The Riviera of the Corniche Road

by Frederick Treves

De Caïs and his small company proceeded to climb up to Eze. It was September and, therefore, one of the hottest months of the year. What with the heat and the burden of his conscience Gaspard must have found the ascent trying; for even in modern times with a modern path the clamber up to the town from the shore is a feat of endurance that the hardiest tourist will scarcely undertake twice.

In due course the perspiring traitor reached the gate of Eze—the identical gate that stands before the entrance of the town to this day. He would be stopped by the guard and asked his business. Mopping his face he would reply, with a smile, that he wished a word with the governor. After some delay the governor, attended by an officer or two, appeared and Gaspard, greeting him as an old comrade, whispered in his ear that the Turkish fleet was in the Bay and would attempt to take the town. This was possibly the only time that Gaspard ever spoke the truth; for, in fact, the fleet was below and the admiral did undoubtedly desire to capture the town. De Caïs then lapsed into lying which became him better. He explained that as a patriot and a lover of Eze he had come to warn the governor of the peril ahead and to place his poor services and those of his humble followers at the disposal of the garrison. “Would he come in?” He came in.

Now it must be explained that Gaspard had as a friend and co-partner in crime no less a person than his fellow countryman, the Lord of Gorbio. This prince was known by the unpleasing name of the Bastard of Gorbio for he was a disreputable scion of the noble house of Grimaldi. He was, if possible, a more contemptible rogue than Gaspard. He had confederates in Eze and a number of traitorous men in his pay hidden among the rocks about the entrance.

As soon as Gaspard de Caïs and his companions were well within the gate they suddenly drew their swords and, with a shout, fell like madmen upon the unsuspecting guard who were still standing at attention. This was a signal to the Bastard and to his friends within and without the town. These worthies all rushed to the gate and in a few moments the governor and the gallant guard of Eze were dead or dying.

All this time the Turks, in single file, were crawling up the zigzag path from the boats, like a great brown serpent, a mile long, gliding up out of the water. They poured in through the gate, panting and yelling, and continued to pour in for hours. Barbarossa now could laugh aloud and did no doubt guffaw heartily enough for Eze the impregnable was taken with scarcely the loss of a man.

What followed is, in the language of novelists, “better imagined than described”; simply because it is easy to imagine but difficult to describe.

Eze the betrayed became the scene of a blurred orgy of house burning, murder and pillage. The town with all that was in it was to be wiped off the face of the earth. The order could not have been carried out more thoroughly or more heartily if it had been executed by the Germans of the present day. There was no resistance. There was to be no quarter and no prisoners. Everything went “according to plan.”

The narrowness of the lanes rendered the process of hacking a population to death cramped, slow and very horrible. Every street and alley was soon blocked with the dead and the dying. The first clatter of hurrying feet was soon hushed; for those who pressed on and those who fled trod upon yielding bodies. A whole family would be lying dead in an entry; the man at the front, the baby and the mother behind.

Here would be the corpse of a Turk sprawling over the bundle of loot he was in the act of carrying away. Here would be a woman’s dead hand cut off at the wrist, but still clinging to the handle of a door. Here a disembowelled man, still alive, trying to crawl into a cellar and there a half-charred body dangling from the window of a burning house.

It is always customary to say, in the account of scenes like this, that “the streets ran with blood,” but it is not so. The state is far more hideous, since blood clots so soon that it will not run.