It is a place of extreme antiquity; since people lived within its rampart of rocks before the dawn of history. Some maintain that the Ph?nicians, after expelling these raw natives, fortified Eze, but then that ubiquitous and pushing people seems—at one time or another—to have occupied every place on the seaboard of Europe that can admit of some obscurity in its history.
Certain it is that the Romans when they landed possessed themselves of this town on the cliff and established a harbour in the bay which lies at its foot. When they, in their turn, had embarked in their galleys and sailed away the Lombards appeared, murdered all they could find, burned everything that would burn and robbed to the best of their exceptional abilities. This episode is ascribed to the year 578. The death-rate at
Eze must always have been very high, but during the time that the Lombards were busy in the district it must have risen almost to annihilation.
The Lombards and their kin held on to Eze, in an unsteady fashion, for nearly 200 years and when they had finished with it the Saracens entered upon the scene. These talented scoundrels crept up the cliff in swarms and, with such bloodshedding as the limited material at their disposal would allow, settled themselves upon the point of rock and proceeded to consolidate its position as a den of thieves. This disturbing change of tenancy is said to have taken place in 740 and as the Saracens were not driven from Provence until 980 they were longer in residence than the Lombards. They are credited with having built the castle—or rather the first castle—of Eze. They made slaves of as many of the natives as they could capture, spoke in a strange tongue, made themselves a horror in the land and, in general terms, did inconceivable things. Eze was one of the last strongholds of the Saracens on the Riviera and in order to make the evacuation of the place complete the town was razed to the ground.
After the last Saracens had clattered down the little zigzag path to their boats Eze fell upon still more evil days. It entered upon a period of unease so protracted that for centuries it was never certain of its fate from one day to another. It was taken and retaken over and over again. It was starved into submission at one time and burnt to the rock edge at another. It was occupied now by the Guelphs and now by the Ghibellines. It belonged one year to the House of Anjou and the next to the Counts of Provence. It was at one time a dependency of Naples and at another time of Monaco. It was bartered about like an old hat and sold or bought with a flaunting disregard of the sentiment of the people who were sold with it. Finally in the fourteenth century it was sold to Amadeus of Savoy in whose family it remained—with the exception of twenty-two years during the Revolution—down to its cession to France in 1860.[26]
It was visited by plague and devastated by fever. It had a varied experience of assassination, of poisoning and of modes of torture; while its information on the subject of sudden death and its varieties must have been very full. In order—it would seem—that its knowledge of every form of fulminating violence might be complete it was shaken by earthquake and mutilated by lightning.
The vicissitudes of Eze were indeed many. At one period it was the terror of the coast, supreme in villainy and unique in frightfulness; while, at another time, it was a seat of letters frequented by poets. It had its moments of exaltation as in 1246 when Rostagno and Ferrando, Lords of Eze, had rights over Monaco and Turbia and its moments of misery when it was little more than a howling ruin too bare to attract even a starving robber.
EZE.
Eze too has seen unwonted folk. Every type of scoundrel that Europe could produce, during the Middle Ages, must, at one time or another, have rollicked and drank and sworn within its walls. The strange troopers who strutted up and down its astonished lanes in the spring would often be replaced by still stranger blusterers before the winter came. During the time that Eze was a favourite resort of pirates it reached its climax in picturesqueness; for then its vaulted passages must have been bright with strange goods, its streets with curiously-garbed captives and its inns filled with seamen who roared forth villainous songs and then fell to fighting with knives over some such trifle as a stolen crucifix or a lady’s petticoat.
Southampton is a long way from Eze but, if certain records be reliable, the association of the two sea towns is very close. During the hostilities between France and England, in the time of Edward III, a fleet consisting of 50 galleys—French, Spanish and Genoese—arrived at Southampton in 1338 and landed a large body of men. The fleet was under the general orders of the French admiral, but the Genoese division was commanded by Carlo Grimaldi of Monaco, the famous seaman.
The landing party swarmed over the walls of the town or burst through the gates; they “killed all that opposed them; then entering the houses they instantly hanged many of the superior inhabitants, plundered the town and reduced great part of it to ashes.”[27] According to Stowe, in his “Annals,” this very effective assault took place at “nine of the clock” and the townsmen ran away for fear. “By the breake of the next day,” adds Stowe, “they which fled, by help of the country thereabout, came against the pyrates and fought them; in which skirmish were slain to the number of 300 pyrates, together with their captain, a young soldier the King of Sicilis son.” The entry into the town was made at the lower end of Bugle Street.
Now it is stated that the marauding party that attacked Southampton was composed, for the most part, of men from the Genoese division of the fleet and that the assault was led and the looting directed by Carlo Grimaldi in person. Grimaldi’s share of the plunder was so substantial that on his return to Monaco he purchased with the money the town of Eze in 1341.
It thus comes to pass that some of the savings of honest Hampshire citizens have been invested at one time in this very unattractive property.
[26]
“The Riviera,” Macmillan, 1885.
[27]
John Ballar, “Historical Particulars relative to Southampton,” 1820. John Stowe, “Annals,” London, 1631. J. S. Davies, “History of Southampton,” 1883.