CASTELLARE, THE CAPE ST. MARTIN, AND ROCCABRUNA.
Dec, 24.
CASTELLARE is usually one of the first expeditions made from Mentone, as well
as one of the most characteristic and picturesque.
Opposite the Hotel des Quatre Nations, a dirty little path diverges from the
street, between two walls, overhung on either side with oranges. Following its
windings, you emerge at the foot of the yellow tufa rocks behind the town, up
which a paved donkey-path winds by many shallow steps, to the high olive
terraces, from whence even the cemetery of Mentone appears to be left deep below
in the valley, while a wide expanse of blue sea rises above it. The scenery is
thoroughly Italian, especially one point where a broad umbrella-pine shades the
rock, while behind stands a white cottage in a berceau of vines, backed by the
magnificent mountain barrier of St. Agnese.
As the path enters the pine woods, these mountains develop new beauties at
every step, and most lovely is the view towards evening, when the blue peaks,
with the Saracenic castle on their highest summit, are seen relieved by the red
stems of the old pine-trees, and the rich undergrowth of heath and myrtle. The
trees are full of linnets, which the natives call "trenta cinques,"
from the constant sound of their note being "trenta-cinque —
trenta-cinque," and as the path is a high way to the mountain olive
gardens, the air resounds with the cries of the donkey drivers, "Ulla"
("Allez") go on, and "Isa" (for shame), remonstrances which
the donkeys constantly require to induce them to amble along with their heavy
burdens of oil-casks, or loads of olives and wood, and, in addition to these,
one or two children often clinging on behind. All the peasants turn round to
salute those they meet, with a pleasant "bonjour," and a kindly
feeling towards strangers, which is very unlike the bad reputation they had
during the last century, when the inhabitants of Castellare were quite
celebrated for their cruelty, and for the cupidity which led them to murder
numbers of emigrants, as they were attempting to escape into Sardinia during the
French Revolution, by the unfrequented paths of these desolate mountains.
Castellare is 1350 feet above the sea, and from its elevated position, is a
onspicuous object long before you reach it; the houses and tower of the church
rising above the feathery olives. The last part of the way is up a steep path,
which ends at the entrance of the central and most picturesque of the three
little streets of the town; this is very like the old street at Mentone, but is
lined by even filthier houses, and redolent of even more disgusting smells. A
little coloured campanile is perched upon a house-top near its entrance, and
several dingy neglected chapels, belonging to different confraternities, remain
with closed doors and grated windows, through which you may descry the decaying
pictures, and the collections of tinselled lanthorns and ragged banners, which
are left to rust and moth, till the next annual festa of their patron saint,
when they are earned out in grand procession. At the entrance of this street on
the right, is a quaint kind of piazza, with an old tree, of unusual size for
this country, in its centre, from which you gain a view of the ruined entrance
of a second street, having tall weather-beaten houses, which stand out against
the rugged peaks of the mountains beyond, on one of whose lower slopes is the
grey citadel of Castiglione.
Beyond a narrow archway is another miniature piazza, which contained the
abode of the once famous family of Lascaris, who ruled this, with almost every
other mountain village in the neighbourhood. On one side is the principal church
with its tall red tower, and in the little valley below are two old chapels,
dedicated to St. Antonio and St. Sebastiano, the latter a very old Romanesque
building, with a round apse. Altogether Castellare is full of antiquated beauty,
and many a picture might be made of its old buildings, and background of distant
mountains and olive gardens, by an artist who does not object to a crowd of
dirty people, almost as picturesque as their habitations; for in Castellare no
one seems to have any thing to do all day long, and the whole population
fluctuated to and fro between us, as five of us sat drawing, four at one end of
the town, and one at the other; the former proving in the end the greater
attraction, for one child exclaimed, as an excuse for not staying to watch the
drawing of the solitary artist, "E molto bella, signora, ma gl'altri vi
sono quattro"! One old man in particular hovered round us mysteriously the
whole day, and discoursed learnedly on our work; till at last, when he appeared
at a window we had sketched, and which the children had long since recognized as
"La finestra del maestro," we discovered him to be the unfortunate
Italian schoolmaster, who had been ejected since the annexation of Castellare to
France, and was now left without occupation, on the world. A member of our party
who sat near the door of a Café, heard the inmates discoursing furiously in
French, upon this and other miseries consequent upon the change of rulers, which
they had only just become aware of; the heavy French taxes not having been
enforced till the commencement of the New Year. On observing the foreigner, the
landlord gave the grumblers a signal, upon which the conversation was abruptly
transferred to patois, probably from a newly-awakened dread of the espionage
which is so keenly felt in these lately acquired dominions of the Emperor.
