A Book of the Riviera/Chapter 7
A Carob Tree
CHAPTER VII
LES MONTAGNES DES MAURES
Hugh makes terms with them : his history Marozia S. Majolus
William of Provence—Le Grand Fraxinet—Grimaud—S. Tropez—The Bravade.
A HUNCH of granite heaved up, and carrying on its back the beds of schist and gneiss that had overlain it, stands up between the Gapeau and the Argens. Its nearest geological relations, not connexions, are the Cevennes and Corsica, all pertaining to the same period of upheaval. Only to the east does the granite assert itself above the overlying formations. This mass of mountain is of no great elevation, never
rising above 1,200 feet, and extending over a superficies of 200,000 acres.
"It forms by itself," says Elisée Reclus, "an oregraphic system sharply limited. Its mass of granite, gneiss, and schist is separated from the surrounding limestone mountains by profound and wide valleys, those of the Aille, the Argens, and the Gapeau. In fact, it constitutes an ensemble as distinct from the rest of Provence as if it were an island separated from the continent."
The forms of the mountains are rounded, and there are no bold crags; but it is scooped out into valleys that descend rapidly to the sea and to little bays; and these scoopings afford shelter from winter winds and cold, facing the sun, and walled in from every blast.
I know a farm kitchen where a pair of curved settees are drawn about the fire, and the gap between the settees is closed in the evening by a green baize curtain. The family sits on a winter night in this cosy enclosure, the men with their pipes and jugs of cider, the women knitting and sewing; all chattering, singing, laughing.
Now the southern face of the Maures is precisely such a snuggery formed by Nature. The mountains curve about to focus the sun's rays; and the cork woods, evergreen, kill all glare. Here the date trees ripen their fruit; here the icy blasts do not shrivel up the eucalyptus, and smite down the oranges.
The pity is, there are as yet no well-established winter resorts at Lavandou, Cavalière, and, above all, Cavalaire—places more adapted to delicate lungs than Hyères, exposed to the currents of wind over the Crau; than that blow-hole S. Raphael, planted between the cheeks of the Maures and l'Estérel; than Cannes, where the winds come down from the snows over the plains of the Siagne; than Nice, with the Paillon on one side and the Var on the other.
But for the English visitor in these suntraps three things are lacking—a lawn-tennis ground, a lending library, and an English chapel. Inevitably the Bay of Cavalaire will, in the future, become a great refuge for invalids. But that this may become so, above all, what is needed is a bunch of thorns applied to the tail of the engine that runs the train along the line from Hyères to S. Raphael by the coast. From Hyeres to that place is just fifty miles, and the quick trains do it in four, the slow in five hours.
The mountains are mantled in cork wood, save the bald heads of some, and the making of corks is the main industry of the scattered villages.
The cork tree (Quercus suber) retains its leaves for two years. It has two envelopes of bark, which are quite distinct. The inner cannot be removed without destroying the life of the tree.
Virgin cork is not of much value; it is employed only for nets, and has no elasticity.
Only after the third harvest is the cork in perfect condition. The tree is then about forty years old. It is first skinned (démasclée) when the tree is aged twenty or five-and-twenty. The second peeling takes place when it is aged thirty or five-and-thirty. The third and best is collected when the tree is between forty and forty-five years old. The cork is taken off the trunk from above the ground to a height of about six feet, leaving the under surface of a coffee colour.
The cork bark is plunged into a cauldron of boiling water, and is left in it for half an hour. Then it is cut into strips, next into squares. It is again boiled for a quarter of an hour, and then allowed slowly to dry, and is not touched again for six months, after which it is cut into shape. The best corks are made out of strips that have been kept for three years. To whiten the corks they are subjected to sulphur fumes.
The great enemy to the cork tree is the Coroebus bifascatus, an insect that bores a gallery, not in the bark, but in the wood of the tree. It attacks the branches, and its presence can be detected by the sickly look of the leaves. When this indication shows that it is burrowing, the branches affected are cut off above the point to which it has bored, and are burnt.
At one time it was supposed that the cork tree required no culture. But of late years great pains have been taken with it, and it readily responds to them. A self-sown tree growing up in the midst of heather and cistus is not likely to attain to a great size. It is cut down to the root; then, when it sends up fresh shoots, one is kept, the rest removed. This operation has to be repeated, and the ground about the root to be well dressed. After six years the tree will take care of itself.
