MONACO is assuredly the loveliest spot on the entire French coast.
More the pity that it should be delivered over to such evil associations as cling to it.
Monaco itself is a limestone crag rising out of the sea, linked to the mainland by a neck, the rocks on all sides precipitous, but cut into, to form an approach to the town. Above it towers the ridge that extends from the Mont Agel, with its fortress gleaming white against a gentian-blue sky, by La Turbie, “hunc usque Italia, abhinc Gallia,” and the Tete-de-Chien, formerly Testa- de-Camp.
The rock of Monaco takes its name from Monoikos.
It was dedicated to the Phoenician Melkarth, the One god in a house, who would suffer no other idols in his temple, and that temple anciently crowned the rock. The adoption by the Grimaldi of a monk as supporter to the arms is due to a misapprehension that Monaco is derived from Monacus.
Unhappily, matchlessly beautiful as is the situation, the buildings of Monaco do not conduce to picturesqueness.
The palace is mean and ugly to the last degree.
It has four towers, erected in 1215 by the Genoese architect Fulco del Castello, but the domestic buildings connecting these towers are of various dates, and all bad. The palace has not a single bold and characteristic feature to give it dignity.
A vast sum-from the gambling tables-has been spent upon a cathedral, designed by Charles Lenormand. Internally, and indeed externally, from near at hand it is fine and dignified. But from a distance it produces an unpleasing effect. It has no tall towers, no stately dome; but at the rear, a monstrous hump, designed to make a display of the West front, otherwise meaningless.
The distant effect of this church is that of an infant peacock, spreading its tail before it has any feathers to display. There is not a single commanding feature in the bunch of buildings huddled together on the summit of the rock, and old Mentone, with its commonplace church tower, presents a nobler aspect than dues Monaco.
No finer site in the world could be found, and none has been so wasted through incapacity to utilise it.
Monaco or Montecarlo is an independent principality, under an autocratic government.
It, its prince, its gambling hell, are under the protection of France.
The principality comprises 5436 acres, which would be the estate of a petty English squire. But the Sovereign has his Council of State, his nobles, and his bishop at command. Also an army, consisting of five officers and seventy men. Formerly there was a guard of honour in addition, whose function it was to blow trumpets and present arms when the Prince entered or left the main gate of the palace.
But this guard of honour was dissolved, February 1st, 1904, and the soldiers of the standing army now perform the duties formerly devolving on the guard. The dissolution of the corps must have resembled the famous dismissal by Bombastes Furioso: “Begone, brave army, and don’t kick up a row!” The six bronze cannon in front of the palace were given by Louis XV. Each has its name, and they bear the inscription: ” Ultima ratio regum.”
The Grimaldi were a Genoese family, and they first appear in history as assisting William, Count of Provence, and the Emperor Otho I, in expelling the Saracens.
For their services, the Emperor conferred Monaco on one of them, others were rewarded with fiefs, near Nice, and in the Maures, as already told.
A claim is made to descent from Grimoald Mayor of the palace, who died 656, but it is baseless, and rests on no better foundation than identity of name; for patronymics were not then in use.
The descendants of Gibelin Grimaldi, possessors of the fief of Monaco, were at first only seigneurs, but eventually became sovereigns, and the family obtained large tracts of land, and acquired great power in Provence and Liguria. Till the seventeenth century they had a flotilla of galleys destined to stop all coasters and exact a toll.
This fleet also served in the wars in which the neighbouring states were involved.
Rainier II, Prince of Monaco, in 1302, entered the service of Philip the Fair, and was the first to lead a Genoese fleet in 1304 through the Straits of Gibraltar into the ocean. He conducted sixteen galleys to the coast of Flanders, and encountered the Flemish fleet before Ziricksee. He concerned himself little about the French vessels that had joined him, and allowed all of them to be taken; but as the Flemings were felicitating themselves on their victory, he returned with the rising tide, pierced their line, destroyed a number of their ships, and took prisoner Guy de Namur, son of the Count of Flanders.
Charles II of Monaco was made governor of Provence and admiral of the fleet of Genoa. In 1338 he directed twenty galleys against the Flemings; in 1346, along with Antonio Doria, he led thirty against the English.
The troops were disembarked, and joined the French army which encountered the English at Creçy. The Genoese were esteemed the best archers in the world. Grimaldi and Doria disposed them to the best advantage, and they would have done great execution in the English ranks, but that the rain had relaxed the strings of their bows, and, says Froissart
“They hooted, advancing with their crossbows presented, and began to shoot. The English archers then advanced one step, and shot their arrows with such force and speed that it was like a fall of snow. When the Genoese felt the arrows that pierced their arms, heads, and though their armour, some of them cut the strings of their cross-bows, others flung them on the ground, and all turned and retreated in discomfiture.”
The French had a large body of men-at-arms on horseback, richly dressed, to support the Genoese.
The King of France, seeing them fall back, cried out: “Kill me those scoundrels, for they block our way unreasonably!” Then you would have seen the French men-at-arms lay about them, killing all they could of those runaways.”
Grimaldi fell there, mortally wounded.
Antonio Grimaldi, Genoese Admiral in 1332, was charged to revenge the ravages of the Aragonese on the coasts of Liguria, at a time when civil war prevented the Genoese from defending themselves and their possessions.
Grimaldi, the Princess Grace Kelly below, with a fleet of fifty-five vessels, harried the coasts of Catalonia, leaving behind him only ruins, and loading his vessels with plunder and captives. He carried off the galleys of the enemy from the harbour of Majorca.
The Aragonese sent against him a fleet of twenty-four vessels, but he defeated it.
In 1353 he was again placed at the head of the Genoese naval forces, and again sent against the Aragonese, who were now in league with the Venetians.
Grimaldi had a fleet of fifty-two sail, and he hoped to fight and defeat the enemy before they could effect a junction.
In this he was disappointed. He met the combined fleets near an islet off the north coast of Sardinia, August 29th, 1353.
Pisani, the admiral of the Venetians, concealed a portion of his fleet, and Grimaldi, deceived, attacked the rest. Whilst thus engaged, he saw the detached portion of the Venetian flotilla approach, and he found that he had to deal with seventy-three sail.
To present a strong front to the enemy, he bound his galleys together by the sides and masts, reserving only four on each wing to act as reserve.
The Venetians and Catalans seeing this arrangement, also united their vessels to the number of fifty-four, but kept sixteen free at their flanks. This singular disposition shows how little, if at all, naval manceuvres had altered since the time of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey.
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