The romance of Nice

Preface

THE amount of literature which has been written about the Riviera is very large, and it may well seem that there is no adequate necessity for increasing it. But that is a view to which I am unable to subscribe, and I will briefly give my reasons. The twentieth century is a hurrying age, and people require literary fare to be set before them without the trouble of going to look for it. The many notable works on the Riviera which have appeared from time to time written in English, French, and Italian, to say nothing of the classical authors, are most of them unattainable to the general reading public. Many are long out of print, many are too detailed and technical, and many again are out of date and inaccurate.

For these reasons I have thought it worth while to add one more to the long list of books dealing with Nice and its country-side ; I have gleaned very freely from all the sources to which vi PREFACE

I have alluded, preferring to quote the authors themselves, rather than to attempt to paraphrase their writings ; and it has been my aim to endeavour to present the story of this old city and its fair country in such a form as may interest the reader, rather than to give a fully detailed account of those events which are to be found in the history of all towns whose origin goes back into the far past.

Baring-Gould, in his " Book of the Riviera," says he has given but a meagre sketch of the history of Nice, for the reader would have no patience with all the petty troubles — great to those that endured them — which afflicted Nice and its vicinity through many centuries. Augustus J. C. Hare, for all his voluminous discursiveness on the Cities of Italy, could never be induced to write even a dozen lines on the story of Nice; he dismisses the town in his " Southern France " — if my memory serves me — as a hot, dusty, windy place, which is not worth more than the most cursory investigation.

Undeterred by the opinion of these two great writers, I have ventured to try and show that there is much that is interesting not alone in the history of the country, but also in its legends

PREFACE vii

and folk-lore, its people, small as well as great, its wonderful flora, and in that charm which pervades it that so speedily seizes on the stranger within its gates. In a word, I would present the " Romance of Nice " to all those who, for lack of observation or want of opportunity, have hitherto failed to grasp it. It is a story full of colour and life, set in a brilliant framework by the greatest of all scene-painters, Nature herself ; and those who steep themselves in the Mediterranean sunshine during the long pleasant months of winter, may find interest in the tale of their temporary home, as it is unfolded to them from the dim past to the clear-cut present. If this prove to be the case, the object with which this book has been written will be more than

achieved.

J. D. E. L.

Chapter I

Nice and the poets— The land of flowers— The Stone Man of the Riviera — The legend of Adam and Eve — The passing of Heracles — Phoenician settlements — The foundation of Nice — The story of Glyptis— The coming of the Romans, and the rise of Cimiez . . • . pages 1-19

Chapter II

The Roman dominion — The visits of the Empress Poppaea and of the Empress Julia Cornelia Salonina — The introduction of Christianity — The martyrdom of Saint Pons — A legend of the amphitheatre of Cimiez — The contest between the Emperors Vitellius and Otho — The Emperor Pertinax — The development of the province — The dancing boy of Antibes . 20-43

Chapter III

The coming of the Lombards — The sack of Cimiez and the destruction of Nice — The legend of Saint Hospice — The passing of the Franks — The plague — The Saracen incursions — Gradual evolution of the County of Provence — The Saracens' power broken — Religious fervour of the times — The ejectment of the Knights Templar by Charles of Anjou — Guelphs and Ghibellines — The tale of Queen Joanna — First appearance of the House of Savoy — The county raised to a dukedom — Amadeus VIII elected Pope as Felix V . 44-71 x CONTENTS

Chapter IV

The Congress of Nice — Pope Paul III, Francis I, and Charles V — Mediaeval history — Sieges of Nice — The Chateau and its destruction by the Duke of Berwick — Nice under the Terror — Napoleon's visits — Pope Pius VII and the Queen of Etruria — Napoleon and the Prince of Monaco — Nice finally becomes French ..... pages 72-91

Chapter V

Matrimonial alliances of the House of Savoy — Some letters of a Queen of Spain — The worthies of Nice — Catherine Segurane — The painter, Vanloo — The astronomer, Cassini . 92-113

Chapter VI

Massena, " l'Enfant cheri de la Victoire " — Paganini, his death and strange obsequies — The wanderings of his coffin, and its final interment — Giuseppe Garibaldi — La Bella Rosina — Alexandre Dumas — Queen Victoria at Cimiez — Other Royal guests — The Maharajah Duleep Singh — Father Gapon . 114-137

