Now Roquebrune was feminine. She was a woman-town. She was constitutionally weak. She was little able to defend herself. When hit she did not hit back again, because she was not strong enough. She was bullied and was powerless to resent it. She was afraid of the sea, as many women are, and cared not to venture on it. She showed her feminine disposition in more ways than one. Roquebrune had been under the harsh tyranny of Monaco for a number of years, but she endured her ill treatment in silence. She bent her back to the blow. She crouched on the ground, passive and apparently cowed. Women will endure oppression patiently and without murmuring for a very long time. But a moment comes when they revolt, and it is noteworthy that they revolt generally with success, for the issue depends not only upon a masterly patience, but upon the choice of the proper time to end it. A town of the type of Eze would have had neither the patience to wait nor the instinct to select the moment for an uprising. Eze, after a year or so of hardship, would have flown at the throat of Monaco and would probably have been annihilated in the venture. Roquebrune waited a great deal more than a year or so. She waited and endured for thirty-three years and when instinct told her that the right time had come she turned upon the enemy, but not with a battleaxe in her hand. She quietly placed herself under the protection of Italy and when she had secured that support she boldly declared herself a free city and a free city she remained until she was received into the open arms of France. An episode that happened in 1184 will, perhaps, still better illustrate the feminine character of Roquebrune. In that year the town was besieged by the Ventimiglians. The reason for the assault is not explained by the historian. It is probable that mere want of something to do led to this act of wickedness. One can imagine the Count of Ventimiglia bored to the verge of melancholia by idleness and can conceive him as becoming tiresome and unmanageable. One morning, perhaps, a courtier would address his yawning lord with the remark, “What! nothing to do, sir! Why not go and sack Roquebrune?” To which the count, quite cheered, would reply, “An excellent idea. Send for the captain.” [Illustration: ROQUEBRUNE: RUE DE LA FONTAINE. View of Castle.]