With the sacking and massacre of 1543 the story of Eze comes to an end. It ceased to be a town to reckon with, to be cajoled or threatened, to be bought or sold. It became a place of no account and has remained humble and unhonoured ever since. The walls were not restored, the fortifications were not remade and the castle was allowed to crumble into dust. He who was Lord of Eze was lord over a hollow heap of tainted ruins and his title was as much a shadow as was his town.
The new Eze, which in course of time came into being, had its foundations set upon the ruins of 1543. The castle appears to have been more completely dismantled in 1604. On February 23rd, 1887, the earthquake which destroyed Castillon—a place singularly like Eze in its position—did some damage to the hapless town and also to its castle. But it would seem as if the forces of both heaven and earth were conspiring to rid the world of this battered and ill-omened house, for in the terrific storm of May, 1887, its remaining walls were so split by lightning that the arrogant old stronghold was reduced to the mean condition in which it is found to-day.
| [30] | “Mentone,” by Dr. George Müller, London, 1910. Durante’s “History of Nice,” Vol. 2, p. 313. |
A STREET IN EZE.
XVII
THE TOWN THAT CANNOT FORGET
AMID the deep valleys and the titanic ridges of bare rock which slope down to the sea from the Alps stands Eze. It stands alone in a scene of wild disorder. From a huge gash in the flank of the earth, lined with trees as with grass, rises a pinnacle of rock, a solitary isolated bare pinnacle, 980 feet high, with sides sheer as a wall. It rises, clear and grey, out of the abyss and on its summit is Eze. It seems as if some fearful power had lifted the town aloft for safety; while, to compare the stupendous with the trivial, it tops the cone like a tee-ed ball.
The most impressive view of Eze is obtained from the road that leads from La Turbie to Cap d’Ail, at about the time of the setting of the sun. It is then seen from afar as a tiny town on a crag among a tumbled mass of mountains which lie deep in shade. It is the only sign of human habitation in the waste. The sun shines full upon it.