Chapter VII

Religious piety in former times — The patrons of the city — Monuments and palaces — The town gates — The Pont Vieux — The port — The terraces — The Hotel de la Prefecture — The Tour Bellanda — The Mint — Palais Lascaris — Palais Marie Christine — The churches of Nice — The Cathedral of Saint Reparate — The monasteries of Cimiez, Saint Pons, and Saint Barthelemy —Old inns ..... 138-163

Chapter VIII

The history of Nice and its worthies written in the names of its streets, squares, and public places — The Chateau de Montboron — The English and Russian churches . . 164-180

CONTENTS xi

Chapter IX

Legends of the country-side — The caterpillars of Contes — The Devil's Bridge at Eze — The capture of the Evil One by the Man of Contes . . . pages 181-205

Chapter X

Old customs in Nice — Lou Presepi — The Noue of the Madeleine — The Fete of the Rogations — The confraternities — "La Gloria'' — The Festins of Lent — The Cougourdons — Summer Festins — Folk-lore — W olf superstitions — Witch villages — Bad luck in planting cypresses — Bee customs — The mistral — Old weights and measures . . . 206-226

Chapter XI

The vegetation of the Riviera — Olives, palms, oranges, fruit trees and gardens — The carouba and the eucalyptus — The garden of Saint Barthelemy— The Grottos of Saint Andre and of Falicon— Bird life— The green lizard . . 227-248

Chapter XII

The industries of the Riviera — Wine — Scent — Dried fruits — The extinct tunny fishery — Pottery — The spread of gambling

249-261

Chapter XIII

The rivers of Nice — Gi-eat floods and storms in history — Cold years and earthquakes — Epidemics — The beginnings of Nice as a health resort — Difficulties of access — Gradual development—The annexation and the making of the railway — The position of Nice to-day .... 262-280 xii CONTENTS

Chapter XIV

The neighbourhood of Nice on the east of the Var — Mont Alban and its siege — The port of Villefranche — Duke Emmanuel Philibert's stud at Cap Ferrat — The Duchess and the Corsair — The Saracen tower — Beaulieu and Olivula — The worship of IsiSj and the vicissitudes of Eze — Contes — Chateauneuf, the Deserted Village— Luceram and Aspremont, their history — Mont Chauve — Pei'ra Cava and the Hinterland . pages 281-303

Chapter XV

The country west of the Var — The old frontier town of Saint Laurent-du-Var — The Castle of Cagnes — The Bishop's reproof to his flock — Francis I at the Chateau of Villeneuve-Louhet — The old burgh of Saint Paul — The battle between the armies of Vitellius and Otho at La Brague — Biot repeopled by Genoese — Curious custom at Vallauris — Antibes^ its venerable antiquity — Roman buildings — The Terpon Stone — Frequent sieges — Honoured by Louis XVIII — Bonaparte under arrest — Madame Letitia's sojourn — Demolition of the ramparts — Vence — Roman tombs — Development of Christianity there — Its Bishops — The Reformation — Huguenot persecutions — Village of Saint Jeannet — Gourdon — The country folk . 304-326

Chapter XVI

The Nice carnival — Its derivation and origin — Its history and its

development — Its present splendour , . . 327-343

List op Works Consulted . . ... 345

Acknowledgment . . ... 347

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I. The Old Cross at Cimiez . . . Frontispiece

TO FACE PAGE

II. Ruins of the Roman Amphitheatre at Cimiez . 24

III. Mediaeval Nice . . . . . .78

IV. Staircase of the Palais Lascaris . . . 148 V. La Croix de Marbre . . . . .150

VI. The Monastery Church at Cimiez . . .156

VII. Fountain of The Tritons in the Public Garden . 172

VIII. The Old Bridge over the Var . . . 262

IX. The Old Bridge over the Var . . . 268

X. Alpine Scenery at Peira-cava .... 302

Chapter I

Nice and the poets — The land of flowers — The Stone Man of the Riviera — The legend of Adam and Eve — The passing- of Heracles — Phoenician settlements — The foundation of Nice — The story of Glyptis — The coming of the Romans, and the rise of Cimiez.

