AROUND Monte Carlo the mountains crowd down to the sea with such menace as to threaten to push the light-hearted town into the deep, for the sloping ledge to which it holds is narrow. Thus it is that hanging above Monte Carlo is a steep mountain side, half slope, half precipice, green wherever an olive tree or a pine can cling, grey where the rock lies bare or where the cliff soars upwards.
On the summit of this stupendous barrier and at a height of 1,574 feet is La Turbie. Gazing up from the streets of Monte Carlo the place can be located, although neither its walls, nor its houses nor any part of it are visible; but it is indicated by two remarkable objects which stand out clear on the sky line. They are strange and ill-assorted. One of the objects is a vast pillar or tower of stone, of the colour of a wheat stalk. From the Casino garden, half a mile below, it looks like a gigantic brick standing on end and turned edgeways. This is the Roman monument of Augustus erected over 1,900 years ago. The other object, placed by its side, is a coral pink hotel that may have sprung up in the night. Its outline is intentionally fantastic for it is built in “the Oriental style” in the belief that the simple might mistake it for a mosque or a palace of the caliphs. In spite of its appearance it is popular and well esteemed. It is a theatrical creation as gaudy as if it were flooded by a rose-tinted limelight and as out of place on the top of the stately cliff as a cheap Paris bonnet on the head of the Venus de Milo.
LA TURBIE: THE ROMAN MONUMENT.
There are many ways of reaching La Turbie from the lower ground. For carriages there is the Cemetery road. It is so called, not because it is dangerous to motorists, but because it passes a cemetery. It winds in and out among the prehistoric fortifications of Mont des Mules and Mont Justicier, but is so irresolute, so capricious, so inclined to go any way rather than up hill to La Turbie that the route is exasperating. The track of the road is like the track of a drunken man who has become obstinate and deaf to all persuasions to go straight home.
There are two mule-paths up to the town, one on either side of the Vallon des Gaumates, the Moneghetti path on the west and the Bordina on the east. These paths are at least direct and know where they are going. They are paved with cobble stones, are arranged in long steps, are as monotonous as a treadmill and probably as tiring. They are paths that might have climbed up the penitential heights in Dante’s “Purgatorio.” Still they pass by pleasant ways among the shadows of the olives and the slips of garden piled one above the other on green ledges. Moreover they are the old primitive roads of the country, the roads trod by the mediæval pedlar, by the wandering monk and by the errant knight. Of all works of man throughout the ages they are among the oldest and the least disturbed by change.
It is possible also to reach La Turbie from Monte Carlo by the rack-and-pinion railway. The traveller sits in a carriage that slopes like a roof and is pushed up hill from behind by an engine that puffs like an asthmatic person overpowered by rage. There are three stations to be passed on the way. Nothing happens at two of these stations except that the train stops. It is merely a ceremonial act. There would be anxiety and inquiries of the guard if anyone got in or got out. One station is in a drear rocky waste, far removed from the haunts of men. The only passenger that could be expected to alight here would be a scapegoat laden with the sins of Monte Carlo and eager to get away from the unquiet world and be lost in the wilderness.
La Turbie, or Turbia, was a Roman town. It stood on the famous road that led from Rome into Gaul. It was a busy and prosperous place that probably attained to its greatest importance about two thousand years ago, for the town goes back to a period before the time of Christ. When La Turbie was at the height of its vigour Monaco was a barren rock. Indeed when the first building appeared upon Monaco La Turbie was already more than twelve centuries old.
The ancient Roman road—the Aurelian Way as it was called—ran from the Forum at Rome to Arles on the banks of the Rhone. Its total length, according to Dr. George Müller, was 797 miles. It was commenced in the year B.C. 241 and its construction occupied many decades.