The great danger, above all, to which the cork woods are exposed, is fire; whole tracts have been devastated in this way, and the proprietors ruined. Consequently, precautions are insisted on. Smokers are specially warned not to throw about their unextinguished matches.
The carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua) is another that is met with, and which attracts the attention of the visitor from the north. The pods, called locust beans, are supposed to have been those on which S. John the Baptist fed when in the wilderness. These beans grow in shape like a horn, which has given its name to the tree. They contain a sweet nutritious pulp, enclosing yellow seeds. The fruit is used extensively for feeding animals, and is eaten by children, who, indeed, will eat anything. When the phylloxera was ravaging the vineyards of France, a company started a distillery at Cette to manufacture cognac out of the fruit of the carob. But it failed, as the brandy so made retained a peculiar and disagreeable flavour that could not be got out of it.
The carob is an evergreen, vigorous and beautiful, It grows in most stony, arid spots, where is hardly a particle of soil. Such a tree cannot live only on what it derives from its roots; it must live in a great measure by its leaves, as, indeed, to a large extent, do all evergreens. The scanty soil will in many places not feed trees that drop their leaves in autumn, and supply them afresh every spring. Such renewal exacts from the poor soil more than it can furnish. Consequently, Nature spreads evergreens over the rocky surfaces that contain but slight nutritive elements. Thus it is that in Provence the vegetation is nearly all of an evergreen character.
Beside the manufacture of corks, the inhabitants of the Maures breed silkworms, and so grow mulberry trees for their sustenance.
King Réné is credited with having introduced the mulberry into Provence from Sicily; but it is more probable that it is indigenous. What Réné did was to suggest its utilisation for the feeding of the silkworm. This branch of production was greatly encouraged by Henry IV., but wars and intestine troubles, the ravaging of the country by rival factions, by the Savoyards and by the French, caused the cultivation of the silkworm to decline. Of late years, however, it has been on the increase, and the number of mulberry trees planted has accordingly also, greatly increased. The Chain des Maures takes its name from the Saracens, who occupied it, and made it their stronghold, whence they descended to burn and destroy.
By the infusion of new elements, forms of government, new religious ideas, conceptions of individual and political rights, the old world of Gaul was in process of transformation; it was gradually organising itself on a broad basis, when in the midst of this society in reconstruction appeared a new element, quite unknown, and on whose advent no reckoning had been made. It came from the coasts of Africa, and was Mohammedan. Some called these people Hagarenes, as descendants of Hagar, but they themselves regarded their descent as from Sarah, and so called themselves Saracens.
Their first appearance on the Provençal coast was in 730, when they sacked Nice and other towns, and the inhabitants fled to the mountains to save their lives.
They harassed the littoral incessantly, not in large forces at a time, attempting a conquest, but arriving in a few vessels, unexpectedly, to pillage, murder, and carry away captives. As soon as ever the forces of the Counts arrived, they escaped to their ships and fled, to recommence their devastations at another point.
In 846 the Saracens carried ruin and desolation over the whole plain of Aix, and made themselves masters of all vantage points along the coast. The population sunk in despair, no longer offered effective resistance, and the nobles, quarrelling among themselves, invoked the aid of the infidels against their neighbours of whom they were jealous. About this time it happened that a Moorish pirate was wrecked in the bay of S. Tropez. He soon saw the strategic value of the chain of granite and schist mountains, and returning to Africa collected a large band, crossed the sea, and took possession of the whole mountainous block. At this time, moreover, Mussulman Spain was a prey to a bloody schism. The dynasty of the Abassides was succeeded by that of the Ommiades, and the vicissitudes of parties continually augmented the number of those who were conquered and proscribed. These, flying from Spain, sought refuge in this corner of Provence, which by such means was converted into a little Mussulman realm. On every height was built a rebath, a fort that the Christians called a fraxinet, whence a sharp watch was kept over the sea, and should a merchant vessel be descried, at once a flotilla of pirate boats started out of the harbour of S. Tropez, and fell on the unfortunate merchantmen.
Thus established here, masters also of the Balearic Isles, of Sardinia and Sicily, as well as of the African coast, they completely paralysed the trade of the Mediterranean, and exposed the inhabitants of the seaboard, that was Christian, to daily peril of being carried off to be sold in the slave markets of Tunis and Morocco.
In Spain, the Mussulman conquerors had developed a high state of civilization. They had become architects of great skill. They cultivated science and literature.