THE northern coast of the blue Mediterranean lives, and has lived in the forefront of the world since European history began. Rich in time-honoured cities, and in golden legends of the past, the ages have wrapped it so closely in their embrace that to-day its existence is accepted without much thought as to what lies beyond that which is actually presented to the eye.

But the story of Nice and its country-side goes far back into the distant past, and even then that story springs from legend upon legend.

Writers in all times and in all countries have celebrated the beauties of the Riviera and the splendour of Nice. Set like a pearl on the rim of the azure semicircle of the Bay of Angels, with the snow-capped mountains — those altars of Nature on which the sun offers his sacrifice at dawn and sunset — rising in the background, its situation is incomparable. Well was Nice named in the chaplet of the cities of Italy, where each bore its own proud designation, Nizza la Bella. How fittingly were these titles bestowed — Rome, the Eternal City ; Genoa, the Proud ; Milan, the Great ; Lucca, the Industrious ; August Perugia, Iron Pistoia, and many another ; but Nice it was which shared with Florence — two cities of Flowers — the appellation Beauteous.

Poets have woven their fancies about Nice with no sparing hand ; here is what Heinrich Heine wrote : " From the sun which blazes in the firmament will I snatch the glowing and glittering gold to make a diadem for thine anointed brow. From the azure gossamer which floats from the arch of the sky, where flash the diamonds of night, will I tear a splendid fragment, and of it will I fashion thee a court mantle for thy regal shoulders." Theodore de Banville maintains that towns have their destinies written, and says that the lot of Nice is to reign unquestioned over all those daughter cities of the Mediterranean, lapped by limpid waves, and smothered in roses. There is an irresistible seduction in this Mediterranean, which passes

THE LAND OF FLOWERS 3

from azure and lapis-lazuli in the foreground, to the deeper richness of blue on the horizon, a delicious blue, a thousand times more so than that of the sky itself. In its liquid firmament bathe every night the cold flock of stars, for its waters are enchanted. But the soft Tyrrhenian Sea recalls its history no more. It is the Lake of Oblivion set at the gate of Paradise, and on its shores December, clad in verdure and flowers, usurps the place of spring. Roses everywhere, the day when Nice disappears from the page of history, it will surely be buried beneath a thicket of roses. So says the poet.

But this coast was not always a paradise of flowers. In the dim ages when Prehistoric Man fought his hard struggle for existence, it was a very different place from the sun-kissed, flowerbearing land it is to-day. Yet the interest of the Riviera begins with the Stone Age, for the remains of men and women of that period have been found at more than one spot. The question at once arises, what manner of man was he of the Stone Age ? Dr. Allen Sturge, a well-known living authority on the subject, tells us that he differed in no great measure from the man of the present day, although he was almost certainly of greater stature. He was no tillei of the soil, but a hunter and a fisherman, and the animals which he hunted (whose remains have been found here in close proximity to his) were the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, a great extinct lion, a huge extinct bear, and the extinct so-called " Irish " elk, with its magnificent spreading antlers, with many other forms of life now unknown ; domestic animals did not exist in the Stone Age. This primitive ancestor of ours lived in caves, or sheltered under overhanging rocks, and though he made no pottery, he carved horn and bone — sometimes even stone — to a high degree of finish. He had a rudimentary knowledge of drawing, and reproduced the outlines of the animals he was accustomed to see in everyday life. This is proved by the representation of a mammoth scratched on a piece of one of its own tusks, which may be seen in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris.

Some of the skeletons discovered on the Riviera are of great size. Out of ten which have been found of late years, the shortest man could not have been less than six feet four, while the tallest measures not less than seven feet. The women would seem to have been about six feet in height. But this Man of the Stone Age, besides being something of an artist, gave evidences of care for the adornment of his person,

STONE MAN OF THE RIVIERA 5

which places him higher than the mere hunter who chased wild animals to provide his daily food. Several skeletons which have been found were ornamented with what had been strings of shells pierced with holes, which had evidently been used as necklaces, bracelets, and even coronets. Other necklaces have been found made of deer's teeth, also pierced for stringing together.

