A Book of the Riviera

by S. Baring-Gould

CHAPTER X
L’ESTÉREL

The porphyry mountains—Geology and botany—The Suelteri—Charles V. sets fire to the forests—Revenge—The tower of Muy—The seven gentlemen—Attempt to shoot Charles—Failure—The Estérel formerly a haunt of brigands—Gaspard de Besse—Saussure and Millin—Agay—The Roman quarries—Cap Roux—La Sainte Baume—S. Honoratus—Various places of winter resort in the Estérel.

A TRAVELLER must be very blasé or very obtuse who is not spellbound by the exceptional beauty of the Estérel. This mountain mass, like the Chaine des Maures, is an interruption of the continuity of the limestone of the coast. It consists of a tremendous upheaval of red porphyry. Unlike the Maures, with its schists and granite, the porphyry assumes the boldest and most fantastic shapes, and the gorgeousness of its colouring defies description. These flame-red crags shooting out of a sea the colour of a peacock’s neck, or out of dense woods of pine, afford pictures where form and colouring are alike of sovereign beauty. It is a region unique in Europe, extending something like twelve English miles from east to west, and as much from north to south. The medium height of its summits is 1,500 to 1,800 feet, so that the elevation is not great, but it is cleft by valleys that abound in scenes of the finest order of picturesqueness. Here and there the granite and gneiss appear; elsewhere serpentine, trap, basalt, and blue quartzite porphyry. Beside this is the new red sandstone and the Bunter sandstone. Variety of soil gives variety of vegetation; plantations of mimosa, not over a quarter of a century old, thrive on the primitive rocks, and are mixed with cork trees, umbrella pines, oaks, bushes of cistus, laurestinas, myrtle, rosemary, heath, broom, and in the spring gleam the white spears of the asphodel. It is a district in which geologist, botanist, and artist will revel alike.

“The group of the Estérel,” says Lenthéric, “differs in form, in colour, in origin, from all the littoral mountains of the Provençal coast. It is entirely composed of primitive eruptive rocks; its highest summits may not reach above 1,800 feet; but all its ridges are pointed, and of a redness of fire. The crests of the mountains are bald and savage. The cliffs are abrupt, torn into projecting and retreating angles, and form on the sea-face an inaccessible fortification, defended by an archipelago of islets and reefs of almost polished porphyry, over which the waves have broken during many centuries without having been able to produce upon them any appreciable marks of geological erosion. The outline, the denticulation, the anfractuosities of the shore, the fiords and the rocky caverns into which the sea plunges, are little different to-day from what they were at the opening of historic times, even, one may say, at the beginning of our own geologic period.”[12]

This wild and wondrous region was occupied by a Ligurian tribe of Suelteri, who have left their name, much corrupted, to the district. The Romans found it difficult to conquer them, but they carried the Aurelian Road along the coast, where runs now the New Corniche Way.

When Charles V. penetrated into Provence, with intention to annex it, and Francis I. retreated before him, he was so harassed by the natives of the Estérel swooping down on his convoys and capturing them, or cutting to pieces detached regiments, that he set the forests on fire, and for a week or ten days flames raged about the ruddy cliffs, making them look as if they had been heated red hot, and either burning the gallant defenders or driving them in desperation to break forth from this vast raging kiln to fall on the pikes of his men-at-arms.

Men, women, children, cattle, all perished in this horrible pyre; and when the conflagration died out for lack of fuel, nothing was left but the ashes of the burnt forest, mixed with the calcined bones of those who had perished in it, above which stood the gaunt red spires of rock, like petrified flames. Such conduct provoked reprisals, and not a soldier of the invaders was spared who fell into the hands of the exasperated Provençals.

At the little village of Le Muy stood, and stands still, a solitary tower by the side of the road, along which the Emperor was marching. It was old and in decay, a ruin in the midst of ruins; and so little did it excite suspicion that the Imperialists did not trouble to examine it.