Certain conventional phrases are used in describing the site of a village or small town. When it lies at the bottom of a hill it “nestles” and when it approaches the top it “perches.” Roquebrune is distinctly “perched” upon the hillside. Indeed it appears to cling to it as a house-martin clings to sloping eaves and to keep its hold with some difficulty. The town looks unsteady, as if it must inevitably slip downwards into the road.
At some little distance behind Roquebrune is a great cliff from the foot of which spreads a long incline. It is on a precarious ledge on this slope that the place is lodged, like a pile of crockery on the brink of a shelf and that shelf tilted.
An enticing feature about any town is the approach to it, the first close sight of its walls, the glimpse of the actual entrance that leads into the heart of it. Now the entrance to Roquebrune is strange, strange enough to satisfy the expectation of any who, seeing the place from afar, have wondered what it would be like near at hand. A steep path, paved with cobble stones, mounts up between two old yellow walls and at the end of the path is the town. It is entered by a flight of stone steps which, passing into the shadow of a tunnelled way beneath high houses, opens suddenly into the sunlight of the chief street of Roquebrune.
It is a cheerful little town, clean and trim. It is undoubtedly curious and as one penetrates further into its by-ways it becomes—as Alice in Wonderland would remark—“curiouser and curiouser.” It is largely a town of stairs, of straight stairs and crooked stairs, of stairs that soar into dark holes and are seen no more, of stairs that climb up openly on the outside of houses, of stairs bleached white, of stairs green with speeds and of stairs that stand alone—for the place that they led to has gone. It would seem to be a precept in Roquebrune that if a dwelling can be entered by a range of steps it must be so approached in preference to any other way.
ROQUEBRUNE, FROM NEAR BON VOYAGE.
The streets are streets by name only, for they are mere lanes and very narrow even for lanes. They appear to go where they like, so long as they go uphill. They all go uphill, straggling thither by any route that pleases them. The impression is soon gained that the people of Roquebrune are living on a curious staircase fashioned out of the mountain side. So far as the outer world is concerned Roquebrune would be described as “upstairs.” The houses seem to have been tumbled on to the giant steps as if they had been emptied out of a child’s toy-box only that they have all fallen with the roofs uppermost. There results a confusing irregularity that would turn the brain of a town planner.
Roquebrune has been piled up rather than built. The front doorstep of one house may be just above the roof of the house below, with only a lane to separate them; while two houses, standing side by side may find themselves so strangely assorted that the kitchen and stables of the one will be in a line with the bedrooms of the other.
The houses are old. They form a medley of all shapes and sizes, heights and widths. They conform to no pattern or type. They can hardly be said to have been designed. The majority are of stone. Some few are of plaster and these are inclined to be gay in colour, to be yellow or pink, to have little balconies and green shutters and garlands painted on the walls.
The streets are delightful, because they are so mysterious and have so many unexpected turns and twists, so many odd corners and so many quaint nooks. In places they dip under houses or enter into cool, vaulted ways, where there is an abiding twilight. There are intense contrasts of light and shade in the by-ways of Roquebrune, floods of brilliant sunshine on the cobble stones and the walls alternating with masses of black shadow, each separated from the other by lines as sharp as those that mark the divisions of a chess-board. There are suspicious-looking doors of battered and decaying wood, stone archways, cheery entries in the wall that open into homely sitting-rooms as well as trap-like holes that lead into mouldy vaults.
One small street, the Rue Pié, appears to have lost all control over itself, for it dives insanely under another street—houses, road and all—and then rushes down hill in the dark to apparent destruction. There is one lane that is especially picturesque. It is a secretive kind of way, bearing the romance-suggesting name of the Rue Mongollet. It is very steep, as it needs must be. It is dim, for it passes under buildings, like a heading in a mine. It winds about just as the alley in a story ought to wind and finally bursts out into the light in an unexpected place. It is to some extent cut through rock, so that in places it is hard to tell which is house and which is rock.
