A Book of The Riviera

Hugh set to work now to strike down, one after another, the nobles who had supported him, and had shaken down the throne of Rudolf, acting with unexampled perfidy and ingratitude. He did not even spare his half-brother, Lambert, who had succeeded Guido in the Duchy of Tuscany, for he plucked out his eyes.

His high-handed and merciless conduct alarmed those who had not yet suffered. One day, Alberic, the son of Marozia, was commanded by King Hugh to serve him with water, at supper, so as to wash his hands. Performing his office awkwardly or reluctantly, the youth spilled the water, whereupon the King struck him in the face. Alberic was furious; he went forth and placed himself at the head of a conspiracy against his stepfather. The bells of Rome rang out, the people rushed into the streets, besieged the Castle of S. Angelo, and took it. Hugh had to fly and form a court at Pavia.

It was in 936 that King Hugh marched into Provence to dislodge the Moors from the Grand Fraxinet, when a general conspiracy broke out in Northern Italy, headed by Berengar, Marquess of Ivrea. Hugh had despoiled his half-brother, Lambert, of the Duchy of Tuscany, and had given it to his own full brother Boso; but after awhile, becoming jealous of his power, he had dispossessed Boso. Berengar, Marquess of Ivrea, had married Willa, the daughter of Boso. Berengar had been at the court of Hugh, when that King had made a plan to seize and blind him. But he received timely warning from Lothair, King Hugh’s son, and had fled. Finding discontent rife, he placed himself at the head of the Italian princes and nobles.

After his abandonment of the Mountains of the Moors, and having come to terms with the Saracens, Hugh hastened into Italy, only to find that his cause was lost. Amidst general execration, he was forced to retire into Provence in 946, and there he died three years later, in the odour of sanctity.

Thenceforth for awhile the Moors were left undisturbed, to continue their ravages. Berengar and his son even contracted alliance with them. But at last an effort was made to be rid of the incubus. And the person who was the motive force to set the Count of Provence in action was S. Majolus.

Majolus was born of wealthy parents about the year 908, near Riez, in Provence. But owing to an incursion of the Saracens the family estate was ruined, houses were burnt, crops destroyed, and the peasants killed or carried off as captives. Majolus took refuge in Macon with his uncle, who was bishop. Then he became a monk at Cluny. In 948 the abbot Aymard resigned, and appointed Majolus to succeed him. But the ex-abbot one day, whilst in the infirmary, fancied a bit of cheese, and screamed for it to be brought to him. No one paid attention to his angry and repeated yells, as the monks at the time were themselves dining. Aymard was so offended at this neglect that he deposed Majolus and resumed the headship of the establishment. But on his death Majolus was elected in his room. After a visit to Rome, Majolus was on his way back when a band of Saracen marauders took him. Seeing one of the Moors about to cleave the head of one of his companions whom they considered not likely to fetch a ransom, Majolus sprang forward and interposed his arm. He saved the life of his comrade, but long suffered from the wound. The Saracens forced the monks of Cluny to pay the heavy ransom of a thousand pounds of silver for their abbot.

Majolus had now suffered twice from these scourges of the South, and he preached a crusade against them in 972.

It took him ten years, however, to rouse the Provençals to undertake the expulsion of the Moors, so cowed and despairing had they become. He was ably assisted by one Bavo, son of Adelfried, a noble of Nuglerium (Noyers, near Sistèron?), who had taken a vow to avenge the honour of his wife, who had been outraged by a Saracen. This man swore to exterminate every Moor who came within reach of his arm. Eventually he died at Voghera, on a pilgrimage to Rome to give thanks for victory over the Moors.

William, Count of Provence, at the instigation of Majolus, took up arms against the Moors, and hemmed them into the chain of mountains that still bears their name. The campaign lasted through several years, till finally the main stronghold, Le Grand Fraxinet, was taken. After this, one fort and then another fell, and the boats were captured and burnt. William did not massacre the infidels, but reduced them to servitude, and their descendants continued to live on in Provence in this condition. Romeo de Villeneuve, in his will, dated 1250, ordered his male and female Saracen slaves to be sold.

