A Book of The Riviera

“Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of compassion. To behold ranks and files of half naked, half starved, half tanned, meagre wretches, chained to a plank, from which they do not remove for months together (commonly half a year), urged on even beyond human endurance, with cruel and repeated blows on their bare flesh, to the incessant toil at the most laborious of all exercises, which often happens in a furious chase, – was indeed a horrifying spectacle.”

To be condemned to the galleys was not necessarily a life sentence. At first all such as were sent thither were branded on the shoulder with GAL, but afterwards this was changed to T.F. for Travaux forcés, or T.P. if for life; and each class wore a special coloured cap. Great was the indignation felt at the Revolution, on ascertaining that the red cap of Liberty was what was worn by one class of gaol-birds. A member of the Convention rose and demanded that this honourable badge should be removed from their heads; and amidst thunders of applause, the motion was carried. A special commissioner was despatched to Toulon to order the abolition of the red cap from the Bagne. Accordingly all the caps were confiscated and burnt. But the National Convention had made no provision for replacing the red cap with one of another colour, consequently the prisoners had for some time to go bare-headed. In 1544 the Archbishop of Bourges sent a couple of priests and two other clerks to the captain of the galleys at Toulon, and required him to put them to hard labour. But this was regarded by the Parliament as an infringement of its rights, and the captain was ordered to send the clerics back to the archbishop.

Men were condemned to the galleys for every sort of crime and fault. Many a wretched Huguenot toiled at the oar. Often enough a nobleman laboured beside a man belonging to the dregs of the people. Haudriquer de Blancourt, in love with a lady of good rank, to flatter her made a false entry in her pedigree, so as to enhance her nobility. There ensued an outcry among heralds, and for this De Blancourt was sent to the galleys.

As naval construction and science improved, oars were no longer employed, and sails took their places; the galleys were moored at Toulon, Brest and Roquefort, and acquired the name of Bagnes. The derivation is uncertain. By some it is supposed to be derived from the Provençal bagna, which signifies “moored,” by others from the prisons of the slaves near the Bagno, or baths of the seraglio at Constantinople.

Louis XVI. abolished torture, which had filled the Bagne with cripples. Thenceforth the Bagne ceased to be an infirmary of martyrs, and became a workshop of vigorous labourers. The Revolution of 1789 tore up all the old codes, but it maintained the galleys, only it changed the name of Galerien to Travaux forcés à temps, ou à perpetuité. No one formerly seemed to be sensible to the horrible brutality of the galleys. When Madame de Grignan wrote an account of a visit to one of them to her friend Mme de Sévigné, that lady replied “she would much like to see this sort of Hell,” with “the men groaning day and night under the weight of their chains.”

Furthenbach, in his Architectura navalis (Ulm, 1629), says that the convict in a galley received 28 ounces of biscuit per week, and a spoonful of a mess of rice and vegetables. The full complement of a large galley consisted of 270 rowers, with captain, chaplain, doctor, boatswain, master, and ten to fifteen gentlemen adventurers, friends of the captain, sharing his mess, and berthed in the poop; also about eighteen marines and ten warders, a carpenter, cook, cooper, and smith, &c., and from fifty to sixty soldiers; so that the whole equipage of a galley must have reached a total of four hundred men.

