A Book of the Riviera/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
MENTONE
THE traveller by rail from Nice to Mentone is hardly able to appreciate the configuration of the land, and to understand what are the special advantages enjoyed by Mentone over Nice and Cannes.
Let us take a sickle to represent the mountain system from the Swiss Alps to the Abruzzi. If the sickle be held with the point upward and the cutting edge turned away from one, then the great curve of the inner edge represents the vast basin of the Po and its tributaries. At Mont Blanc the Alpine sweep turns south and runs to Monte Viso, forming the Dauphiné Alps. From Monte Viso the ridge curves to the east till it meets the shank above Genoa, and the handle of the sickle is the range of the Apennines.
From Nice one can see the snowy peaks. Les Cimes du Diable are visible, but away to the north-east, for the chain is on the curve there. Above the Riviera di Ponente the chain draws very near to the sea, but throws out spurs and allows of a ledge resting against it, intervening between it and the Mediterranean. Now in leaving Nice by the Corniche Road we can see this formation, we learn how the Alps describe a great arc; but this is lost to us in the train, hugging the seashore and diving in and out of tunnels.
It is only by the Corniche Road, when we have reached La Turbie, that we discern how specially privileged are Mentone and the Italian Riviera. We see before us an amphitheatre, with mountain stages, and the blue sea for arena. The mountains run up to 3,000 and 4,000 feet, and wall about the fertile bottom, the seats about the sea, sheltering them from every blast. The higher mountains of grey limestone are bare, but below all is rich with luxuriant vegetation.
"The entire bay and the town of Mentone, with its background of swelling, olive-clad hills closed in by the amphitheatre of mountains, are thus thoroughly protected from the north-west, north, and north-east winds. To thoroughly understand and appreciate the district and its singularly protected character, a boat should be taken, and the panorama viewed a mile or two from the shore. The extreme beauty of the coast will amply repay the trouble. Thus seen, all the details are blended into one harmonious whole; the two bays becoming one, and the little town scarcely dividing them. The grandeur of the semicircular range of mountains, generally steeped in glorious sunshine, also comes out in broad outline. These mountains
positively appear to all but encircle the Mentonian amphitheatre in their arms, to thus separate it and its inhabitants from theworld at large, and to present it to the blue Mediterranean waves and to the warm southern sunshine.
"Behind the mountains which thus form the background of the Mentonian valleys, are still higher mountains, rising in successive ranges to an altitude of from 5,000 to 9,000 feet. The higher ranges constitute the high Alps of Savoy and Dauphiné. The presence of this second and higher mountain range greatly increases the protection afforded to the coast-line by the lower one, and partly explains its immunity from the winter cold of continental Europe.
"Thus the Mentone amphitheatre, being only open to the south, south-east, and south-west, the Mistral, as a north-west wind, is not at all felt, and but slightly as a deflected south-west wind. All the northerly winds pass over the higher mountains and fall into the sea at some distance—several miles from the shore. When they reign there is a calm, not only in the bay at Mentone, but for some distance out at sea; whilst at a few miles from the shore it may be crested and furious."[1]
But this protected and warm nook can be enjoyed only during the months in the depth of winter. When the sun begins to gather warmth, the heat becomes
oppressive, the lungs gasp for air, and one feels desirous to be invested with sufficient faith to be able to move the mountains some miles back. There are two Mentones, the very dashing, frivolous, up-to-date modern town, with expensive tastes; bound for life to the elderly Mentone, grave, a little dilapidated, and intent only on business. But young and gay Mentone is stealing an arm round the old partner and laying hold of the even more sheltered and balmy bay beyond, now dotted with villas, and punctuated with hotels.
