“Sire, at the battle of Tebia, with General Suchet. I was unable to
serve longer. But even now, whenever the drum beats, I feel like a
deserter. Under your ensign, Sire, I could still serve whenever your
Majesty would command.” The old man shed tears as he said, “My name!
To recollect that after fifteen years!” All hesitation among the crowd
as to how they would receive Napoleon was at an end. He had won every
heart.
Napoleon, as it happens, had a very bad memory for names. What is
probable is, that Pauline pointed the old soldier out to her brother
from the window, and named him, before Napoleon descended.
The English frigate, the _Undaunted_, was lying in the Gulf of Fréjus.
The fallen Emperor manifested considerable reluctance to go on board.
However, on April 28th he sailed from S. Raphael, and after a rough
passage disembarked at Porto Ferrajo, the capital of Elba, on the 4th
of May.
The great Roman road, the Via Aurelia, left the capital of the world by
the Janiculan Gate, made for Pisa, Lucca, followed the coast the whole
way, passed above where is now Monaco, over a spur of the Maritime Alps
by Nice, Antibes, Cannes, came to a little town in the lap of the Gulf
of Fréjus, and thence turned abruptly away from the coast and made
direct for Aix and Arles. Thence roads radiated: one, leading up the
left bank of the Rhone, took troops and commerce to the Rhine. Thence
also the Domitian Way conveyed both by Narbonne into Spain.
This bay was the last harbour on the Mediterranean for troops that
were to march into the heart of Gaul, to Britain, or to the Rhine.
Hitherto the road, hugging the coast, offered innumerable facilities
for provisioning soldiery and supplying them with munitions of war.
But from the Bay of Fréjus this advantage ceased. Julius Cæsar saw
the great strategical importance of the harbour, and he resolved to
make of it an important haven, a naval station, and an emporium for
stores. Marseilles he did not choose. It was a commercial town, a Greek
town, and he was out of temper with it for having sided with Pompey
against him. Accordingly he settled here some veterans of his favourite
Tenth Legion, to become the nucleus of a colony. But Cæsar overlooked
what was a most important point—his port Forum Julii was planted at
the mouth of the Argens, and the river brought down a vast amount of
fluviatile deposit, mud and sand, and inevitably in a few years would
silt up his port. It had a further disadvantage—it was a fever trap.
To the south the town had a wide tract of fetid marsh, breeding
malaria and mosquitoes. He would have done well to have swallowed his
resentment against Marseilles and to have taken the opinion of so
observant a man as Vitruvius, or even to have studied the conditions
himself more closely. Now all the harbour is buried in silt, and grass
grows where galleys floated. The lap of the bay, which was once at
Fréjus, begins now at S. Raphael and extends to Cap S. Aigous. In time
S.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account