The Riviera of the Corniche Road

by Frederick Treves

This fort or castle was erected in the year 1215 on the site of the present palace and was provided with a garrison by the Genoese. Outside the fort the rudiments of a town appeared—the first huts and houses of Monaco. That town, therefore, has already passed the seven hundredth anniversary of its foundation.

The harbour of Monaco of to-day is a model harbour as perfect as the art of the engineer can make it. Two stone piers guard the entrance and at the end of each is a lighthouse. There are two wide quays where feluccas and other rakish-looking ships land barrels of wine; while the basin itself can accommodate a fleet of yachts.

This haven which has sheltered the very earliest forms of sea-going ship now shelters—during the regatta season—the latest development of the motor boat and the racing launch. History repeats itself. There was amazement at Monaco when the first hydroplane dropped on to the water by the harbour’s mouth: there was amazement also, centuries ago, when the loungers about the beach saw enter the new ship, the astounding vessel that was propelled not by paddles or oars, but by sails.

Above the pebble beach is a modest promenade and a road—the main road to Nice. On the other side of the highway are genial hotels where people lunch and dine out of doors, amid a profusion of white tablecloths and green chairs and where the menu of the day is suspended from the railings.

At the far end of this Boulevard de la Condamine are an avenue of trees and the old Etablissement des Bains de Mer which, even as late as Hare’s time, was “much frequented in summer.” The Etablissement is now little more than a ghost. The sound of its gaiety has long since been hushed into silence. There is a somewhat frivolous-looking building by the water’s edge which has a rounded glass front and some suggestion that it may once have been a palace of delight. It has now fallen into a state of decrepitude and shabbiness and is given up to quite commonplace commercial uses. It is like a dandy in extreme old age who, dressed in the thread-bare clothes which were the fashion a generation ago, still sits on a parade which once was rustling with happy people and which is now as sombre as a cemetery lane.

Opening on to the margin of the harbour is a great gorge, a sudden breach in the earth which serves to separate the sober town of Monaco from the frivolous town of Monte Carlo. It is a strange thing—this ravine. It is deep and full of shadows. Its walls, lit by the sun, are sheer precipices of biscuit-coloured rock, tinted faintly with red as with rust. From every crack and cranny on its towering sides something green is bursting; while, here and there, a flower, yellow or blue, clings to a ledge like a perching bird.

From the balustrade of a garden on its summit there hang festoons of scarlet geraniums and a curtain of blue heliotrope. Along the bottom of the chasm runs a fussy stream, with a noise like that of many flutes and by its side—among a jumble of rocks, bushes and brambles—an inconsequent path creeps up, out of pure curiosity, since it leads nowhere.

This ravine, as wild and savage as it was a thousand years ago, is a strange thing to find in the middle of a town, for houses crowd about it on either side and press so far forward on its heights that they appear likely to topple into the abyss. A huge railway viaduct crosses its entrance, while its floor slopes to a road where motors and tramcars rattle along, without heed to this quiet nook in the mountain side. It is as incongruous and out of place as a green meadow with buttercups and cows spread out by the side of the blatant traffic of Fleet Street.

There are other anomalies about this Ravin des Gaumates. It is so reckless-looking and so theatrical a chasm that one is convinced that duels have been fought here and that here conspirators in cloaks have met, and buccaneers have stored their surprising spoils. At the present day, however, the sea rover’s camp is occupied by a laundry shed, where unemotional women, with red arms and untidy heads, are busy; and where, in the place of brigands’ loot, sheets are spread upon the rocks to dry, together with white articles of underclothing.

At the mouth of the gorge—standing quite alone—is the little chapel of St. Dévote. It is a humble church, modern, plain as a peasant, and of no intrinsic interest. It is notable only in its position. The building seems to be as surprised at the place in which it finds itself as is the visitor who finds it there. Possibly no more strangely situated house of prayer exists in Europe. Behind it is a wild, disorderly glen; on each side is a precipice and in front is a gigantic railway viaduct of such immoderate proportions that it towers above the very steeple of the church.