The age of this first known inhabitant of the Riviera has caused much discussion, but it would appear to be an accepted view that he lived in the later period of the old Stone Age, an epoch impossible to date, but which probably runs into hundreds — rather than tens of thousands of years ago.

But although it is in comparatively recent years that we have acquired this knowledge of the Stone Man who once dwelt here, yet a pretty legend has for centuries been current along the coast in connection with Adam and Eve. The Riviera is fertile in legends, and this is not the least picturesque of them. There is no need to go into any comparative tables of dates ; let us accept the story that Adam and Eve were our first parents, and dismiss the older Stone Man to the dim, smoke-hung recesses of his cave on the sea-shore.

When the Almighty in His wrath had decreed that Adam and Eve should be expelled from the earthly Paradise, Adam, in his misery, thought only of the moment, and cursed the curiosity of his partner. Eve, more clear-sighted, took heed for the future, and, as the Archangel turned his back upon the guilty pair, to unlock the gate which led into the outer darkness of the world, ere leaving Paradise she furtively snatched a fine fruit from a lemon tree which grew beside the door.

Adam and Eve passed into exile, and the Archangel clanged the gate behind them, which shut them off for ever from the delights of Paradise. The moment they were alone Adam took his spouse to task. " Wretched woman," said he, " you have been talking to the serpent again." " No, no," replied Eve, "it is only a souvenir of Paradise." " If the Creator sees you there will be more trouble." " But He won't see me," retorted the first woman, quickly hiding the product of her theft under the somewhat exiguous proportions of the fig leaf which formed her single garment.

They trudged along as the seasons changed, now in blazing summer, and anon in the snows of mid- winter; they crossed rivers, and penetrated through vast forests, toiling painfully over mountains, and wandering through deserts

LEGEND OF ADAM AND EVE 7

and plains, until one day they found themselves in a country where the hill-side sloped gently towards the sea, whose blue waves sang softly under the everlasting sapphire of the sky. " This is the spot," cried Eve, throwing on the ground the lemon she had so long preserved. " Increase and multiply, O golden fruit, in this garden which is worthy of thy beauty." Thus were born the lemon trees on the Riviera, and thus did our first parents, driven out from the earthly Paradise for the sake of a common apple, find another, thanks to a lemon of gold.

But if the pride of prior antiquity be conceded to the lemon, yet the orange can claim an origin equally remarkable, and equally glorious. Still in the realms of legend, but at an epoch when legend was fast crystallizing into history, came the demi-god Heracles, conquering and swaggering along the Riviera, as he marched from conquest to conquest, till he set up the Pillars on the shores of the Atlantic where the Straits of Gibraltar join it to the Mediterranean. Heracles is presented to us by some of the old authors as a sort of primeval Napoleon, to whose genius many unexplainable works are attributed. Diodorus of Sicily precises so far as to tell us that he made a road along the Maritime Alps fit for the passage of armies and chariots.

The demi-god is said to have founded the town of Heracles Monaco, and was reposing after this task at Villefranche, where he was directing the harbour works, when Tanaris, the local chief of the Ligurians, who then inhabited the coast, sent a deputation to beg him to rid the land of the monsters which were decimating the flocks all over the country-side, offering a present of five hundred oxen for the due accomplishment of the task.

Heracles accepted, and straightway attacked the terrible winged serpent Octopis, in the gorges of Aspremont, where this legendary reptile had his lair. The hero quickly strangled it with his powerful hands, and used its body as a scourge, which served to whip to atoms the other monsters with which the whole neighbourhood was infested. Five hundred superb oxen were handed over with the grateful thanks of the tribesmen, but when Heracles started to drive them, he found it impossible to get them over Mount Boron. It was in the early spring-time, and when the innumerable cows scented the departure of the bulls, they bellowed to such an extent that the latter, breaking all control, smashed up the barriers and returned to their mates.

The vengeance of the demi-god is worthy of

THE PASSING OF HERACLES 9

the times and of the legend, for it is said to have been wrought on five hundred virgins of the tribe on the following night ! But the daughter of Tanaris succeeded in making the hero drunk, and while he was sleeping off the effects of his debauch, she stole his club. Flying to rouse her people, she led them to the attack of the camp, but Heracles awoke, and called the gods to his aid, by which means he obtained an easy victory. In the melee, however, the Apples of the Hesperides, which were packed up in his baggage, were spilt on the soil, where they have ever since flourished.

