A Book of the Riviera

by S. Baring-Gould

Near the Château de Carqueyranne, in the lap of the Bay of Giens, are the ruins of a Greco-Roman town, Pomponiana. It stretched from the beach up the hill crowned by the remnants of the Convent of S. Pierre a’ Al-Manar. The old town was explored in 1843 by Prince Frederick, afterwards King Frederick VII. of Denmark. He laid bare the Acropolis, baths, cisterns, store-houses, and a mole for the protection of the galleys that entered the harbour. Most of what was then laid open has since been covered over, but the whole ground is so strewn with pottery that the peasants have to clear their fields of it as an incumbrance.

The ruined convent above was occupied by Sisters of the Benedictine Order. It was fortified, and exercised feudal authority over the land around. In the event of danger, the convent bell summoned the tenants to its aid. But one winter night a frolicsome nun rang the bell for the fun of the thing, and when the vassals arrived, laughed at them for allowing themselves to be fooled from their beds. This prank cost the convent dear, for shortly after a Moorish corsair put into the bay, and the convent was attacked. The alarm bell was sounded in vain; no one answered the summons, and before morning the house was sacked, and the nuns had been carried away, to be sold as slaves in Africa.

A curious condition of affairs existed at Hyères during the troubles of the League.

The Count de Retz, Grand Marshal of France, was Governor of Provence, and the Count de Carces was its Grand Sénéchal. The jealousy of these two men gave birth to a deplorable rivalry, which placed each at the head of a different party. De Retz supported the Huguenots, and the Catholic party took Carces as its headpiece; and the factions called themselves, or were called, Razats and Carcists long after the men whose names they had adopted had disappeared from the scene.

The rancour of each party did not abate, even when plague devastated the province. Then confusion grew worse confounded when the League was formed, due to the death of the Duke of Anjou, brother of Henry III., which made Henry of Navarre, a Calvinist, heir to the throne. The most extreme Carcists, alarmed at the prospect of the succession falling to a Huguenot, formed the plan of inviting the Duke of Savoy to take Provence. The anarchy in the country became intolerable, and large bodies of peasants and mechanics armed and fell on the forces of Carcists and Razats indifferently, routed and butchered them.

In 1586 the town of Hyères was staunch in its adherence to the king, but the castle that commanded it was occupied by the forces of the Baron de Méolhon, who was also Governor of the Port of Marseilles, and he was a Carcist, and inclined to favour the claims of the Duke of Savoy. He had placed a Captain Merle in the castle, with secret instructions to hold it for the duke.

M. de la Valette was Governor of Provence, and he saw himself obliged to make an attempt to take the castle. A messenger between De Méolhon and the Duke of Savoy had been taken with in his possession treasonable correspondence, betraying the plans of the Leaguers.

Hyères readily opened its gates to De la Valette, in November, 1588, and he summoned Merle to surrender the castle, but met with a prompt refusal. Then he attempted to take it by escalading, but in vain. It stood too high; its garrison were too alert. He could not even prevent well-wishers of the Carcists from smuggling provisions into the fortress.

At last, despairing of success, the Governor of Provence withdrew; and having failed to take the castle by force, had recourse to other means. He bought the aid of a M. de Callas, a Leaguer, related to two of the officers of the garrison, and induced him to enter the fortress and bribe and cajole its defenders into surrendering. Merle, however, was not to be seduced. He must be got rid of by other means. A cannon was dragged upstairs to an upper window of a house that commanded Merle’s dining apartment. It was known at what hour he supped, and in what part of the room he sat. A signal was to be given by a traitor when Merle took his place at the table, with his covers before him. The appointed signal was made: the cannon thundered, and a ball crashed in through the window and knocked supper and wine bottles and everything about in wreckage. But happily something had occurred to the captain as he took his seat, and he had left the room. When he returned, there was no more a dumpling on the table, but an exploded shell.

De Callas was sent again into the castle to propose terms of surrender. Merle would still have held out, but the garrison had been bought, and they refused to continue the defence. Terms of capitulation were agreed on, whereby Merle, for surrendering, was to be indemnified with ten thousand crowns. This extraordinary agreement was signed on August 31st, 1589, after the castle had held out against the king for ten months.