Mentone is pre-eminently the district of lemons and oranges, grown here for the fruit, and not, as at Grasse, for the flower. Lemons at Mentone are more numerous than oranges. They are not so beautiful, as the fruit has not the golden hue of the orange—it is green or pale sulphur yellow. The fruit of the orange tree will bear 7° Fahr. below freezing point without being seriously affected, but the lemon tree is much more sensitive, and is killed by 8°; it may also perish by over-much moisture in the atmosphere. When a sharp frost sets in, the owners of a plantation of oranges or lemons are in dire alarm, and light fires in the groves, strewing green leaves and grass over the flames to produce smoke, which to a considerable extent prevents radiation, and the temperature falling too low.
The lemon tree flowers throughout the year, never resting, flower and fruit being on the tree at the same time. On no other part of the coast do these trees grow as freely as they do at Mentone and Bordighera. But there are no ancient lemon trees, as about once in thirty-five years a bitter winter sets in, and the poor trees perish.
The orange tree flowers once only in the year, and bears but a single crop. The fruit ripens in autumn and winter. We, in England, never have the orange in its perfection, as it is picked when green or turning golden and ripens in the cases in which it is packed. But for the orange to be in perfection, luscious and sweet, it should be left on the tree till the end of April, or even into May. It is a beautiful sight, during the winter, to see the orange groves laden with their glorious fruit. The most delicious oranges are those with thin skins, the Mandarin or Tangerine, which ripen earlier than do the Portuguese thick-skinned species.
The history of Mentone is not of great interest, and it may be dismissed in a few words. Mentone and rock-perched Roquebrune belonged to the Prince of Monaco. The Grimaldi, John II., having quarrelled with Genoa, appealed for help to the Duke of Savoy, and to buy this help, in 1448 ceded these two places to him for an annual rent of 200 gold florins. However, the Grimaldi got this territory back again, but lost it in 1848, when Mentone and Roquebrune revolted against the fiscal burdens imposed on them by the Prince, and declared themselves independent republics. The President of the Republic of Mentone was Charles Trenca, who died in 1853. Finally, in 1860, both places were united to France, and the claims of the Prince of Monaco were bought off for the sum of four million francs.
There is little of architectural interest in Mentone. The church, built in 1619, and added to in 1675, is in the tasteless style of the period, but tower and spire are effective from a distance. In the church is preserved a processional cross, the staff of which is formed out of a Turkish lance taken by Prince Honoré I. of Monaco, in the battle of Lepanto, 1571. But if Mentone be somewhat deficient in picturesque features, the same cannot be said of Roquebrune, which for so many centuries shared its fortunes. It is dominated by the castle of the Lascaris. At Roquebrune, every year, on the first Sunday in August, the Mystery of the Passion is represented in a procession that illustrates the various scenes of the portentous tragedy. It starts from the chapel of N.D. de la Pansa, on the east side of the little town, a chapel decorated with frescoes of the fifteenth century. The narrow streets, passing under vaults, the quaintness of the houses, above all the superb panorama commanded by Roquebrune, make it a place meriting a visit.
Still more quaint and picturesque is Castellar, forming a quadrilateral fortress, planted on a plateau commanding two valleys. It is composed of three long parallel streets. The exterior of the village or town is the wall that encloses the place, and the houses thus form the wall, and look outward only through eyelet holes. Turrets flank the angles. The chapel of S. Sebastian is romanesque. Here also the Lascaris had a palace. Castellar stands 1,200 feet above the sea. We can hardly realise till how late a period the pirates of the Mediterranean were a scourge to this coast, and forced the natives to build every village and town in a place not easily accessible, and form of it a fortress.
For many centuries first the Saracens, then the Turks and Moors of Tunis and Algiers, ravaged this coast. Not so much for gold and silver—for of this the poor fishermen, shepherds, and tillers of the soil had none, but to capture slaves. The women were handsome and the men able-bodied.
"There are still men living at Mentone," says Dr. Bennet, "who in the early part of this century (i.e. 19th) were seized on the coast by Moors, and subsequently lived for years as slaves at Algiers and Tunis." Indeed, piracy reigned supreme on the Mediterranean until the year 1816, when Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers; but it was not finally stamped out till the conquest of Algiers by the French in 1830. When Lord Exmouth bombarded Algiers, there were thousands of Christian slaves, mostly captured on the Riviera, serving in the Algerine galleys. It was against the sudden descent of these pirates that the watch towers were erected along the coast, which may be seen at intervals as far as Genoa.
