FIG. 243. COMMANDERY OF ST MARTIN-LES-VENCE.
A short railway journey conducts from Vence-Cagnes to Nice, across the Var, the “dyke” or wall which keeps the floods of this impetuous river within bounds being one of the most notable of French Engineering Works. The existing town of Nice is almost entirely modern. The streets, with their rows of shops and lines of trees, look like a small piece of Paris transported to the south. The wide promenade des Anglais by the shore, however, commands a prospect which nothing in Paris can match. The old town, with its narrow streets crowded round the port, is of ancient origin, being one of the original Phocæan colonies, and in the modern “Nice” may still be recognised its original Greek name of Nike (victory). But it became a place of secondary importance under the Romans, who made Cemenelum, an ancient town of the Ligurians on the hill which overlooks Nice from the north, the chief city of the Maritime Alps, to which Nice acted merely as the port. Being so near the frontier, both Cemenelum and Nice were exposed to attack on all hands, and suffered severely from the invasions of the Barbarians. In 578 the Lombards destroyed the strong city of Cemenelum or Cimiès, an event which, to some extent, restored the ancient importance of Nice. In 617 Nice joined the other towns of the coast in a league to free themselves from the Frankish kings. The town was frequently attacked by the Saracens, and more than once taken and destroyed. But after the Moors were driven from the Great Fraxinet in 975, the inhabitants of the town were comparatively free from their inroads. Although Nice stoutly defended her independence, she was, like the other towns of Provence, forced to yield to the Counts of Provence, who rebuilt the Castle both as a defence and menace to the inhabitants. Charles of Anjou was greatly indebted to Nice for ships to enable him to carry out his designs upon Naples. The incessant struggles between the powerful Nobles in the neighbourhood, the Grimaldi of Monaco, the Lascaris of Tende, and the Dorias of Dolce Aqua devastated the land, and brought famine and plague in their train. In the wars which followed the death of Queen Jeanne, the Niçois took the side of Ladislaus of Hungary, and called in the Count of Savoy to aid them against the King of Naples. Under the protection of Savoy, Nice soon regained her prosperity. The Counts of that house strengthened the Castle by every means in their power, and for this purpose the ancient Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace were removed.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Nice was exposed to damage from the armies both of the French and the Emperor, and suffered severely—so much so that the merest fragment is all that remains of the ancient castle
FIG. 244. CROSS AT CIMIÈS.