The Pageant of Roquebrune unfolds itself to the imagination as a picturesque march of men with a broken hillside as a background and a stone stair as a processional way. Foremost in the column that moves across the stage would come the vague figure of the native searching for something to eat; then the shrewd Ph?nician would pass searching for something to barter and then the staid soldierly Roman seeking for whatever would advance the glory of his imperial city. They all in turn had lived in Roquebrune.
ROQUEBRUNE, SHOWING THE CASTLE.
As the Pageant progressed there would pass by the hectoring Lombard, the swarthy Moor, a restless band of robber barons and pirate chiefs, a medley of medi?val men-at-arms and a cluster of lords and ladies with their suites. They all in turn had lived in Roquebrune. Finally there would mount the stair the shopkeeper and the artisan of to-day, who would reach the foot of Roquebrune in a tramcar.
This Pageant of Roquebrune would impress the mind with the great antiquity of man, with his ceaseless evolution through the ages with an ever-repeated change in face, in speech, in bearing and in garb. Yet look! Above the housetops of the present town a company of swifts is whirling with a shrill whistle like that of a sword swishing through the air. They, at least, have remained unchanged.
They hovered over the town before the Romans came. They have seen the Saracens, the troopers of Savoy, the Turkish bandits, the soldiers of Napoleon. Age after age, it would seem, they have been the same, the same happy birds, the same circle of wings, the same song in the air.
On the rock too are bushes of rosemary—“Rosemary for remembrance.” The little shrub with its blue flower has also seen no change. The caveman knew it when he first wandered over the hill with the curiosity of a child. The centurion picked a bunch of it to put in his helmet. The pirate of six hundred years ago slashed at it with his cutlass as he passed along and the maiden of to-day presses it shyly upon her parting lover.
In the Pageant of Roquebrune man is, indeed, the new-comer, the upstart, the being of to-day, the creature that changes. The swifts, the rosemary and the hillside belong to old Roquebrune.
The following are certain landmarks in the tale of the town.[47] It seems to have belonged at first to the Counts of Ventimiglia, about in the same way that a wallet picked up by the roadside would belong to the finder. In 477 these Counts sold it to a Genoese family of the name of Vento. In 1189 the town is spoken of as Genoese and as being in the holding of the Lascaris. It was indeed for long a stronghold of this house. About 1353 Carlo Grimaldi of Monaco purchased Roquebrune from Guglielmo Lascaris, Count of Ventimiglia, for 6,000 golden florins. The union of Monaco, Roquebrune and Mentone thus accomplished lasted for 500 years with unimportant intervals during which the union was for a moment severed or reduced to a thread. From 1524 to 1641 the little town was under the protection of Spain.
In 1848 Roquebrune, supported by Mentone, rebelled against the Grimaldi, after suffering oppression at their hands for thirty-three years, and declared itself a free town or, rather, a little republic. It so remained until 1860 when it was united with France at the time that Nice was ceded to that country. An indemnity of 4,000,000 francs was paid to the Prince of Monaco in compensation for such of his dominions as changed hands in that year.[48]
Roquebrune, of course, did not escape the disorders which befell other towns in its vicinity. Its position rendered it weak, exposed it to danger and made it difficult to defend. It was sacked on occasion, notably by the Turks about 1543 after they had dealt with Eze in the manner already described (page 127). It met with its most serious sorrow in 1560 when it was assaulted, set on fire and gravely damaged.
At this date the history of Roquebrune ended or at least changed from that of a fortified place to that of a somewhat humble hill town. So it sank, like Eze, into obscurity. The ruins that remain date from this period and it is upon the wreckage of that year that the present town is founded. The castle would appear to have been restored, for the last time, in 1528 when the work was directed by Augustin Grimaldi of Monaco and bishop of Grasse.
By the manner in which Roquebrune bore the stress of years and faced the troubles of life the little town differed curiously from her two neighbours of Monaco and Eze. Monaco and Eze were distinctly masculine in character. They were men-towns. They were, by natural endowment, very strong. They boasted of their strength and took advantage of it. They fought everybody and every thing. They seemed to encourage assault and indeed to provoke it. If hit they hit back again. Their masculinity got them into frequent trouble. Moreover they loved the sea and were masters of it.