At Castellar, on the Place de la Mairie, is given on January 2Oth, every year, an open-air ball which winds up the series of festivities, religious and secular, accorded in honour of the patronal saint, S. Sebastian.
Mentone was "invented" by Dr. J. Henry Bennet, whose delightful book on Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean, 1861, has gone through several editions, and is still the best guide to such as are in quest of a winter resort. He settled at Mentone in 1859, and speedily appreciated its climatic advantages. These advantages are inestimable for the worst winter months. But when the sun gathers strength, it is advisable for the traveller to break his return journey to the cold and fogs of England by a cool bath in S. Raphael "ventosa."
Sir Thomas Hanbury has also done much for the place. His gardens are well worth seeing. An electric tram will take a visitor along the bay to a fountain erected by Sir Thomas Hanbury, near the frontier of Italy. That frontier runs down the torrent of S. Louis, where may be seen, on a fine day, sketchers and painters engaged in transferring to their books or canvases the impression produced by this ravine, with arches one above the other, for the railway and for the Corniche Road, whilst below are women washing garments in the little stream. The magnificent cliffs rise here in sheer precipices, and are composed of nummulitic limestone. Formerly the headland stretched to the sea, leaving only a strip between the rocks and the waves, along which strip ran the Via Aurelia. The rock was perforated with caves, nine in number. But it has been cut back for building stone, and the grottoes have been much reduced in depth. The caves served as a habitation for man from a remote period, and not solely as a habitation, but also as a sepulchre. The Barma Grande was filled to a depth of thirty feet of deposit, that deposit consisting of fallen stones, bones of beasts, flint weapons and tools, remains of hearths and charcoal, and human skeletons.
It has been dug into by many and various explorers, and not always with judgment, and with precise record of the depths at which various discoveries have been made.
The present proprietor used the soil for the purpose of making a garden, and it was only when he came upon human remains that it occurred to him that he could turn the cavern into a show place, and get more out of it in that way than he could by growing cabbages in the soil removed from it. In these caves a considerable number of skeletons have been found ; in the first, the Grotte des Enfants, two bodies were discovered of children of six and four years old, lying at a depth of eight feet, side by side. They had evidently been clothed in little loin-cloths embroidered with pierced shells.
In the fourth cave, the Grotte du Cavillon, was found the skeleton of an adult twenty feet below the surface, lying on his left side, the cheek resting on the left hand, and the head and body had been dusted over with red ochre, which had stained the bones. The head had been covered with a sort of cap made of, or adorned with, perforated shells and dogs' teeth, and similar ornaments must have been stitched on to garters about his legs.
The sixth cave, Bausso da Torre, furnished two bodies of adults and one of a child, and with these were flint weapons, bracelets, and necklets of shells.
In 1884 M. Louis Julien found a human skeleton lying at a depth of twenty-five feet, the head bedded in red ochre, and near it numerous flakes of flint. Since then others have been found, and the present proprietor has preserved them in situ, under glass, in the cave, at the precise levels at which discovered. In 1892, three were found, all lying on their left sides. One of these had pertained to a young woman. All three had been buried along with their personal ornaments, and all with the ferruginous powder over them.
Finally, in 1894, another human skeleton was unearthed at a higher level; and soon after again another.
All these interments belong to man at a period before the use of metals was known, and when the only tools employed were of bone and flint The purpose of covering them with red oxide was to give to the bodies a fictitious appearance of life. The men were of a great size, tall and well built, taller indeed than are the natives of the Riviera at the present day; and the heads are well developed—the skulls contained plenty of brains, and there is nothing simian about the faces.
A little prehistoric museum has been built on a platform near the caves, where most of the relics found in them are preserved ; but some are in the museum at Mentone itself.
- ↑ Bennet, Winter and Spring on the Mediterranean. London, 1870.