LA TURBIE: THE NICE GATE.
M. Casimir gives an interesting explanation of the curious name, Rue Capouanne. It was originally Gapeani and it is easy to understand how the G has changed to a C. In 1332 La Turbie obtained local independence, was allowed to manage its own urban affairs and to appoint a bayle, governor or mayor. The first bayle was one Jacques Gapeani and it is in his honour that the street was named. Humble as the lane may be it can at least claim an ancestry of nearly six hundred years.
Between the Place St. Jean and the Portail du Recinto is a narrow and gloomy way called the Rue du Ghetto. The name serves to recall the fact that during the troublous times of the Middle Ages Jews sought refuge in this hill town and security in the shadow of its fortress. The street is of interest on another account. During the Terror the monks of the monastery of Laghet were in fear for the safety of their much revered image of the Madonna. So in the dead of night they carried it up to La Turbie and hid it in a house in the Rue du Ghetto. The house was occupied by a pious man named Denis Lazare.[[45]] It is the first house in the street on the left hand side and high up between the first and second floors is an empty niche by means of which the house can be identified. At the moment the house is unoccupied. It is very small. A narrow stone stair leads up to the living room which takes up the whole of the first story. It is a room that has probably been altered little since 1793. There are the ancient fireplace, the massive beams in the ceiling and, by the hearth, a curious trough or basin fashioned out of a block of stone. So cramped is the house that it is hard to imagine where the Madonna was hidden, unless in the stable which opens on the street and constitutes the ground floor of the humble little dwelling.
The church of La Turbie is very simple and modest, subdued in its decoration and in keeping with its place. It has a steeple whose summit is shaped like a bishop’s mitre and is covered with brilliant tiles which are very glorious in the sun. An inscription in the nave shows that the building was commenced in 1764 and completed in 1777, that it was constructed out of material from the monument and was erected by the hands of the people themselves.
There are in the town the remains of fine houses solidly built of stone but now turned into humble dwellings. One such house is conspicuous in the Rue de l’Eglise. The type of house that is most characteristic of La Turbie has the following features. It is narrow. Its ground floor is occupied by a deep recess in the shadow of a wide rounded arch upon which the front wall of the building is founded. Within the recess on one side is a door leading to a stable and on the other a stone stair which mounts up to the entry into the house.
There is one street with a name that always excites curiosity—the Rue Incalat. M. Casimir states that the term “incalat” indicates a paved way that is steep and it is to be noted that the Rue Incalat is the only street in La Turbie that can make any claim to be steep.
| [44] | “La Turbie et son Trophée Romain,” Nice, 1914. |
| [45] | “La Turbie,” by Philippe Casimir, Nice, 1914. |