In Provence they were not constructive. They did nothing for civilization, everything to waste, set back, and to destroy. They have left behind them in the country not a trace, save a few names, of their strongholds. The condition of affairs had became intolerable. The Moors of the Grand Fraxinet, their principal fortress in the Montagnes des Maures, started on a pillaging expedition, crossed Lower Provence, and entered the Alps. As they turned north they met with great resistance. They ascended the river Roja, they pushed over the Col de Tende, and descended into the plains of Lombardy. They took the monastery of S. Dalmas de Pedene, and although most of the monks had fled, they caught and killed forty of them, and either massacred or took prisoners all the peasants about.
Another pillaging excursion crossed the great S. Bernard to attack the monastery of S. Maurice, where the Archbishop of Embrun, and some of the Provençal prelates had stored the treasures of their churches. A third party from the Fraxinet, aided by a fleet from Africa, had taken Genoa, and put all the inhabitants to the edge of the sword.
Hugh, Count of Provence and King of Italy, was appealed to for aid. Having no naval force to oppose to that of the Moors, he solicited help from the Emperor of the East, and a fleet from Constantinople entered the Gulf of S. Tropez, and burnt that of the Saracens. Hugh, in the meantime, invaded the mountains and reached the Fraxinet.
But whilst thus engaged, he heard that Berengarius, Marquess of Ivrea, had taken advantage of his absence to fall on his possessions in Italy. Hugh thereupon dismissed the Greek fleet, and made an alliance with the Saracens, to whom he committed the passages of the Alps.
About this same Hugh of Provence, one of the biggest scoundrels who ever breathed, it will be as well to say something.
Hugh was the son of Theobald, Count of Provence, and of Bertha, daughter of Lothair, King of Burgundy. The House of Provence had acquired great possessions during the reign of Louis III., King of Aries and Emperor (d. 915), the uncle of Hugh. But Hugh was not content. He raised pretensions to the kingdom of Italy, then held by Rudolf, King of Transjuran Burgundy. Hugh was seconded by his half-brothers Guido and Lambert, Dukes of Tuscany and Spoleto, and by his sister, Ermengarde, widow of the Marquess of Ivrea Pope John X., Lambert, Archbishop of Milan, and nearly all the Lombard nobles, supported his claim, and he disembarked at Pisa in 926, and was crowned at Pavia. The crafty Hugh, fully estimating the influence of the clergy in the politics of Italy, affected the most profound zeal for religion, and flattered the clergy. John X., in Rome, was in a difficult position. Rome at the time was ruled by the infamous Marozia. John had been the favourite of Marozia's equally infamous mother Theodora. He had, in fact, been her paramour, and it was she who had advanced him from one bishopric to another, and had finally placed the tiara on his head. On the death of his mistress, John found himself engaged in a fierce contest for the mastery of Rome with Marozia and her lover, or husband, the Marquess Alberic, by whom she had a son of the same name, and another, by Pope Sergius it was rumoured, whom she afterwards elevated to the Papacy.
John managed to drive the Marquess out of Rome, and he was assassinated in 925; whereupon Marozia married Guido, Duke of Tuscany, half-brother of Hugh of Provence. The Pope hoped, notwithstanding this connexion, by offering the prize of the Imperial crown, to secure Hugh's protection against his domestic tyrants. But he was disappointed. Marozia seized on the Pope, the former lover of her mother. His brother Peter was killed before his face, and John was thrown into prison, where, some months after, he died, either of anguish or, as was rumoured, smothered with a pillow.
Marozia did not venture at once to place her son on the Papal throne. A Leo VI. was Pope for some months, and a Stephen VII. for two years and one month. The son was still a mere boy, too young for the shameless woman to advance him to the Chair of S. Peter. But on the death of Stephen, Marozia again ruled alone in Rome; Guido, her husband, was dead, and she made her son Pope under the title of John XI.
But Marozia was not satisfied with having been the wife, first of a Marquess, then of a Duke; the mistress of Pope Sergius, the mother of Pope John XI. She sent to offer her hand to Hugh of Provence, the new King of Italy. Hugh was not scrupulous in his amours, but there was an impediment in the way. She had been the wife of his half-brother. But the youthful Pope, the son of the wretched woman, was ready with a dispensation, and the marriage was celebrated in Rome.
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 Adel fried, 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 
Grimaud
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 Due de Mercceur 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.