William of Provence had been aided by a Grimaldi from Genoa; he made his prisoners build the walls of Nice and cultivate the soil. To this day a quarter of Nice bears the name of lou canton dei sarraïs, for it was here that these people were interned. Grimaldi, for his services, was granted lands in the Chaine des Maures, and the Golf de Grimaud and the town of Grimaud take their name from him. The Grimaldi family comes first into notice covered with honour, as liberators of the Christian from plunderers and pirates. The Grimaldi of to-day at Monaco are known as living on the proceeds of the gaming tables of Monte Carlo, the plunderers of Christendom.

Le Grand Fraxinet itself may be visited, but there remain few traces of the Saracen stronghold; some substructures and a cistern are all. It has been supposed and asserted that the natives of the town, in their cast of feature, in their dark eyes and hair, in the pose of their bodies, still proclaim their Moorish descent. No one who has been in Tunis or Algiers will corroborate this. In fact, the inhabitants are indistinguishable from other Provençals.

Cogolin and Grimaud are two little towns living upon, and smelling of, cork, at a very little distance apart. The Castle of Cogolin has been wholly destroyed, save for a bell tower. That of Grimaud is in better condition, but is a ruin. The place was taken from the Grimaldis in 1378 by Louis I. of Anjou and Provence, as the Grimaldi of that time had sided in the war of succession with Charles of Durazzo, and he gave it to Christopher Adorno. It passed from one to another, and was raised into a marquisate in 1627; but the castle was dismantled in virtue of a decree in 1655.

The town is curious, built on a conical hill dominated by the castle. The streets are narrow. The church is rude, Early Romanesque, and very curious.

Undoubtedly the sea originally ran up to Cogolin and Grimaud. Now all the basin out of which they rise is a flat alluvial plain intersected by dykes, and growing, near La Foux, splendid umbrella pines.

S. Tropez, charming little town as it is, the best centre for excursions in the Chain of the Maures, is nevertheless not a place that can ever become a winter residence, as it looks to the north and is lashed by the terrible Mistral. But it has this advantage denied to the other towns on the coast, that, having the sun at the back, one looks from it upon the sea in all its intensity of colour without being dazzled.

S. Tropez has been supposed to occupy the site of a Phœnician-Greek town, Heraclea Caccabaria, but this is improbable. This place was almost certainly in the sweet sun-bathed Bay of Cavalaire. There were, indeed, two ancient towns on the Gulf, Alcone and Athenopolis; and certainly Grimaud was a town in Roman times, for there are remains of the aqueduct that supplied it with water.

The Gulf was called Sinus Sambracitanus, and, as already stated, at one time reached inland to the feet of Grimaud. And at Cogolin a Greek funerary monument has been found.

S. Tropez was completely ruined by the Saracens when they occupied the Maures. After they were driven out it was rebuilt, but was again destroyed in the War of Succession between the Duke of Anjou and Charles of Durazzo. It was rebuilt under King Réné and colonised by some Genoese families, who fortified it and undertook to defend it. In 1592 it gallantly resisted the Duke of Savoy, and forced him to retire. In 1652 S. Tropez was a prey to civil war between the Sabreurs and the Canifets, who had succeeded to the feud of the Carcists and Razats. The Sabreurs were those representing military force, the Canifets represented the échevins, and were nicknamed after the canif used by the latter to mend their pens. I shall have more to say about this when we come to Draguignan. The Sabreurs got possession of the castle, but the Duc de Mercœur sent a regiment to assist the citizens, and the Sabreurs were dislodged.

The town is divided into two parts – the old town and the new – and the former teems with picturesque features that attract the artist. The women of S. Tropez are noted for their good looks, due to the infusion of Italian blood. S. Tropez is the scene of a peculiar festival, La Bravade, taking place on the 16th, 17th, and 18th May every year, in commemoration of the defence of the town against the Duke of Savoy in 1637; combined with the patronal feast of S. Tropez on May 17th. Every Monday in Easter week a Captain of the Town is elected for the ensuing year, and he has the regulation of the festival. This is initiated on May Day, or the next Sunday and Thursday, by the “Promenade des Joies,” when members of a company carrying hoops adorned with many-coloured fluttering ribbons, promenade the town, led by drummers. On May 16th, at 3 p.m., the Captain, with his attendant officers, marches to the Mairie, where he is presented with pike and banner by the Mayor, to a discharge of firearms, which thenceforth go on banging day and night till the evening of the ensuing day. The guns are discharged at any passer-by, but only at the legs – and are, of course, charged with powder alone. The clergy, led by the cross, escorted by the beadles, arrive from the church and bless the guns and other weapons. Then the Bravadeurs follow to the church, where they receive the bust of S. Tropez, and the procession starts capering, dancing, swaying in and out of the streets, through the town, fifes screaming, drums rolling, guns exploding. The procession moves to the Port, where the Captain and all his company salute the sea. Whereupon any gunboats, torpedo boats, etc., that happen to be anchored in the harbour, return the salute by a general thunder of guns.