There is a piazza in Roquebrune, a real public square, a place, with the name of the Place des Frères. It lies at the edge of the cliff where it is protected by a parapet from which stretches a superb view of the green slope to the road and, beyond the road, of Cap Martin and the sea. It is a peculiar square, for on two sides there are only bald precipices. In one corner are a café and a fountain, while on the third side is a school. The piazza is, no doubt, used for occasions of ceremony, for speech making and receptions by the mayor; but on all but high days and holidays it is a playground for a crowd of busy children.
The church is placed near a point where the sea-path makes its entry into Roquebrune. It is comparatively modern and of no special interest. On the wall of a house near by is a stone on which is carved a monogram of Christ with a “torsade” or twisted border. This is said to be a relic of an ancient church which stood upon the site of the existing building.
There is, however, a delightful and unexpected feature about the present church. A door opens suddenly from the sombre aisle into the sunshine of a wondrous garden—wondrous but very small. The garden skirts the rim of the rock upon which the church stands. It is a more fitting adjunct to the church than any pillared cloister or monastic court could be. It is a simple, affectionate little place and is always spoken of by those who come upon it as “the dear little garden.” There are many roses in it, a palm tree or two and beds bright with iris and hyacinth, narcissus and candytuft and with just such contented flowers as are found about an old thatched cottage. There is a well in the garden and a shady bench with a far view over the Mediterranean. Old houses and the church make a background; while many birds fill the place with their singing. In this retreat will often be found the curé of Roquebrune. He is as picturesque as his garden, as simple and as charming.
On the crown of Roquebrune stands the old castle of the Lascaris. It still commands and dominates the town, as it has done for long centuries in the past. It is disposed of by Baedeker in the following words “adm. 25c.; fine view.” It is a good example of a medi?val fortress and is much less ruinous than are so many of its time. It is placed on the bare rock which forms the top of the town and is surrounded by great walls. It is a veritable strong place, with a fine square tower, tall, massive and imposing. It is covered on one side with ivy and has thus lost much of its ancient grimness, while about its feet cluster, in a curious medley, the red, grey and brown roofs of the faithful town.
Within the keep are a great hall, many vaulted rooms and a vaulted stair which leads to the summit of the castle. Those with an active imagination will find among the ruins the guard-room, the justice chamber, the ladies’ quarters and the dungeons, but the lines which indicate such places have become exceedingly faint. Certain trumpery “restorations” have been carried out in this lordly old ruin which would discredit even a suburban tea-garden. The only apology that could be offered for them is that they would not deceive a child of five.
It is impossible to regard Roquebrune seriously or to think of it as an old frontier stronghold that has had a place in history. Roquebrune, as a town, belongs to the country of the story book. It is a town for boys and girls to play in. It is just the town they love to read about and dream about and to make the scene of the doings of their heroes and heroines and their other queer people. From a modern point of view this happy little town is quite ridiculous. It is full of funny places, of whimsical streets and of those odd houses that children draw on slates when one of them has made the rapturous suggestion—“let us draw a street.” It has an odd well too—a real well with real water—but it is bewitched and haunted by real witches. At least the people about are so convinced they are real that they are afraid to come to the well for water. Now a well of this kind is never met with in an ordinary town.
There are walled places in Roquebrune where oranges and lemons are growing side by side and where both lavender and rosemary are blooming. The garden of the church is a child’s garden, for the paths are narrow and roundabout and the flowers are children’s flowers such as are found on nursery tables, while the whole place bears that pleasant form of untidiness which is only to be found where children are the gardeners. There is in the town—as everybody knows—a Place des Frères and with little doubt there is also, somewhere on the rock, a Place des S?urs which is prettier and which only a favoured few would know about or could find their way to.