Now Roquebrune was feminine. She was a woman-town. She was constitutionally weak. She was little able to defend herself. When hit she did not hit back again, because she was not strong enough. She was bullied and was powerless to resent it. She was afraid of the sea, as many women are, and cared not to venture on it.
She showed her feminine disposition in more ways than one. Roquebrune had been under the harsh tyranny of Monaco for a number of years, but she endured her ill treatment in silence. She bent her back to the blow. She crouched on the ground, passive and apparently cowed. Women will endure oppression patiently and without murmuring for a very long time. But a moment comes when they revolt, and it is noteworthy that they revolt generally with success, for the issue depends not only upon a masterly patience, but upon the choice of the proper time to end it. A town of the type of Eze would have had neither the patience to wait nor the instinct to select the moment for an uprising. Eze, after a year or so of hardship, would have flown at the throat of Monaco and would probably have been annihilated in the venture.
Roquebrune waited a great deal more than a year or so. She waited and endured for thirty-three years and when instinct told her that the right time had come she turned upon the enemy, but not with a battleaxe in her hand. She quietly placed herself under the protection of Italy and when she had secured that support she boldly declared herself a free city and a free city she remained until she was received into the open arms of France.
An episode that happened in 1184 will, perhaps, still better illustrate the feminine character of Roquebrune. In that year the town was besieged by the Ventimiglians. The reason for the assault is not explained by the historian. It is probable that mere want of something to do led to this act of wickedness. One can imagine the Count of Ventimiglia bored to the verge of melancholia by idleness and can conceive him as becoming tiresome and unmanageable. One morning, perhaps, a courtier would address his yawning lord with the remark, “What! nothing to do, sir! Why not go and sack Roquebrune?” To which the count, quite cheered, would reply, “An excellent idea. Send for the captain.”
ROQUEBRUNE: RUE DE LA FONTAINE.
View of Castle.
Anyhow, whatever the reason, the count and his men, all in good spirits, appeared before the walls of the town and prepared for an assault. Now the state of affairs was as follows. Roquebrune, owing to its position, could not withstand a siege. Its fall was inevitable and merely a question of time. The governor would, however, be compelled to defend the town to the very last. He would man the walls and barricade the gates and, calling his company together in the Place des Frères would remind them of their duty, would tell them, with uplifted sword, that Roquebrune must be defended so long as a wall remained; that the enemy must not enter the town except over their dead bodies and that, in the defence of their homes, they must be prepared to die like heroes.
Now things seemed rather different to the governor’s wife. She was a shrewd and practical woman not given to heroics. She knew that Roquebrune could not withstand a siege and must assuredly be taken. She probably heard the stirring address in the square and did not at all like her husband’s talk about dying to a man and about people walking over dead bodies and especially over his body. She knew that the more determined the resistance the more terrible would be the revenge when the town was taken. She did not like people being killed, especially her nice people of Roquebrune. Besides, as she paced to and fro, a couple of children were tugging at her dress and asking her why she would not take them out on the hill-side to play as she did every morning.
So when the night came she put a cloak over her head, made her way out of the town, found the enemy’s camp and told the count how—by certain arrangements she had made—he could enter the town without the loss of a man.
Before the day dawned the bewildered inhabitants, who had been up all night fussing and hiding away their things, found that the Ventimiglians were in occupation of the town; for, as the historian says, “the besiegers entered the town without striking a blow.”
Thus ended the siege of Roquebrune. It ended in a way that was probably satisfactory to both parties and, indeed, to everyone but the governor who had, without question, a great deal to say to his lady on the subject of minding her own business.
As she patted the head of her smallest child and glanced at the breakfast table she, no doubt, replied that she had minded her own business.
[47]
As to the name “Cabbé Roquebrune,” Dr. Müller says that cabbé means a little cape (the Cap Martin).
[48]
Durandy, “Mon pays, etc., de la Riviera,” 1918. Dr. Müller, “Mentone,” 1910. Bosio, “La Province des Alpes Maritimes,” 1902.
THE ROMAN MILESTONES “603”.
A PIECE OF THE OLD ROMAN ROAD.