The Bagne has seen strange inmates. Perhaps no story of a forçat is more extraordinary than that of Cognard, better known as the Count of Pontis de Sainte-Hélène. This man, who seemed to have been born to command, was well built, tall, and singularly handsome, with a keen eye and a lofty carriage. This fellow managed to escape from the Bagne, and made his way into Spain, where he formed an acquaintance with the noble family of Pontis de Sainte-Hélène, and by some means, never fully cleared up, blotted the whole family out of life and secured all their papers, and thenceforth passed himself off as a Pontis. Under this name he became a sub-lieutenant in the Spanish army, then rose to be captain of a squadron, and after the attack on Montevideo, gained the rank of lieutenant-colonel. Later he formed a foreign legion, and took part in the political struggles in the Peninsula. He affected the most rigid probity in all matters of military accounts, and denounced two of the officers who had been guilty of embezzlement. But these men, in their own defence, accused Pontis of malversion, and General Wimpfen had him arrested. He escaped, but was caught, and transferred to Palma, among the French prisoners. In the bay was lying a Spanish brig. Cognard proposed to his fellow prisoners to attempt to capture it. The coup de main succeeded, and after having taken the brig, they sailed for Algiers, where they sold the vessel, and went to Malaga, then in French occupation. Count Pontis was given a squadron under the Duke of Dalmatia; and when the French army retreated he was accorded a battalion in the 100th regiment of the line.

At the siege of Toulouse, the Count of Pontis, at the head of a flying column, took an English battery. At Waterloo he was wounded.

In 1815 the Count was made Knight of Saint Louis, and given a battalion in the legion of the Seine, and in six months was promoted to be lieutenant-colonel. One day the Duc de Berri asked him if he were one of the noble Spanish House of Ste. Hélène. “Pardieu, mon prince,” answered Cognard, “je suis noble, et de la vieille roche encore.”

Cognard, covered with decorations, in his rich uniform, at the head of his regiment, at reviews – might well have pushed his fortune further, but for an unfortunate meeting. One day, as commander of his corps, he presided, near the column of the Place Vendôme, at a military degradation; when an old Toulon convict, who had been released, observed him, eyed him attentively, and, convinced that he recognised an old comrade of the Bagne, in a fit of spleen and envy, denounced him as such.

The general Despinois sent for Pontis, and finding that there was much that was equivocal on his part, despatched him, under the charge of four gens d’armes, to the Abbaye. There he obtained from the officer permission to change his linen, was allowed to return to his quarters, possessed himself of a pair of pistols, and escaped. Six months after, the Count Pontis de Sainte Hélène, lieutenant-colonel of the legion of the Seine, Knight of S. Louis and of the legion of honour, was recaptured, convicted of appearing under a false name, suspected of the murder of the Pontis family, recognised as an evaded convict, and was sent to end his days in the Bagne at Brest.

In October, 1793, a disorderly mob of soldiers and revolutionary cut-throats, under the command of the painter Carteaux, after having dyed their hands in the blood of six thousand of their countrymen, whom they had massacred at Lyons, invested Toulon, which had shut its gates against the revolutionary army, and had thrown open its port to the English. The town was crowded with refugees from Marseilles, and its bastions were occupied by a mixed multitude of defenders, Sardinians, Spaniards, French, and English, united in nothing save in common hatred of the monsters who were embrued in blood.

The investing army was divided into two corps, separated by the Faron. On the west was Ollioules, where Carteaux had established his headquarters. The commander-in-chief, ignorant of the first principles of military science, and allowing his wife to draw out the orders for the day, and sign them as Femme Carteaux, had planted his batteries where they could do no injury to the English fleet. The siege had begun in September; it dragged on through October. There was organisation neither in the host nor in the commissariat. The army was composed partly of troops detached from that of Italy, mainly of volunteers set at liberty by the taking of Lyons, and a horde of Marseillais ruffians, animated by hopes of murder and plunder.

In the midst of this confusion Bonaparte arrived before Toulon, and appearing before Carteaux had the audacity to point out to him the rudimentary errors he had committed. Carteaux was furious, but his claws were clipped by the Commissioners, who, satisfied of his incompetence, dismissed him, and Dugommier, an old officer, was placed in command. On November 25th a council of war was held, and the Commissioners placed the command of the artillery in the hands of Bonaparte.

In compliance with his instructions, the whole force of the besiegers was directed against the English redoubt Mulgrave, now fort Caire, on the Aiguillette. An attempt to carry it by assault was made on the morning of December 17th. The troops of the Convention were driven back, and Dugommier, who headed the attempt, gave up all for lost. But fresh troops were rapidly brought up in support, another onslaught was attempted, and succeeded in overpowering the Spanish soldiers, to whom a portion of the line was entrusted; whereupon the assailants broke in, turned the flank of the English detachment, and cut down three hundred of them.