Nothing that happens in any story book would seem out of place in Roquebrune. Indeed one is surprised in wandering through its curious ways to find it occupied by ordinary people, men with bowler hats and women who are obviously not princesses. One expects to come upon blind pedlars, old women in scarlet capes and pointed hats, mendicants who are really of royal blood, hags—especially hags with sticks—ladies wrapped in cloaks which just fail to conceal their golden hair, servants carrying heavy boxes with great secrecy and mariners from excessively foreign parts.
There is a steep, cobble-paved lane in Roquebrune up which Jack and Jill must assuredly have climbed when they went to fetch the pail of water which led to the regrettable accident. Indeed it is hardly possible for a child, burdened with a bucket, not to tumble down in Roquebrune. By the parapet in the Place des Frères there is a stone upon which Little Boy Blue must have stood when he blew his horn; for no place could be conceived more appropriate for that exercise. There are walls too without number, walls both high and low, some bare, some green with ferns, which would satisfy the passion for sitting upon walls of a hundred Humpty Dumpties.
The town itself is—I feel assured—the kind of town that Jack reached when he climbed to the top of the Beanstalk, for the entrance to Roquebrune is precisely the sort of entrance one would expect a beanstalk to lead to. In one kitchen full of brown shadows, in a side street near the Rue Pié, is an ancient cupboard in which, almost without question, Old Mother Hubbard kept that hypothetical bone which caused the poor dog such unnecessary distress of mind; while in a wicker cage in the window of a child’s bedroom was the Blue Bird, singing as only that bird can sing.
As there are still wolves in the woods about Roquebrune and as red hoods are still fashionable in the Place des Frères it is practically certain that Little Red Riding Hood lived here since it is difficult to imagine a town that would have suited her better. As for Jack the Giant Killer it is beyond dispute that he came to Roquebrune, for the very castle he approached is still standing, the very gate is there from which he hurled defiance to the giant as well as the very stair he ascended. Moreover there is a room or hall in the castle—or at least the remains of it—which obviously no one but a giant could have occupied.
As time goes on arch?ologists will certainly prove, after due research, that Roquebrune is the City of Peter Pan. There is no town he would love so well; none so adapted to his particular tastes and habits, nor so convenient for the display of those domestic virtues which Wendy possessed. No one should grow up in this queer city, just as no place in a nursery tale should grow old.
ROQUEBRUNE: THE EAST GATE.
ROQUEBRUNE: THE PLACE DES FRèRES.
Peter Pan is not adapted to the cold, drear climate of England. He stands, as a figure in bronze, in Kensington Gardens with perhaps snow on his curly head or with rain dripping from the edge of his scanty shirt. He should be always in the sun, within sight of a sea which is ever blue and among hills which are deep in green. He could stride down a street in Roquebrune clad—as the sculptor shows him—only in his shirt without exciting more than a pleasant nod, but in the Bayswater Road he would attract attention. He is out of place in a London park in a waste of tired grass dotted with iron chairs which are let out at a penny apiece. Those delightful little people and those inquisitive animals who are peeping out of the crevices in the bronze rock upon which he stands would flourish in this sunny hill town, for there are rocks in the very streets among which they could make their homes.
Then again Captain Hook would enjoy Roquebrune. It is so full of really horrible places and there are so many half-hidden windows out of which he could scream to the terror of honest folk. The pirates too would be more comfortable in this irregular city, for it is near the sea and close to that kind of cave without which no pirate is ever quite at ease. Moreover the Serpentine affords but limited scope to those whose hearts are really devoted to the pursuit of piracy and buccaneering.
So far I do not happen to have met with a pirate of Captain Hook’s type within the walls of Roquebrune; but, late one afternoon when the place was lonely I saw a bent man plodding up in the shadows of the Rue Mongollet. He was a sinewy creature with brown, hairy legs. I could not see his face because he bore on his shoulders a large and flabby burden, but I am convinced that he was Sindbad the Sailor, toiling up from the beach and carrying on his back the Old Man of the Sea.