Westward is Roquebrune, where the “Corniche” drops to the two hundred-metre level, and one rapidly approaches the sea beyond Cap Martin, and thus reaches Menton, but two kilometres onward.
The coast route from Nice to Menton via Villefranche and Beaulieu approximates the same length as the “Corniche” proper, and its charms are as varied. It rolls along behind the old citadel of Mont Boron and suddenly opens up the magnificent bay of Villefranche, the favourite Mediterranean station of the Russians and Americans, and thence on rapidly to Beaulieu, Monte Carlo, and Menton.
All the way this route by the sea follows the shore and skirts picturesque gulfs and calanques, and now and then tunnels a hillside only to come out into day and a vista more beautiful than that which was left behind.
CHAPTER XII.
EZE AND LA TURBIE
THE ancient Saracen fortress of Eze lies midway between Beaulieu and Monte Carlo, somewhat back from the coast, and crowns a pinnacle such as is usually devoted to the glory of St. Michel.
As one climbs the steep sides of the hill, the fantastic outlines of the roof-tops silhouette themselves against the sky quite like a scene from Dante’s masterpiece, or, if not that, like the fabled spectral Brocken. The road twists and turns, and the sea and shore blend themselves into one of those incomparable glories of the Riviera, until actually one stands on the little plateau which moors the tiny church and its surrounding dwellings.
The Eza of yesterday has become the Eze of to-day, but the former spelling was vastly more euphonic, and it is a pity that it was ever changed. Eze is ruinous to-day, as it has been for ages, and pagan and Christian monuments are cheek by jowl.
Rising abruptly three hundred metres from the sea-level, the mountain offered a stronghold well-nigh unassailable. First the Phœnicians occupied it, then the Phoceans, followed by the Romans, the Saracens, and all the warring factions and powers of mediæval times. No wonder it is reminiscent of all, with memorials ranging all the way from the temple dedicated to the Egyptian cult of Isis to the Christian church seen to-day.
