Between Villefranche and Beaulieu is the peninsula of St. Jean, washed by the waves on either side and as indented and jagged as the shores of Greece. To-day it has become an annex of Nice, with opulent villas of kings, princes, and millionaires, from Leopold, King of Belgium down. [Illustration: _Villa of Leopold, King of Belgium_] At St. Jean-sur-Mer, midway down the peninsula, is a little fishing village, still quaint and unspoiled amid all the splendours of the palaces of kings and villas of millionaires, which have of late grown so plentiful in this once virgin forest tract. There are many souvenirs here of the time when the neighbourhood was occupied by the Knights Hospitalers of St. John of Jerusalem, and there is much history and legend connected with them. Seaward is the Promontory or Pointe de St. Hospice, where the Duc de Savoie, Emmanuel Philibert, built a fortification. It was an ideal spot for a defensive work of this nature, though it protected nothing except what was inside. It must, in a former day, have been a very satisfactory work of its kind, as it is recorded that this prince, coming to view the progress of the work, and fallen upon by the Saracens, retreated within the walls of his new defence, where he successfully repulsed all their attacks. Many times did the pirates attack this outpost, but finally, as the country became peaceful, a hospice came to take the place of the warlike fortification, and from this establishment the Pointe de St. Hospice of to-day takes its name. Half-way up the foot-hills of the Alps the great white ribbon of the “Corniche” rolls its solitary way until La Turbie is reached. Here is a little village seated proudly beneath that colossal ruin, the Augustan trophy, which has been a marvel and subject of speculation for archæologists for ages past. One thing seems certain, however, and that is that it was a monument commemorative of the submission of forty-five distinct peoples of western Gaul to the power of Rome. Westward is Roquebrune, where the “Corniche” drops to the two hundred-metre level, and one rapidly approaches the sea beyond Cap Martin, and thus reaches Menton, but two kilometres onward. The coast route from Nice to Menton via Villefranche and Beaulieu approximates the same length as the “Corniche” proper, and its charms are as varied. It rolls along behind the old citadel of Mont Boron and suddenly opens up the magnificent bay of Villefranche, the favourite Mediterranean station of the Russians and Americans, and thence on rapidly to Beaulieu, Monte Carlo, and Menton. All the way this route by the sea follows the shore and skirts picturesque gulfs and _calanques_, and now and then tunnels a hillside only to come out into day and a vista more beautiful than that which was left behind. CHAPTER XII. EZE AND LA TURBIE