The possession of this fort rendered the further maintenance of the exterior defences of Toulon impracticable. Its effect was at once recognised by the English commander, and during the night the whole of the allied troops were withdrawn from the promontory into the city.

Meanwhile, another attack had been made, under the direction of Napoleon, on the rocky heights of Faron, which were carried, and the mountain was occupied by the Republicans, who hoisted the tricolor flag.

The garrison of Toulon consisted of above ten thousand men, and the fortifications of the town itself were as yet uninjured; but the harbour was commanded and swept by the guns of the enemy from l’Aiguillette and Faron. Sir Samuel Hood, in command of the English squadron, strongly urged the necessity of recovering the points that had been lost; but he was overruled, and it was resolved to evacuate the place.

When the citizens of Toulon became aware of this decision, they were filled with dismay. They knew but too well what fate was in store for them if left to the hands of their remorseless fellow-countrymen. Accordingly the quays were crowded with terror-stricken men and women imploring to be taken on board, whilst already the shot from Napoleon’s batteries tore lanes among them, or his shells exploded in their midst. With difficulty, as many as could be accommodated were placed in boats and conveyed to the ships. Fourteen thousand were thus rescued; but Napoleon directed shot and shell among the boats, sinking some, and drowning the unhappy and innocent persons who were flying from their homes.

The prisoners now broke their chains and added to the horror, as they burst into the deserted houses, robbing and firing and murdering where resistance was offered. Next day the troops of the Convention entered the town. During the ensuing days, some hundreds of the inhabitants who had not escaped were swept together into an open place, and without any form of trial were shot.

Barras and Fréron issued a proclamation that all who considered themselves to be good citizens were required to assemble in the Champ-de-Mars under pain of death. Three thousand responded to the order. Fréron was on horseback, surrounded by the troops, cannon, and Jacobins. Turning to these latter, he said, “Go into the crowd and pick out whom you will, and range them along that wall.”

The Jacobins went in and did as desired, according to their caprice. Then, at a signal from Fréron, the guns were discharged, and the unhappy crowd swayed; some fell, others, against the wall, dropped. Fréron shouted, “Let those who are not dead stand up.” Such as had been wounded only rose, when another volley sent them out of life.

Salicetti wrote exultingly: “The town is on fire, and offers a hideous spectacle; most of the inhabitants have escaped. Those who remain will serve to appease the manes of our brave brothers who fought with such valor.” Fouché, Napoleon’s future Head of Police, wrote: “Tears of joy stream over my cheeks and flood my soul. We have but one way in which to celebrate our victory. We have this evening sent 213 rebels under the fire of our lightning.” “We must guillotine others,” said Barras, “to save ourselves from being guillotined.” Executions went on for several days, and numbers of the hapless remnant perished. But even this did not satisfy the Convention. On the motion of Barrère, it was decreed that the name of Toulon should be blotted out, and a commission, consisting of Barras, Fréron, and the younger Robespierre, was ordered to continue the slaughter. Such as were able bought their lives. One old merchant of eighty-four offered all his wealth save eight hundred livres; but the revolutionary judge, coveting the whole, sent him under the guillotine, and confiscated his entire property.

Whilst the butchery was in progress, a grand dinner was given in celebration of the taking of the town. Generals, representatives of the people, sans-culottes, galley-slaves, “the only respectable persons in the town,” as the commissioners said, sat down together, the commissioners occupying a separate table.

Toulon again gradually refilled with people, and under the Directory it was constituted the first military port of France. From Toulon Bonaparte organised his expedition to Egypt.