These legends of the passage of Heracles all along the coast refer, as is now well recognized, to the Phoenician nation personified and deified in him. Wherever we come across the name of Heracles or Melkarth, we have but to substitute for it that of the Tyrian people, of whom the conquering and civilizing hero was only the deified symbol and representative. As Lentheric points out, the tales of all the mythical historians with reference to the journeys and exploits of the demi-god, freed from all the fictions and embellishments with which the poetical imagination of the Greeks has surrounded them, assume the importance of geographical and historical documents. All the legends of Heracles, interpreted by sound sense and historical criticism, turn out to be nothing else than the history of the progress and the conquests of the original Tyrian people, and Heraclean towns are so many Ligurian towns transformed and colonized by the Phoenicians. Aristotle distinctly states that an ancient route led formerly from Italy to Gaul and Spain, passing successively, by way of the Maritime Alps, through the country of the Celto-Ligurians, then through that of the Iberians, and by way of the last spurs of the Pyrenees, on to the sea-coast. This road, which was not only a strategic route, but was also used for commercial purposes, was the great Heraclean Way. Portions of it are still found in many parts of Provence, and this was the road made eight or ten centuries before the Christian Era, if not by Heracles the demi-god, at any rate by — or for — the Tyrian merchants. The substratum of this primitive road was afterwards made use of for laying down the Domitian and Aurelian Ways, and hence it has, to a great extent, disappeared under the repairs and rectifications of the Romans. But the Phoenicians had been the first to mark out the route ; and the fragments of it which are found at various places inland, between the two Ligurian oppida of Vence and Cimiez, furnish indisputable evidence

PHOENICIAN SETTLEMENTS 11

that the Phoenician occupation was not confined to a mere coasting trade from port to port, but that it had struck its root deep into the heart of the country, and by works of public utility had brought thither the first elements of civilization and progress.

The Riviera henceforth enters into the direct historical period, although there is — as is natural — considerable diversity of opinion as to actual dates. What immediately concerns us here is the approximate era of the foundation of Nice. From the researches made by Monsieur J. Brun and Monsieur Honore Sappia, it can confidently be asserted that Nice is contemporary with Marseilles, and must have been built about six centuries before the birth of Christ, by the Phocaeans of Ionia, whose principal towns on the shores of the Mediterranean had been taken and burnt by the Persians. The testimony of Herodotus, of Diodorus of Sicily, of Ammianus Marcellinus, and certain other historians of great antiquity, should carry more weight than that of some writers who declare that Nice was founded some three hundred years after Marseilles, and three hundred years before the Christian Era.

There is no doubt that Nice is a Greek town ; its name proves it at once. It was to commemorate the victory gained by the Phocseans over the Carthaginians and the Tyrrhenians in the vicinity of the Isle of Cyrnos (Corsica), that the Phocseans decided to build a town which they called Nike (Victory). In the beginning the city was built on the sea-shore between the castle rock and the mouth of the Paillon, but the attacks of the Saleyan and Ligurian tribes who lived in the mountains round forced the inhabitants of the new town to move to the top of the rock, where they could more easily defend themselves.

According to Strabo, when the settlers who had founded Marseilles had become sufficiently strong, they penetrated into the adjacent country and even pushed on as far as the banks of the Var. Delighted with the picturesque country and luxuriant soil which bordered its eastern banks, they resolved on its immediate subjugation, and accordingly built the town of Nice, as a barrier to resist the opposition of the Ligurians, in an exceedingly strong position. The foundation of the town served at the same time as a monument of the signal victory which they had gained over the barbarians.

