EZE is a curious name and the name of a still more curious place. Eze, indeed, by reason of its grim history and its astonishing position on a lone pinnacle of rock, is one of the most fascinating towns in the Riviera. Its past has been more tumultuous and more tragic than that probably of any settlement of its size in Provence. It has seen much, has done much and, above all, has suffered much, for its cup of sorrows has been overflowing. It is a place of extreme antiquity; since people lived within its rampart of rocks before the dawn of history. Some maintain that the Ph?nicians, after expelling these raw natives, fortified Eze, but then that ubiquitous and pushing people seems—at one time or another—to have occupied every place on the seaboard of Europe that can admit of some obscurity in its history.
Certain it is that the Romans when they landed possessed themselves of this town on the cliff and established a harbour in the bay which lies at its foot. When they, in their turn, had embarked in their galleys and sailed away the Lombards appeared, murdered all they could find, burned everything that would burn and robbed to the best of their exceptional abilities. This episode is ascribed to the year 578. The death-rate at
Eze must always have been very high, but during the time that the Lombards were busy in the district it must have risen almost to annihilation.
The Lombards and their kin held on to Eze, in an unsteady fashion, for nearly 200 years and when they had finished with it the Saracens entered upon the scene. These talented scoundrels crept up the cliff in swarms and, with such bloodshedding as the limited material at their disposal would allow, settled themselves upon the point of rock and proceeded to consolidate its position as a den of thieves. This disturbing change of tenancy is said to have taken place in 740 and as the Saracens were not driven from Provence until 980 they were longer in residence than the Lombards. They are credited with having built the castle—or rather the first castle—of Eze. They made slaves of as many of the natives as they could capture, spoke in a strange tongue, made themselves a horror in the land and, in general terms, did inconceivable things. Eze was one of the last strongholds of the Saracens on the Riviera and in order to make the evacuation of the place complete the town was razed to the ground.
After the last Saracens had clattered down the little zigzag path to their boats Eze fell upon still more evil days. It entered upon a period of unease so protracted that for centuries it was never certain of its fate from one day to another. It was taken and retaken over and over again. It was starved into submission at one time and burnt to the rock edge at another. It was occupied now by the Guelphs and now by the Ghibellines. It belonged one year to the House of Anjou and the next to the Counts of Provence. It was at one time a dependency of Naples and at another time of Monaco. It was bartered about like an old hat and sold or bought with a flaunting disregard of the sentiment of the people who were sold with it. Finally in the fourteenth century it was sold to Amadeus of Savoy in whose family it remained—with the exception of twenty-two years during the Revolution—down to its cession to France in 1860.[26]
It was visited by plague and devastated by fever. It had a varied experience of assassination, of poisoning and of modes of torture; while its information............