Castellare has many more traces of a Spanish government, than the villages
nearer to the high road, and the world. Uersted. "Your
Excellency," for instance, still takes at Castellare, the place of Signor
or Monsieur.
In January and February, the terraces under the olives near Castellare, are
gay with purple anemones, narcissus, and many other spring flowers. Among our
visitors while drawing here, was the priest, who was quite tipsy, and who roared
and shouted like a maniac. In these mountain villages, this is unfortunately no
unusual occurrence. The other day a gentleman asked a peasant at Esa if any
carriage had ever been up the rocky way to the town. "Only one," was
the answer, "and that was the other day, when it went to take the priest
prisoner." The priest of Esa was tried in a closed court at Nice, for
secret crimes committed in his isolated cure, and was condemned to the galleys
for life.
The walk back from Castellare may be varied by turning off at the chapel of
St. Sebastiano, and taking the path through the valley on the other side; this
path emerges on the hill above the cemetery of Mentone; but it is longer than
the other, and more difficult to follow in its windings.
Another of the short excursions from Mentone is that to the Capo Martino, or
Cape St. Martin, the wooded promontory, which is so conspicuous in all the views
from the Genoa side of the town.
It is about two-miles-and-a-half to the point of the Cape by the shortest
way, but the distance may be lengthened, and the road varied, by ascending the
hill, and seeing the view on the other side; by wandering through the many
woodland paths which cross the peninsula in every direction; or by following the
Monaco road. On leaving Mentone by the Nice road, the torrent of Carei or Careye,
is crossed by an iron bridge, bordered on each side by a tropical looking mass
of aloes and prickly pear, and possessing a fine view of the mountains with the
castellated crag of St. Agnese. Then, passing on the right the Hotel de Londres,
the road reaches the torrent of Boirigo or Bouriques, where there is only a long
wooden bridge for foot passengers, donkeys and carriages being left to splash as
best they can.
The highway now runs through an avenue of oleanders, on the left of which is
the sea, and on the right, first the house of Count Alberti, whose wife is the
last representative of the historical and almost royal family of Lascaris, and
then the long wall of what is called "Les Jardins du Prince," though
his actual garden, long since deeply mortgaged, is further on, while the
building in this garden was once a convent, "La Madone," whose
foundation dates from the xvth century. The dark chapel of the Virgin attached
to the end of the building, and shaded by a palm tree, still keeps up its annual
fair and festa and attracts its processions.
Here the English artist, Mr. Alfred Newton, is making a picture, in which the
sunshine streaming through the magnificent overhanging pine trees upon golden
oranges, and a blue dancing sea, will give to those who gee it in the London
Exhibition, a pleasant as well as true idea of Mentone.
This spot, though called a garden, is nothing but a wilderness of heath and
myrtle, yet is well worth visiting. Entrance may always be obtained, either at
the green door in the wall opposite the sea, or at the house near the chapel.
Just beyond is Carnoles, the decaying villa of the Princes of Monaco, with an
ill-kept garden, abounding in beautiful flowers, bouquets of which may be bought
in the gardener's cottage adjoining. The house built on a much larger scale by
Prince Antoine I. was partly destroyed by Honorius V. Opposite, on the sea
shore, exposed to the elements, are the remains of an object, which looks like a
worn-out waggon, but which was once the carriage of the hated Florestan, from
which he was forced to descend by his ex-subjects, when, on his last visit to
Mentone, they compelled him to believe that they would not always be slaves.
