At another time a company of traders would pass through the town—strangely-garbed men speaking an unknown tongue and followed by a train of mules and donkeys laden with bales of rare stuffs and with panniers filled with mysterious and glittering things. One can see the pretty girl of La Turbie coaxing a grey-bearded merchant in a black burnous to open a pannier and let her have a peep and picture the staring eyes of the crowd that would hang over her shoulder.
On another day a troupe of Roman dancing girls would trip through the gate with a ripple of bright colour and with roguish glances, to the great disturbance of the young men of La Turbie who would be too shy to speak to them, too unready to reply to their city banter and too conscious of their own gaucherie.
On occasion, too, a party of gladiators would swagger along on their way to the arena of Cimiez, splendid men, perfect in form, firm of foot, alert in carriage they would swing down the street with a rhythmical step and would be followed by the children through the gate and far along the road, and followed, too, by the eyes of every young woman in La Turbie who could find a window or a gap on the wall that gave a view of the highway.
The main street of the town, along which the great road bustled, must have presented, on these days of coming or going, a scene of much animation. Here were the chief inns and the wine booths, the little local shops, the fruit stalls, the cobbler’s vaulted niche where sandals were repaired, the cutler’s store very bright with bronze, the houses of the dealers in corn and fodder and most assuredly some begrimed hut where an old crone sold curiosities and souvenirs of the place, native weapons and ornaments, a hillman’s head-dress, strange coins dug up outside the walls, bright pieces of ore found among the mountains, the local snake in a bottle, some wolf’s teeth and a shell or two from Monaco beach. In the lesser streets would be the stables for the pack-horses and the mules, the cellars for goods in transit, the hovels for the slaves, the moneylenders’ dens, the compounds for the soldiers and the huts of the wretched wild-eyed Ligurians who, under the lash of their masters, did the mean work of the town.
La Turbie was indeed in these times a great caravanserai, a halting place on the march of civilisation, a post by the side of the inscrutable road that led from the wonder-teeming East to the dull, unawakened land of the West, a road that carried with it the makings of a people who would dominate the world when the power and the glory of Rome had passed away.
XXIX
THE TOWER OF VICTORY
OF Turbia of the Roman days practically no trace exists with the notable exception of the Great Monument which is very much more than a trace. After the Romans went away La Turbie—although well stricken in years—was subjected to that pitiless discipline which straitened and embittered the younger days of every town along the shores of the Mediterranean. Its history differs but in detail from the early history of Nice or Eze, or of Roquebrune. The Lombards and the Saracens in turn fell upon it like wild beasts and shook it nearly to death. It was burned to a mere heap of cinders and stones. It was looted with a thoroughness that not even a modern German could excel. It was besieged and taken over and over again. At one time the Guelphs held it and at another the Ghibellines. It was bought and sold and had as many successive masters as there were masters to have. It belonged now to Genoa and then to Ventimiglia, now to Monaco and then to Eze.
Throughout the restless Middle Ages it was a small fortified town of little military importance. It had its circuit of walls and its gates, its keep and its battlements; but, at its best, it was a place with more valour than strength. No doubt it looked sturdy enough on the top of the hill, a neat compact town as round as a jar with the great white Roman monument erect in its midst, like a dead lily in a stone pot.
During the intervals when it was not being looted or burned it was treated with some dignity; for when the Counts of Provence were the masters of La Turbie they nominated a châtelain or governor from among “the first gentlemen of Nice.” The distinction thus conferred was a little marred by the fact that the gentleman was not required to reside in the town. Gentlemen with very sonorous names and connected with “the best families” were, from time to time, nominated for this post; but they do not seem to have added much to the comfort of the place as a residence.[[41]]
The visitor to La Turbie, whether he arrives by the rack-and-pinion railway or by the mule-path, will assuredly make his way at once to the Belvedere to see that view which has moved the guide books to such unanimous rapture. He will probably be met on his way by a man—very foreign in appearance—who will wish to sell him an opera glass on one morning and a square of carpet on the next. He will also come upon a camera obscura, set up for the benefit of those who prefer to see through a glass darkly and who would sooner view a scene when reflected on a white table-cloth in a dark room than gaze upon it with the naked eye.