became, with Roquebrune, a republic. Finally it was sold by Monaco to France in 1861 for the sum of four million francs and there its story ends.

The best general view of Mentone is to be obtained from the pier. Between the East Bay and the West stands the old town, a heap of drab houses and red roofs, piled up in the form of a mound on the summit of which are St. Michael’s Church and the plume-like cypresses of the old cemetery. Behind this drab town are two green hills, round and low—St. Vincent and Les Chappes; and beyond again—shutting out the world—are the ash-grey slopes of the Maritime Alps. To the west is the _massif_ of Mont Agel and the crag of St. Agnes; while to the east is the towering height of the Berceau.

The old town is small, but it has the merit—rare in these parts—of being clean and free from “the evil smell” of which Mr. Hare has complained. It is Italian in character and, owing to its place on a hill, is made up of steep lanes and many stairs, of headlong passages and vaulted ways. The numerous arches that cross the streets are the outcome of an experience of earthquakes painfully acquired in years gone by. At the foot of the town is the Place du Cap out of which certain undecided old lanes ramble to the sea, with the rolling gait of unsteady mariners. Among these the Ruelle Giapetta and the Rue du Bastion are notable by their picturesqueness.

The way up to the old town is by the steps of the Rue des Logettes. The first street encountered is the Rue de Bréa. It is a mean street, but it is occupied by houses which have been, at one time, among the most pretentious in Mentone. At No. 3 Napoleon lodged during the Italian campaign. It is a large building of four stories with a fine doorway in white stone. It is now given up to poor tenants who hang their washing out of the windows. At No. 2, a private house in comfortable state, General Bréa was born in 1790. He was one of Napoleon’s generals, was at Leipzig and Waterloo and was assassinated in Paris on June 24th, 1848. On the wall of a garden in the Rue Bréa is a marble tablet to commemorate the visit of Pius VII in 1814. The Pope was returning to Rome after his long exile in France and it was from the terrace of this garden that he blessed the people crowding in the street. While dealing with famous people it may be noted that in the Rue St. Michel (No. 19) is the house in which the Chevalier Carlo Trenca was born, the president of the short-lived Republic of Mentone.

The most important and most interesting street of old Mentone is the Rue Longue. It runs athwart the east side of the hill, mounting very easily to the St. Julien Gate which is just below the old cemetery. The street is paved, is some twelve feet in width and is entered from the Logettes by a dim passage. The street is a little dark, because the houses on both sides of it are tall. This Rue Longue follows the route of the old Roman road. Until 1810 it was the only carriageable street between the East and the West Bays and the only coast road between Italy and Provence.

It was the Park Lane of Mentone, the fashionable street in which were the palaces of the nobles and the houses of the rich. The humbler dweller in Mentone would hardly dare put foot in it, because it was so grand and so exclusive. Here “before the great Revolution, the ladies of Mentone used to sit out and work in the open air, just as the peasants do now, before the doors of the houses or (one is expected to say) palaces. A letter of the last century describes the animated appearance which this gave to the place in those days, the gentlemen stopping to chat with each group as they passed . . . while the nights were enlivened by frequent serenades, which were given under the windows of pretty girls by their admirers.”[53]