The next orange gardens on the right, are those of the ancient family of St.
Ambroise, of which the Abbč St. Ambroise is considered the most learned, as
well as the best priest in Mentone.
Here are some fragments of Roman masonry and a sepulchral chapel, supposed to
have been once a Roman temple, dedicated to Diana. A mutilated inscription bears
the words —
TERTVLLINO
E V
— VLLINUS.
Local tradition declares that this is the burial place of the Roman general
Manlius, and of hundreds of others, who fell in a great battle fought on this
spot. The name Carnoles is said to have its origin in "Champs de
Carnage."
The Ponte del Unione, built in 1860, to commemorate the annexation to France,
crosses the torrent which comes down from Gorbio. Here are some of the finest
orange gardens in the neighbourhood, and a little beyond this the lane leading
to the Cape, branches off to the left from the high road. The direct path mounts
a hill, and then loses itself in the many paths which intersect the pine-woods,
at a point near which are some remains of a Roman wall, supposed to be relics of
the little town of Limone, mentioned in the itinerary of Antoninus, and decided
by antiquarians to have been situated on the Cape St. Martin. But a nearer way
to the point itself, is the second turn to the left after leaving the high road,
which diverges through splendid orange-groves to join a path through the wood,
at the foot of the hill; this path was once the high road to Nice, and occupies
the site of the old Roman way.
A circular space in the wood marks the site of the "Aristocrat's
Tree," whither the gentry of Mentone were accustomed to resort every summer
evening before the Revolution, and beneath which it was the fashion to sit
round, drinking coffee, "making conversation," and playing at cards.
When the revolution came, the aristocrats all escaped across the neighbouring
frontier, but the tree which had given them shelter so long, was considered
"perdu," and was cut down and chopped to pieces by the republicans,
under the brother of the celebrated Robespierre. The pyramid on the left of the
path owes its existence to the gratitude of an Englishman, who was cured long
ago of a dangerous illness at Mentone, but the inscription which marked it is
now effaced, and his name is lost, though some believe it was that Duke of York,
who once lived in the Pavilion des Princes, near the Madone.
Several villas are now being built here, and a new colony seems likely to be
made by the higher classes of the Mentonese population, who will seek here a
cool resort during the hot summer months.
The point is a reef of black and jagged rocks, overgrown with samphire, and
washed alternately from either side of the bay by grand waves, which break in
perfect mountains of foam upon their sharp edges, with a roar like that of
cannon.
The Cape St. Martin is the centre of the Old Principality, and the whole of
the tiny kingdom of the Grimaldis may be seen from it, guarded in front by the
sea, and behind by the mountains. But the view extends on either side, far
beyond the limits of the State; on the left, first Mentone is seen through the
tall pines, its houses rising terrace-like to the fine tower of its church;
beyond is Ventimiglia with its frontier castle on a projecting rock, while the
same mountain chain ends in the houses and church of Bordighera, which look as
if they were cut out in white paper, against the deep blue sky. On the right is
Turbia, with its Trophaea Augusti, throned high among the mountains, and beyond,
a succession of little sandy coves, and coruba-clad promontories: the rock-built
town of Monaco, with its fine palace, and hanging gardens, nestling at the foot
of the purple rock, known as the Tete de Chien. Behind, above the cape itself,
covered with pines and olives, rise the peaks of Mont Garillon and Mount Boudon
and the castle of St. Agnese.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the beauty of the Pine wood into which
the path now ascends, through an undergrowth of myrtle, rosemary, genista,
euphorbia, mediterranean heath, and the different varieties of cistus. Each
group of trees serves to frame a new view of mountain peak, or sea and headland.