Leander Albertus attributes the origin of Nice to Nicius Laertes, Duke of Etruria, and instead of the word Nicsea, substituted Nicia : but

THE FOUNDATION OF NICE 13

Cluverius, with more probability, has restored to the people of Marseilles the credit of the foundation of the town, and fortifies his opinion with the authorities of Pliny, Ptolemy, and many other geographers. Those who have attempted to show that Nice was built on the ruins of Cimiez have to combat the weighty testimony of Sigonius, who assures us that (as will afterwards be proved) this city existed until the invasion of Gaul by the Lombards, and that Nice was reputed the second considerable town of Italy in the days of Ptolemy. It is easy to verify the opinions of this last author by examining his book of geography, where Nice is placed immediately after Rome, and before Tarracina, Naples, etc., but we may fairly conjecture that in making this statement he has taken Nice and Cimiez as practically one town, as they are to-day.

" Nicaea, Nicea, Nica, Graecis dicitur vUn Ptolemaeo, Straboni, Plineo, Catoni, Sempronio, Pomponio Melae, necnon Livii Stephanique breviatoribus." Cluverius remarks, " Nomen haud dubie sortita est Nicaea a re eventu, id est a vincendo, scilicet cum Massilienses, devictis ejectisque Liguribus ea littora obtinuissent." Other authors also confirm the preceding quotations, and this explanation seems the most appropriate and correct, as the name was bestowed in evident allusion to the triumph of the Greeks over the barbarians.

The chief local historians admit this theory, but do not agree exactly as to dates. Gioffredo states that Nice was built three hundred and twenty years before Christ, and two hundred and sixty years after the foundation of Marseilles, or at least — as he says — after the restoration of that city. Durante says that the Asiatic Phocseans built Marseilles six hundred years before the Christian Era, but, according to most chronologists, the date of this event is supposed to have been five hundred and thirtynine B.C. Here, then, would be an error of sixty-one years in Durante's statement, and of forty-one years in Gioffredo's, but these writers are neither of them famous for accuracy.

However that be, it is on record that, at the beginning of the first Punic War, Nice, which was a colony of Marseilles, repelled the attacks of the Carthaginians, and it was thanks to the devotion of the inhabitants of Nice that Marseilles was enabled to make an advantageous alliance with Rome, which Power, having expelled the Carthaginians from Sicily, became the undisputed mistress of the Mediterranean.

The first centuries of the history of Nice are

THE STORY OF GLYPTIS 15

wrapped in obscurity, beyond the fact first recorded, but it is known that the town followed the fortunes of the Mother City, and that when this part of Gaul fell under the sway of the Romans, Nice, as well as Marseilles, was permitted to govern itself by its own laws, and to preserve the privilege of electing its own magistrates.

The legend of the primal cause which led to its first settlement has been picturesquely related by Miss Dempster, in her valuable book on the Maritime Alps. Nann, the King of the Segobriges, held high festival, and all his chieftains were gathered round the board. The occasion was an auspicious one, for the banquet was held in honour of the betrothal of the fair Glyptis, the King's only daughter. The warriors filled their bowls, and pledged the maiden who entered the hall white-robed, with hair falling to her knees. The King would not coerce his daughter, and promised that she should wed him to whom she gave the cup of wine now brimming in her hands. Around her were all her father's trusted friends, each man of whom, as he praised her loveliness, hoping that the choice might fall on him. But the victory is not always to the strong ; Glyptis had known these rude soldiers, with their thick beards and gruff voices, and drinking exploits, since her childhood. As her eye wandered over the hall, it fell upon a strange face far down at the other end near the door. That must be the Phocaean youth of whom King Nann had spoken, and whom he had bidden to his board so that young Portis, when he returned to the Greek Isles, might tell his comrades how men feasted in the halls of a king, all of whose warriors were valiant, and whose only daughter was beautiful. Glyptis gazed at him, and hesitated ; she knew that he came from the lands of the sunshine, that his speech was softer than that of the nobles round her, and that he himself looked like, in beauty, one of the gods whom his people worshipped. The Princess hesitated but a moment, then, gliding through the rows of disappointed Gauls, she placed the troth-cup in the willing hands of the astonished Portis. The marriage was celebrated forthwith, and proved a very happy one. Portis and Glyptis (or Eumenus and Gyptis, as some call them) founded in the dominion of Marseilles a city of which Chateaubriand could say that she was Athens' youngest rival. Nice and Antibes were the children of this parent colony, but were naturally less well fitted to resist the fierce native tribes which harassed them almost unceasingly. It was the Greeks of Antibes who