ROQUEBRUNE is very old. It can claim a lineage so ancient that the first stirrings of human life among the rocks on which it stands would appear to the historian as a mere speck in the dark hollow of the unknown. Roquebrune has been a town since men left caves and forests and began to live in dwellings made by hands. It can boast that for long years it was—with Monaco and Eze—one of the three chief sea towns along this range of coast. Its history differs in detail only from the history of any old settlement within sight of the northern waters of the Mediterranean. The Pageant of Roquebrune unfolds itself to the imagination as a picturesque march of men with a broken hillside as a background and a stone stair as a processional way. Foremost in the column that moves across the stage would come the vague figure of the native searching for something to eat; then the shrewd Ph?nician would pass searching for something to barter and then the staid soldierly Roman seeking for whatever would advance the glory of his imperial city. They all in turn had lived in Roquebrune.
 
ROQUEBRUNE, SHOWING THE CASTLE.
As the Pageant progressed there would pass by the hectoring Lombard, the swarthy Moor, a restless band of robber barons and pirate chiefs, a medley of medi?val men-at-arms and a cluster of lords and ladies with their suites. They all in turn had lived in Roquebrune. Finally there would mount the stair the shopkeeper and the artisan of to-day, who would reach the foot of Roquebrune in a tramcar.
This Pageant of Roquebrune would impress the mind with the great antiquity of man, with his ceaseless evolution through the ages with an ever-repeated change in face, in speech, in bearing and in garb. Yet look! Above the housetops of the present town a company of swifts is whirling with a shrill whistle like that of a sword swishing through the air. They, at least, have remained unchanged.
They hovered over the town before the Romans came. They have seen the Saracens, the troopers of Savoy, the Turkish bandits, the soldiers of Napoleon. Age after age, it would seem, they have been the same, the same happy birds, the same circle of wings, the same song in the air.
On the rock too are bushes of rosemary—“Rosemary for remembrance.” The little shrub with its blue flower has also seen no change. The caveman knew it when he first wandered over the hill with the curiosity of a child. The centurion picked a bunch of it to put in his helmet. The pirate of six hundred years ago slashed at it with his cutlass as he passed along and the maiden of to-day presses it shyly upon her parting lover.
In the Pageant of Roquebrune man is, indeed, the new-comer, the upstart, the being of to-day, the creature that changes. The swifts, the rosemary and the hillside belong to old Roquebrune.
The following are certain landmarks in the tale of the town.[47] It seems to have belonged at first to the Counts of Ventimiglia, about in the same way that a wallet picked up by the roadside would belong to the finder. In 477 these Counts sold it to a Genoese family of the name of Vento. In 1189 the town is spoken of as Genoese and as being in the holding of the Lascaris. It was indeed for long a stronghold of this house. About 1353 Carlo Grimaldi of Monaco purchased Roquebrune from Guglielmo Lascaris, Count of Ventimiglia, for 6,000 golden florins. The union of Monaco, Roquebrune and Mentone thus accomplished lasted for 500 years with unimportant intervals during which the union was for a moment severed or reduced to a thread. From 1524 to 1641 the little town was under the protection of Spain.
In 1848 Roquebrune, supported by Mentone, rebelled against the Grimaldi, after suffering oppression at their hands for thirty-three years, and declared itself a free town or, rather, a little republic. It so remained until 1860 when it was united with France at the time that Nice was ceded to that country. An indemnity of 4,000,000 francs was paid to the Prince of Monaco in compensation for such of his dominions as changed hands in that year.[48]
Roquebrune, of course, did not escape the disorders which befell other towns in its vicinity. Its position rendered it weak, exposed it to danger and made it difficult to defend. It was sacked on occasion, notably by the Turks about 1543 after they had dealt with Eze in the manner already described (page 127). It met with its most serious sorrow in 1560 when it was assaulted, set on fire and gravely damaged.
At this date the history of Roquebrune ended or at least changed from that of a fortified place to that of a somewhat humble hill town. So it sank, like Eze, into obscurity. The ruins that remain date from this period and it is upon the wreckage of that year that the present town is founded. The castle would appear to have been restored, for the last time, in 1528 when the work was directed by Augustin Grimaldi of Monaco and bishop of Grasse.
By the manner in which Roquebrune bore the stress of years and faced the troubles of life the little town differed curiously from her two neighbours of Monaco and Eze. Monaco and Eze were distinctly masculine in character. They were men-towns. They were, by natural endowment, very strong. They boasted of their strength and took advantage of it. They fought everybody and every thing. They seemed to encourage assault and ............