CHAPTER VI

HYÈRES

The olive – The orange – The sumac – The crau of the Gapeau – Contrast between the old town and the new – Shelter or no shelter – The family of Fos – The peninsula of Giens – Saltings – Ancient value of salt – Pomponiana – S. Pierre a’ Al-Manar – A false alarm – The League – Razats and Carcists – Castle held by the Carcists – Surrender – Churches of S. Paul and S. Louis – The Iles de Hyères – The reformatory in Ile du Levant – Mutiny – Horrible scenes – Sentences

IT will be at Hyères, probably, that the visitor to the Riviera first realises that he has come amidst tropical vegetation, for here he will first see palms, agaves, and aloes in full luxuriance. Moreover, the olive, which has been seen, but not in its full luxuriance, reaches its finest development on the red soil north of the branch line, where it parts from the main line at La Pauline.

The olive is without question the most important tree on this coast; it prevails, and gives its colour to the country everywhere, except in the Montagnes des Maures and the Estérel. This is a most difficult tree for an artist to deal with, as it forms no masses of foliage; the small pointed leaves, dull green above, pale below, are so disposed that the foliage can be represented only by a series of pencil scratches. The trunk has a tendency to split into three or four parts in the ground. The vitality of the olive is remarkable. After a century, it may be after more, the core of the trunk decays, and the tree parts into sections, and lives on through the ever-vital bark. The bark curls about the decayed sections, and forms a fresh tree. Consequently, in place of one huge ancient olive, one finds three or four younger trees, but all with a look on them as if they were the children of old age, growing out of the same root. And when this second generation dies, the vitality of the root remains unimpaired; it throws up new shoots, and thus the life of the tree, like that of an ancient family, is indefinitely prolonged. The healthy olive tree, well fed on old rags and filth of every description, to which it is exceedingly partial, is very beautiful; but the beauty of the olive tree comes out in winter and early spring; when the deciduous trees are in leaf and brilliant green, it looks dull and dowdy. The olive flowers from April to June, and the fruit requires about six months to reach maturity. The harvest, accordingly, is in winter. The berry becomes black finally, and falls from the tree in December and January. The oil from the fully matured olives is more abundant, but is not so good in quality as that expressed from the berry whilst still green. The olives, when gathered, are taken to the mills, which are rude, picturesque buildings, planted in the ravines to command water power; but occasionally the crushing is done by horses turning the mills. The olives are crushed by stone rollers; the pulp is put into baskets and saturated with hot water, and subjected to great pressure. The juice then squeezed out is carried into vats, where the oil floats on the surface and is skimmed off.

The wood of the olive is used for fuel, and for boxes and other ornaments that are hand-painted.

The tree requires good nourishment if it is to be well cropped, and it is most partial to a dressing of old rotten rags. All the filthy and decayed scraps of clothing cast by the Neapolitan peasantry are carried in boats to the coast and are eagerly bought as manure.

At Hyères, moreover, we come on the orange and the lemon. The orange was originally imported from China into Spain, and thence passed to Italy and the Riviera. Oranges are said to live four or five hundred years. S. Dominic planted one in the garden at Sta. Sabina, at Rome, in 1200, that still flourishes. Hale and fruit-bearing also is that at Fondi, planted by Thomas Aquinas in 1278. Nevertheless, it is certain that old orange-trees have disappeared from Hyères. Whether they were killed by the severe winter of 1864, or whether by a disease, is doubtful. The trees one sees now are none of them ancient, and do not attain a height above nine feet. The name orange comes from the Sanskrit, and the Portuguese, who introduced the orange to Europe, borrowed the name from the Hindus. In 1516 Francis I. was present during a naval sham fight at Marseilles, where oranges were used as projectiles. Oranges had been grown sufficiently long at Hyères to have attained a great size in the sixteenth century, for when there, Charles IX., his brother the Duke of Anjou, and the King of Navarre, by stretching their hands, together hooped round the trunk of one tree that bore 14,000 oranges. Thereupon was cut in the bark, “Caroli regis amplexu glorior.” But there are no such orange-trees as that now at Hyères. Probably that was of a more hardy nature and of inferior quality to the orange-tree now grown. In fact, the present strain of oranges cultivated is a late importation, not earlier than about 1848. When a horticulturist of Marseilles imported it, it was next brought to Bordighera; from thence it passed to San Remo, to Ventimiglia, and thence to Nice. The orange, and above all the lemon, is very sensitive to cold, and the frost of February, 1905, blighted nearly every tree along the coast, turning the leaves a pale straw colour. Only in very sheltered spots did they retain their green and gloss.

