A Book of the Riviera/Chapter 6

by Sabine Baring-Gould

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—Razatsand 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

Olive Trees

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 fruitbearing 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

Pines Near Hyères

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.

The churches of Hyères are not without interest. That of S. Paul, on the height, has immense substructures. It is a curious jumble of parts and styles. It dates back to the eleventh or twelfth century, but the vaulting is later, and later windows were added. The great square tower is Romanesque.

The other church, outside the walls, that of S. Louis, is in much better preservation. It was the chapel of the Knights of the Temple, and is of the twelfth century, very severe, without sculptured capitals to the pillars, and without clerestory. It is a somewhat gloomy church, deriving nearly all its light from the west window. The preceptory of the Templars is within the old town, and is now the Hôtel de Ville.

The ILes de Hyères are a detached portion of the crystalline rocks of the Montagnes des Maures. Their climatic condition is very different from that of Hyères, as they are exposed to the sweep of every wind. They are bleak and uninviting. The only inhabitants are fishermen, Customs-officers, and the lighthouse men.

On L'Ile du Levant was a reformatory for young criminals, started by M. de Pourtalès, but it came to a disastrous end.

According to a law of 1850, such reformatories might be founded and conducted by private individuals, and in 1860 the Count de Pourtalès, as an act of humanity, established an agricultural colony on this island for young criminals, and placed over it an amiable, well-intentioned man named Fauvau.

In Corsica was another, but that was a State establishment. It had become a nest of such disorder and misconduct that it was broken up in 1866, and some of the young criminals from this Corsican reformatory were drafted into that on the Ile du Levant, to the number of sixty-five. These young fellows began at once to give trouble; they complained of their food, of their work, and they demanded meat at every meal, tobacco, coffee, and daily six hours in which to amuse themselves. On Tuesday, October 2nd, they broke out in mutiny, smashed the windows and the lamps, destroyed some of the cells, and drove away the warders. The leader in the movement was one Coudurier, a boy of sixteen. By his command the whole body now rushed to the lock-up, where were confined some of those who had misconducted themselves, broke it open, and led them forth. Then they descended to the cellar, and with axes and crowbars burst open the door, tapped the barrels of wine, and drank as much as they liked.

Coudurier now ordered the breaking into of the storehouse. This was a building standing by itself; it had a strong door, and windows firmly barred with iron. The young ruffians succeeded in beating in the upper panels, but those below resisted all their efforts. They climbed over the solid portion and carried forth bacon, sausages, sugar, brandy, and what they could lay their hands on, and when well laden returned over the door to make way for others. Meantime Coudurier had chosen two lieutenants, Ferrendon and Allarcf, and, in council with them and some others of the worst miscreants, had resolved on putting to death several of their comrades whom they regarded as milksops and spies. By Coudurier's orders only those were allowed to enter the store-house whose names he called forth, and thus he sent fourteen of the lads he regarded as sneaks into the magazine. Then he emptied a bottle of petroleum over some paper by the door, and stationed Ferrendon and Allard to prevent the egress of the lads who had been sent in. Ferrendon by his orders set the petroleum on fire, and he provided Allard with a long knife with which to drive back the victims into the fire when endeavouring to escape, and to prevent any attempt at rescue. "Ferrendon," said he to a comrade, Lecocq, "is game for any mischief; and Allard is half-drunk." In a few minutes the sole entrance to the storehouse was a sheet of flame. One boy, Garibaldi, who was within, at once dashed through the fire and began to scramble over the broken door.

Allard stabbed him in the shoulder and breast, and then flung him down into the sheet of flaming petroleum. The scene now became inexpressibly horrible. The boys, seeing the fire rapidly spreading, got to the windows, put their arms between the bars, and screamed for help. They pulled at the gratings with desperation, but were unable to dislodge it. Two boys who ran forward to attempt to extinguish the fire were driven back by the knife of Ferrendon. Some of the young criminals did feel qualms, and a desire to free their comrades, but were overawed by Coudurier. The lighthouse man, who had come to the spot, got a blanket, dipped it in water, and ran to the door, but was seized by the boys, taken off his legs, and flung into a pit twenty feet deep, and broke his ankle in the fall, so that he was unable to stir. A boy who snatched at the blanket and tried to extend it to some of those in a window, was also flung into the pit; but he happily came off better, and ran away. The poor wretches within, black against a background of fire, shrieked and wept; their clothes, their hair, caught fire, and one by one they fell back into the flames behind. The frightful end of their comrades sobered the drunken, mutinous crew; and some strove to drown their fears for the consequences by drinking themselves into total unconsciousness.

Next day the mutineers scattered over the island, doing what mischief they pleased. Not till October 4th did help arrive, when the fire was extinguished, the island was occupied by soldiery, and the youths were taken to prison on the mainland, and the ringleaders brought to trial.

It may be wondered where was Fauvau, the Director, all this while. He and the chaplain had got into a boat and escaped to shore. What had become of the warders we are not told, but they seem also to have effected their escape.

On January 3rd, 1867, sixteen of the young criminals were tried at Draguignan. Ferrendon was a boy little over thirteen, a lad with a soft expressive face. Allard was aged thirteen, with a hangdog, evil look. One of the accused was a lad from Paris, refined in appearance and with large, beautiful eyes. One was aged twenty. Coudurier, Fouché, Laurent, and Bérond were found guilty by the jury, not of murder, but of homicide, with extenuating circumstances, and were sentenced to lifelong hard labour. Allard was condemned to be sent to a reformatory for ten years. Ferrendon was discharged as innocent! Guenau was also declared innocent. "Where, then, am I to sleep to-night?" he asked; whereupon the audience made up a handsome sum for him.

This was not the end of the matter. In prison one of these culprits murdered another of his fellow boy-convicts because he thought the latter had given evidence against him. It is hard to say which came out worst in this affair, the Director, Chaplain, and warders, or the jury at Draguignan.

Although M. de Pourtalès was willing to renew the experiment, the establishment was not restored, and of the reformatory only the ruins remain.