The hill-side is of interest on account of the number of pre-historic walled camps which are to be found on its slopes. These camps form a series of strongholds which extends from Cap d’Ail to Roquebrune. There are some seven of these forts within this range. The one furthest to the west is Le Castellar de la Brasca in the St. Laurent valley on the Nice side of Cap d’Ail. Then come L’Abeglio just above the Cap d’Ail church, the Bautucan on the site of the old signal station above the Mid-Corniche, the Castellaretto over the Boulevard de l’Observatoire, Le Cros near the mule-path to La Turbie and lastly Mont des Mules and Le Ricard near Roquebrune.
Of these the camp most easily viewed—but by no means the most easy to visit—is that of the Mont des Mules, on the way up to La Turbie. This is a bare hill of rough rocks upon the eastern eminence of which is a camp surrounded by a very massive wall built up of huge unchiselled stones. It is fitly called a “camp of the giants,” for no weaklings ever handled such masses of rock as these. The Romans who first penetrated into the country must have viewed these military works with amazement, for competent writers affirm that they date from about 2,000 years before the birth of Christ.
Along this hill-side also are traces of the old Roman road, fragments which have been but little disturbed and which, perhaps, are still paved with the very stones over which have marched the legions from the Imperial City. To the east of La Turbie and just below La Grande Corniche are two Roman milestones, side by side, in excellent preservation. There are two, because they have been placed in position by two different surveyors.
They stand by the ancient way and show clearly enough the mileage—603. The next milestone (604) stood on the Aurelian Way just outside La Turbie, at the point where the road is crossed by the railway, but only the base of it remains. Between it and the previous milestone is a Roman wayside fountain under a rounded arch. It is still used as a water supply by the cottagers and the conduit that leads to it can be traced for some distance up the hill.
The first Roman milestone to the west of La Turbie (No. 605) is on the side of the Roman road as it turns down towards Laghet.[49] This milestone is the finest in the district and is remarkably well preserved. Those who comment on the closeness of these milliaires must remember that the Roman mile was 142 yards shorter than the English.
THE ROMAN FOUNTAIN NEAR LA TURBIE.
Above the Mont des Mules is Mont Justicier. It is a hill so bleak and so desolate that it is little more than a wind-swept pile of stones. It has been used for centuries as a quarry and much of the material employed in the building of the Roman trophy at La Turbie came from its barren sides. Its dreariness is rendered more dismal by its history and by the memories that cloud its past. These memories do not recall a busy throng of quarrymen who roared out chanties as they worked at their cranes and whose chatter could be heard above the thud of the pick and the clink of the chisel. They recall the time when this dread mound was the Hill of Death and a terror in the land.
On the summit of Mont Justicier is a tall, solitary column. It appears, at a distance, to be a shaft of marble; but it is made up of small pieces of white stone cemented together. It is a large column nearly three feet in diameter and some fifteen feet in height. Near it is the base of a second column of identical proportions to the first. The distance between the two pillars is twelve feet and they stand on a platform which faces southwards across the sea. These columns were the posts of a gigantic gallows. Their summits were connected by a cross beam and from that beam at least six ropes could dangle. This is why the mound is named Mont Justicier, or, as it would be called in England, Gallows Hill.
The Mount became a place of execution in the Middle Ages and towards the end of the seventeenth century there would never be a time when bodies could not be seen swinging from the beam of the great gallows, since it was here that the brigands known as the Barbets were hanged.
The term “Barbet” has a somewhat curious history. It was originally a nickname given by the Catholics to the Protestant Vaudois and later to the Protestants of the Cevennes and elsewhere. The name had origin in the circumstance that the Vaudois called their ministers “barbes” or “uncles,” in somewhat the same way that the Catholics call their priests “fathers.”
The term was later applied to Protestant heretics generally and notably to the Albigensians who held to the mountains of Piedmont and Dauphiné. They refused baptism, the Mass, the adoration of the Cross, the traffic in indulgences. “What was originally a logical revolt of pure reason against dogmatic authority soon took unfortunately varying forms, and then reached unpardonable extremes.”[50] These men were outlawed, were hunted down and massacred and treated as rogues and vagabonds of a pernicious type. For their ill name they were themselves not a little to blame. They kept to the mountains from which great efforts were made to dislodge them about the end of the seventeenth century.
The term Barbets was subsequently given to the inhabitants of the valleys of the Alps who lived by plunder and contraband and finally to any brigands or robbers who had their lairs among the mountains. “In the year 1792,” writes Rosio,[51] “irregular bands were formed, under the name of Barbets, which were trained and commanded by military officers devoted to Sardinia. These bands of men harassed the French army, pillaged the camps and held up convoys. When the House of Savoy lost its hold on the Continent the Barbets divided into smaller companies and gave themselves up to open brigandage. Their habitat was in the mountains of Levens, of L’Escarene, Eze and La Turbie. Near Levens the unfortunates who fell into their hands were hurled into the Vesubie from a rock 300 metres high which is still called Le Saut des Fran?ais.”
GALLOWS HILL.
MONT JUSTICIER: THE TWO PILLARS OF THE GALLOWS.
At the foot of Mont Justicier, near to the gallows and by the side of the actual Roman road, is the little chapel of St. Roch. It is a very ancient chapel and its years weigh heavily upon it, for it has nearly come to the end of its days. It is built of rough stones beneath a coating of plaster and has a cove roof covered with red tiles. The base of the altar still stands, traces of frescoes can be seen on the walls and on one side of the altar is an ambry or small, square wall-press. It was in this sorrowful little chapel that criminals about to be executed made confession and received the last offices of the Church.
A sadder place than this in which to die could hardly be realised. The land around is so harsh, the hill so heartless, the spot so lonely. And yet many troubled souls have here bid farewell to life and have started hence on their flight into the unknown. Before the eyes of the dying men would stretch the everlasting sea. On the West—where the day comes to an end—the world is shut out by the vast bastion of the Tête de Chien; but on the East, as far as the eye can reach, all is open and welcoming and full of pity. It is to the East that the closing eyes would turn, to the East where the dawn would break and where would glow, in kindly tints of rose and gold, the promise of another day.
There is one lonely tree on this Hill of Death—a shivering pine; while, as if to show the kindliness of little things, some daisies and a bush of wild thyme have taken up their place at the foot of the gallows.
[49]
The ancient road lies above and to the west of the modern road to the convent.
[50]
“Old Provence,” by T. A. Cook, Vol. 2, p. 169.
[51]
“Les Alpes Maritimes,” 1902.
THE CHAPEL OF ST. ROCH.