About Solliés-Pont the sumac is grown for the sake of its tannin. The leaves only are used, but for them the branches are cut off. When these are dry they are stripped of their foliage by women and children. The leaves are then pounded to powder, and are packed in sacks and sent away. Thirty per cent. of the matter in the dried sumac leaves is tannin.

At Hyères we have passed abruptly from the limestone to the schist that has been heaved up by the granite of the Montagnes des Maures. The Gapeau, which at present flows into the sea to the east of Hyères, originally discharged past La Garde into the Rade de Toulon. But it brought down such a quantity of rubble from the limestone range – of which the Pilon de la Sainte Beaume is the highest point – that it has formed a crau of its own, and choked up its mouth to such an extent as to force its current to turn to the farther side of the Maurettes so as to find a passage to the sea.

Hyères is a notable place for the abrupt contrast it exhibits between what is ancient and what is modern. Down the slope of the height, that is crowned by the castle, slides the old town, with narrow streets, mere lanes, to its old walls, in which are gateways, and through these arches we emerge at once into everything that is most up-to-date. At a stride we pass out of the Middle Ages into modern times. There is no intervening zone of transition.

At Hyères the Maurette rises as a natural screen, facing the sun, banking out the north wind, with the crau of the Gapeau on one side, and the bed of the Gapeau on the other; and of course, those who go to the South for shelter would naturally, one would suppose, keep the screen between themselves and the Mistral. But not so. Settlers have thought they had done all that was required when they came to Hyères, and have built their villas, and extended the town to the north-west, precisely where there is no shelter at all, and there is full exposure to the blasts from the north. One great disadvantage to Hyères is the distance at which it stands from the sea.

Hyères belonged originally to the family de Fos, which had the marquisate of Marseilles, an immense fief containing fifty towns, Marseilles, Solliés, Toulon, Hyères, Le Ciotat, Cassis, Aubagne, etc. But in 1257 it was ceded to Charles of Anjou, Count of Provence.

The importance of Hyères was due to its salt pans. The peninsula of Giens was undoubtedly at one time an island, one of the group that forms a chain, of which Porquerolles and l’Ile du Levant are the principal. But the currents round the coast threw up shingle beds and sealed it to the coast, forming an extensive natural lake of salt water between the two barriers, but with a gap in that to the east through which the sea water could flow. In this shallow lagoon salt was produced. The entrance could be closed, and the sun dried up the water in the basin, leaving the salt behind. At present, with our ready communication by rail, the importance and value of salt in ancient times can hardly be realised. In the centre of Gaul and of France in olden days men ravened for salt. It was to them what sweetstuff is now to children. They would sell anything to provide themselves with this condiment. Conceive for a moment what our tables would be without the salt-cellar; how flat, how insipid would be our meals.

Dr. Schweinfurt, in his Travels in the Heart of Africa, describes the loathsome parasitic growths in the intestines of the cattle due to the absence of salt. It is a necessity for man and beast. Our storms carry some and deposit it on the grass; but we live in an island. What intestinal troubles must those men have endured who were deprived of it! Well, the lagoon of Giens furnished a large amount, and there were other salt-pans – as there are still, on the eastern side of Hyères. These made the town to flourish. Salt was the main production and source of wealth.