But the 17th – the day of S. Tropez – is that of greatest festivity. It opens with a Mass of the Mousquetaires at 8 a.m., after which follows a general procession. In the afternoon the Bravade marches to the Mairie and the pikes and banner are surrendered. On May 18th, at 8 a.m., is a Mass at the chapel of S. Anne; around the chapel are ranged stalls of sellers of black nougat and a sort of cake known by the name of fougasette. Then ensues a déjeuner given by the Captain to his assistants and to the town authorities; and in the evening the festival concludes with a general farandol on the Lices.

CHAPTER VIII

S. RAPHAEL AND FRÉJUS

Rapid Rise – An exposed spot, unsuitable as a winter resort – Napoleon here embarks for Elba: his journey from Fontainebleau – The via Aurelia – Fréjus – Choking up of the harbour – Roman remains – The Cathedral – Agricola – Monuments – S. Hilary – Sieyès; sans phrases – Désauguier – The Caveau – His Carnival Lay – Some of his jokes

A FEW years ago S. Raphael was a fishing village about an old Templar church. There were in it but a couple of hundred poor folk. Then some speculators cast their eyes on the place, and calculating, not unreasonably, on the lack of intelligence of visitors from the North, resolved on making it into a winter sanatorium. They bought out the fisher families, and set to work to build hotels and lay out esplanades and gardens.

Now any person with a grain of sense in his head has but to look at the map to see that S. Raphael is the very last place on the coast suitable as a winter resort. It lies between two great humps of mountains, the Chaine des Maures and the Estérel. It has before it the ever-shallowing Gulf of Fréjus, that stretches back into alluvial deposit and pestiferous morasses – open to the north; and down this bare, unwholesome plain roars and rages the Mistral. It has blown the sea out of the Bay to the distance of two miles. It is enough, entering the ears, to drive the frail lungs out of the breast betwixt the teeth.

The Argens, which has flowed from west to east, receiving the drainage of the Montagnes des Maures, receives also the Parturby and the Endre from the limestone, and then turns about and runs almost due south, but with an incline to the east. It forms a wide basin, once a long arm of sea, but now filled up with deposit, and with festering lagoons sprinkled over its surface; the two great mountain chains from east and west contract, and force the winds that come down from the north, and the snows of the Alps, to concentrate their malice on S. Raphael. If you love a draught, then sit before a roaring fire, with an open window behind you. If you desire a draught on a still larger scale, go to S. Raphael.

Perhaps the speculators who invented this Station Hivernale thought that it was necessary to add something more, in order to attract patients to the place, and Valescure was established among pine woods. The aromatic scent of the terebinth, its sanatory properties, so highly estimated, so experimentally efficacious in pulmonary disorders, etc., etc. Valescure is just as certainly exposed to winds as is S. Raphael. As to pines and eucalyptus, they can be had elsewhere, in combination with shelter.

However, let me quote M. Leuthéric, who has a good word to say for S. Raphael: —

“Few regions of Provence present conditions of landscape and climate (!!) more seductive. The little town of Saint Raphael is placed beyond the zone of infection from the marshes of Fréjus. It stretches gracefully along the shore at the foot of the savage chain of the Estérel. On all sides pointed rocks of red porphyry pierce the sombre foliage of cork trees and pines. The coast is fringed by sandbanks, extending along under cliffs covered with ilexes. A little way out to sea, two tawny-coloured rocks, like fantastic beasts at rest, close the harbour, and receive over their long backs the foam of the breakers; the first is couched some cable lengths from the shore, the second five hundred metres beyond it. They bear the names of the Land and the Sea Lions.”[8 - La Provence Maritime, 1897, p. 356.]

