Marguerite took up her residence on the isle nearest the shore, and her brother on the farthermost. Disconsolate at being left alone, the maid supplicated her brother to come to her, and this he promised to do each year when the cherry-trees were in bloom. Marguerite prayed to God that her brother, who had become a religieux, would come more often; at once the cherry-trees about her habitation burst into bloom, a miracle which occurred each month thereafter, and her brother, true to his promise, came promptly the first of each month, and thus broke the lonely vigil of his sister.
CHAPTER IX.
GRASSE AND ITS ENVIRONS
ACCORDING to the French geographers, Grasse occupies a commanding site on a “montagne à pic,” and this describes its situation exactly.
On the flanks of this great hill sits the town, its back yards, almost without exception, set out with olive and orange trees, to say nothing of the more extended plantations of the same sort seen as one reaches the outskirts.
The whole note of Grasse is of flowers, trees, and shrubs, and the perfume-laden air announces the fact from afar.
Above rises the “pic,” and, farther away, the northern boundary of the horizon is circumscribed with an amphitheatre of wooded mountains severe and imposing in outline.
Grasse is but a short eighteen kilometres from the Mediterranean, but the whole topographical aspect of the country has changed. The panorama seaward is the only intimation of the characteristics which have come to be recognized as the special belongings of the French Riviera. The foot-hills slope gently down to the blue “nappe,” which is the only word which describes the Mediterranean when it is all of a tranquil blue. It is an incomparable view that one has over this eighteen kilometres of country southward, and a strong contrast to the lively suburbs of the coast towns. Its charm and beauty are all its own, and there is little of the modern note to be heard as one threads the highways and byways, through the valleys and down the ravines to sea-level. Without doubt it was a fortunate choice of the Romans when they set their Castrum Crassense on this verdure-crowned height.
In the middle ages Grasse developed rapidly, and became the seat of a bishop and a place dominant in the commerce of the region. The inhabitants were reputed to be possessed of wonderful energies, and the fact that they were twice able to repel the Moorish invaders, though their town was practically destroyed, seems to prove this beyond a doubt.