Near the Château de Carqueyranne, in the lap of the Bay of Giens, are the ruins of a Greco-Roman town, Pomponiana. It stretched from the beach up the hill crowned by the remnants of the Convent of S. Pierre a’ Al-Manar. The old town was explored in 1843 by Prince Frederick, afterwards King Frederick VII. of Denmark. He laid bare the Acropolis, baths, cisterns, store-houses, and a mole for the protection of the galleys that entered the harbour. Most of what was then laid open has since been covered over, but the whole ground is so strewn with pottery that the peasants have to clear their fields of it as an incumbrance.

The ruined convent above was occupied by Sisters of the Benedictine Order. It was fortified, and exercised feudal authority over the land around. In the event of danger, the convent bell summoned the tenants to its aid. But one winter night a frolicsome nun rang the bell for the fun of the thing, and when the vassals arrived, laughed at them for allowing themselves to be fooled from their beds. This prank cost the convent dear, for shortly after a Moorish corsair put into the bay, and the convent was attacked. The alarm bell was sounded in vain; no one answered the summons, and before morning the house was sacked, and the nuns had been carried away, to be sold as slaves in Africa.

A curious condition of affairs existed at Hyères during the troubles of the League.

The Count de Retz, Grand Marshal of France, was Governor of Provence, and the Count de Carces was its Grand Sénéchal. The jealousy of these two men gave birth to a deplorable rivalry, which placed each at the head of a different party. De Retz supported the Huguenots, and the Catholic party took Carces as its headpiece; and the factions called themselves, or were called, Razats and Carcists long after the men whose names they had adopted had disappeared from the scene.

The rancour of each party did not abate, even when plague devastated the province. Then confusion grew worse confounded when the League was formed, due to the death of the Duke of Anjou, brother of Henry III., which made Henry of Navarre, a Calvinist, heir to the throne. The most extreme Carcists, alarmed at the prospect of the succession falling to a Huguenot, formed the plan of inviting the Duke of Savoy to take Provence. The anarchy in the country became intolerable, and large bodies of peasants and mechanics armed and fell on the forces of Carcists and Razats indifferently, routed and butchered them.

In 1586 the town of Hyères was staunch in its adherence to the king, but the castle that commanded it was occupied by the forces of the Baron de Méolhon, who was also Governor of the Port of Marseilles, and he was a Carcist, and inclined to favour the claims of the Duke of Savoy. He had placed a Captain Merle in the castle, with secret instructions to hold it for the duke.

M. de la Valette was Governor of Provence, and he saw himself obliged to make an attempt to take the castle. A messenger between De Méolhon and the Duke of Savoy had been taken with in his possession treasonable correspondence, betraying the plans of the Leaguers.

Hyères readily opened its gates to De la Valette, in November, 1588, and he summoned Merle to surrender the castle, but met with a prompt refusal. Then he attempted to take it by escalading, but in vain. It stood too high; its garrison were too alert. He could not even prevent well-wishers of the Carcists from smuggling provisions into the fortress.

At last, despairing of success, the Governor of Provence withdrew; and having failed to take the castle by force, had recourse to other means. He bought the aid of a M. de Callas, a Leaguer, related to two of the officers of the garrison, and induced him to enter the fortress and bribe and cajole its defenders into surrendering. Merle, however, was not to be seduced. He must be got rid of by other means. A cannon was dragged upstairs to an upper window of a house that commanded Merle’s dining apartment. It was known at what hour he supped, and in what part of the room he sat. A signal was to be given by a traitor when Merle took his place at the table, with his covers before him. The appointed signal was made: the cannon thundered, and a ball crashed in through the window and knocked supper and wine bottles and everything about in wreckage. But happily something had occurred to the captain as he took his seat, and he had left the room. When he returned, there was no more a dumpling on the table, but an exploded shell.

De Callas was sent again into the castle to propose terms of surrender. Merle would still have held out, but the garrison had been bought, and they refused to continue the defence. Terms of capitulation were agreed on, whereby Merle, for surrendering, was to be indemnified with ten thousand crowns. This extraordinary agreement was signed on August 31st, 1589, after the castle had held out against the king for ten months.