It was here that Napoleon entered the vessel deporting him to Elba, attended by the Commissioners of the Allied Powers. He had left Fontainebleau upon April 20th, 1814. As he got south he was made to perceive that his popularity, if he ever had any in Provence, was gone. Near Valence he encountered Augereau, whom he had created Duke of Castiglione, and who was an underbred, coarse fellow. Napoleon and his Marshal met on the 24th. Napoleon took off his hat, but Augereau, with vulgar insolence, kept his on. “Where are you going?” asked the fallen Emperor, “to Court?” – “I care for the Bourbons as little as I do for you,” answered Augereau: “all I care for is my country.” Upon this, Napoleon turned his back on him, and re-entered the carriage. Augereau would not even then remove his hat and bow, but saluted his former master with a contemptuous wave of the hand.

At Valence, Napoleon saw, for the first time, French soldiers wearing the white cockade. At Orange the air rang with cries of “Vive le Roy!”

On arrival at Orgon the populace yelled, “Down with the Corsican! Death to the tyrant! Vive le Roy!” Portraits of Bonaparte were burnt before his eyes; an effigy of himself was fluttered before the carriage window, with the breast pierced, and dripping with blood. A crowd of furious women screamed, “What have you done with our children?” The Commissioners were obliged to stand about the carriage to protect him; and it was with difficulty that a way could be made through the mob for the carriages to proceed. At Saint Cannat the crowd broke the windows of his coach. Then, for his protection, he assumed a cap and a greatcoat of Austrian uniform, and instead of pursuing his way in the coach, entered a cabriolet. The carriages did not overtake the Emperor till they reached La Calade. The escort found him standing by the fire in the kitchen of the inn, talking with the hostess. She had asked him whether the tyrant was soon to pass that way. “Ah, sir,” she said, “it is all nonsense to assert that we are rid of him. I have always said that we never shall be sure of being quit of him till he is thrown to the bottom of a well and it is then filled in with stones. I only wish that well were mine in the yard. Why, the Directory sent him to Egypt to get rid of him, and he returned.” Here the woman, having finished skimming her pot, looked up, and perceived that all the party was standing uncovered, except the person whom she was addressing. She was confounded, and her embarrassment amused the ex-Emperor and dispelled his annoyance.

The sous-préfet of Aix closed the gates of the town to prevent the people from issuing forth. At a château near Napoleon met his sister Pauline, who was ill, or pretended to be ill, and was staying there. When he entered to embrace her, she started back. “Oh, Napoleon, why this uniform?”

“Pauline,” replied he, “do you wish that I were dead?”

The princess, looking at him steadfastly, replied, “I cannot kiss you in that Austrian dress. Oh, Napoleon, what have you done?”

The ex-Emperor at once retired, and having substituted a greatcoat of his Old Guard for the Austrian suit, entered the chamber of his sister, who ran to him and embraced him tenderly. Then, going to the window, he saw a crowd in the court in a very uncertain temper. He descended at once, and noticing among them an old man with a gash across his nose and a red ribbon in his button-hole, he went up to him at once, and asked, “Are you not Jacques Dumont?”

“Yes, yes, Sire!” And the old soldier drew himself up and saluted.

“You were wounded, but it seems to me that it was long ago.”

“Sire, at the battle of Tebia, with General Suchet. I was unable to serve longer. But even now, whenever the drum beats, I feel like a deserter. Under your ensign, Sire, I could still serve whenever your Majesty would command.” The old man shed tears as he said, “My name! To recollect that after fifteen years!” All hesitation among the crowd as to how they would receive Napoleon was at an end. He had won every heart.

Napoleon, as it happens, had a very bad memory for names. What is probable is, that Pauline pointed the old soldier out to her brother from the window, and named him, before Napoleon descended.

The English frigate, the Undaunted, was lying in the Gulf of Fréjus. The fallen Emperor manifested considerable reluctance to go on board. However, on April 28th he sailed from S. Raphael, and after a rough passage disembarked at Porto Ferrajo, the capital of Elba, on the 4th of May.