Deep, down below on the western side of the cape is a chine, equally remarkable
for its views and for the abrupt red rocks which shut it in on one side. In the
centre of the promontory buried among the woods are the ruins of the convent of
St. Martin, which gave its name to the cape, now consisting only of a few low
walls, and the apse of the gothic church, but beautiful from their situation,
and the exquisite views of blue mountains which are seen through the golden
green of the Pines. At the time when the Saracens were attacking the shores of
Liguria, the nuns of this convent, aware of their danger, extracted a promise
from the inhabitants of the neighbouring town of Roccabruna, that at the first
sound of their convent bell they would fly armed to their assistance. But the
abbess distrusting their promise, determined to prove their fidelity, and rang
the bell on the very first night, to see if they would come. The people of
Roccabruna hurried down immediately, and finding no Saracens, received the
blessing of the abbess and retired, feeling angry and insulted. The abbess twice
repeated this experiment with success, but on the fourth night when the people
of Roccabruna heard the convent bell, they no longer thought it worth while to
take any notice, and staid quietly at home. At dawn, the convent was a smoking
ruin, and all the nuns were carried off by the Saracens.
Three miles from Mentone, above the road to Nice, amid huge yellow rocks, the
debris of a landslip of centuries, stands the town of Roccabruna, the third
place in the Old Principality, and one of those for which the Princes of Monaco,
through many generations, were forced to do homage on bended knee, first to the
Dukes of Savoy, and afterwards to the Kings of Sardinia. This was originally a
stronghold of the famous family of Lascaris, who sold it to Charles Grimaldi in
1353 for 16,000 florins, from which time it followed the fortunes of the other
Grimaldi possessions till 1848, when the tyranny of its princes, long endured in
silence, forced it to seek with Mentone the protection of Sardinia. In 1860 it
was annexed to France, and now forms part of the Department des Alps Mari-times.
Tradition tells that Roccabruna was once situated high upon the mountain
which now overhangs it, but, that one night the inhabitants went to bed as
usual, and in the morning awoke to find the view from their windows quite
changed, and the situation of their town entirely different, the whole town,
with its houses, gardens, chateau, and church, having quietly slid down to its
present site, but so gently, that the position of no single building was
disturbed, and no single inhabitant awakened by the move. No one has ventured to
assign a date to the event, and the belief probably arose, from the strange
manner in which the great tufa rocks, when they fell from their bed in the
mountain above, spared the buildings of the town, beyond and among which they
lie. From the approach to Roccabruna from Mentone, by the windings of the Nice
road, there is a most picturesque view of the straggling town, with its brightly
coloured houses, crowned by the chateau, and a solitary palm tree overhanging
the olive terraces, and nestling in the purple shadow of Mount Agel. A staircase
leads up to the low, narrow, fern-clothed gate of the town, through which you
enter the steepest streets imaginable, running up almost perpendicularly to the
old castle of the Lascaris; from whose keep there is a fine view over Monaco and
Mentone. In one of the ruined chambers is a curious piscina, with an inscription
now almost effaced.
The yellow rocks have a curious effect, mingled with the old buildings, which
are perched on and around them. The principal church has been newly adorned with
a large presepio, where, in a forest of moss and weeds, prettily woven together,
a doll virgin in pink glazed calico, is receiving the congratulations of a
number of other dolls, the principal figure being a little blue shepherdess, who
is making her curtsey in front of the sacred persons, whilst all her little
cotton wool sheep, with similar intent, are flocking down behind her through the
moss; Herod, meanwhile, in gorgeous attire, surrounded by his guards, sits
grimly in the back-ground, and gloomily surveys the pastoral scene.
On the festa of Notre Dame de la Neige, a curious procession takes place,
which dates almost from the middle ages, in which the passion of our Saviour is
represented ; peasants taking the parts of Pontius Pilate, Herod, Sta. Veronica,
St. Mary Magdalene, &c. The costumes are very absurd, but the actors go
through their parts with imperturbable gravity.
The return to Mentone should be varied by taking the Vieille Route, which
branches off near the church, along the olive terraces to the left of the town,
and re-enters the high road near the Prince's Gardens. It is a wild, narrow
mountain-path winding through old olive woods, carpetted here and there with
pale blue periwinkle, and showing lovely glimpses of the bay, with the town of
Mentone. A tiny chapel half-way has some quaint old frescoes of the
Resurrection, where the Virgin is represented sheltering a number of souls under
her cloak, while the rest are resignedly going off to Purgatory.