The great Roman road, the Via Aurelia, left the capital of the world by the Janiculan Gate, made for Pisa, Lucca, followed the coast the whole way, passed above where is now Monaco, over a spur of the Maritime Alps by Nice, Antibes, Cannes, came to a little town in the lap of the Gulf of Fréjus, and thence turned abruptly away from the coast and made direct for Aix and Arles. Thence roads radiated: one, leading up the left bank of the Rhone, took troops and commerce to the Rhine. Thence also the Domitian Way conveyed both by Narbonne into Spain.

This bay was the last harbour on the Mediterranean for troops that were to march into the heart of Gaul, to Britain, or to the Rhine. Hitherto the road, hugging the coast, offered innumerable facilities for provisioning soldiery and supplying them with munitions of war. But from the Bay of Fréjus this advantage ceased. Julius Cæsar saw the great strategical importance of the harbour, and he resolved to make of it an important haven, a naval station, and an emporium for stores. Marseilles he did not choose. It was a commercial town, a Greek town, and he was out of temper with it for having sided with Pompey against him. Accordingly he settled here some veterans of his favourite Tenth Legion, to become the nucleus of a colony. But Cæsar overlooked what was a most important point – his port Forum Julii was planted at the mouth of the Argens, and the river brought down a vast amount of fluviatile deposit, mud and sand, and inevitably in a few years would silt up his port. It had a further disadvantage – it was a fever trap. To the south the town had a wide tract of fetid marsh, breeding malaria and mosquitoes. He would have done well to have swallowed his resentment against Marseilles and to have taken the opinion of so observant a man as Vitruvius, or even to have studied the conditions himself more closely. Now all the harbour is buried in silt, and grass grows where galleys floated. The lap of the bay, which was once at Fréjus, begins now at S. Raphael and extends to Cap S. Aigous. In time S. Raphael also will be inland, and the Lion de Mer will become, like its fellow, a Lion de Terre.

Michel de l’Hôpital, who lived in the sixteenth century, in one of his letters wrote: —

“We arrived at Fréjus, which is nothing more now but a poor little town. Here are grand ruins of an ancient theatre, foundered arcades, baths, aqueduct, and scattered remains of quays and basins. The port has disappeared under sand, and is now nothing but a field and a beach.”

If S. Raphael be devoid of antiquities and of history, at a little distance is Fréjus, that has both in abundance.

The ruins are many, but not beautiful; everything was built in a hurry, and badly built. The aqueduct was no sooner completed than it gave way and had to be patched up. The triumphal arch on the old quays is a shabby affair. The amphitheatre is half cut out of the natural rock. There was plenty of granite and porphyry accessible, but the builders did not trouble themselves to obtain large and solid blocks; they built of brick and small stones, without skill and impatiently. The work was probably executed by corvées of labourers impressed from the country round. There were two enormous citadels; one to the north, the other to the south of the port. The latter, the Butte S. Antoine, was, however, mainly a huge accumulation of store chambers, magazines for whatever was needed for the soldiers, and attached to it was the lighthouse. Beyond, some way on the ancient mole, is the most perfect monument of Roman times extant in Fréjus. It goes by the name of La Lantern; but it was not a lighthouse at all, but the lodge of a harbour-master, who gave directions with a flag to vessels how to enter the harbour and avoid the shoals.

The railway now runs close to it across the ancient basin, the port made by Agrippa. To the north of this, where stands now the chapel of S. Roch, was the Port of Cæsar. Poplars now stand where was formerly a forest of masts.

The amphitheatre is cut through its entire length by a road. The old wall of the town reached to it, included it, and then drew back to where is now the railway station. The remains of the theatre are to the north of the modern town, and those of the baths to the south-west; they may be reached by taking a road in that direction from the Butte S. Antoine.

Although Julius Cæsar has the credit of having made the place and called it after his own name, it is certainly more than a guess that there was a Græco-Phœnician settlement here before that time, occupying the bunch of high ground rising above the marshes of the Argens. Indeed, monuments have been found that imply as much, though later in date than the making of the place into a naval station by Cæsar. One of these is bi-lingual – Latin and Greek. It begins in Latin: —