The landing party swarmed over the walls of the town or burst through the gates; they “killed all that opposed them; then entering the houses they instantly hanged many of the superior inhabitants, plundered the town and reduced great part of it to ashes.”[27] According to Stowe, in his “Annals,” this very effective assault took place at “nine of the clock” and the townsmen ran away for fear. “By the breake of the next day,” adds Stowe, “they which fled, by help of the country thereabout, came against the pyrates and fought them; in which skirmish were slain to the number of 300 pyrates, together with their captain, a young soldier the King of Sicilis son.” The entry into the town was made at the lower end of Bugle Street. Now it is stated that the marauding party that attacked Southampton was composed, for the most part, of men from the Genoese division of the fleet and that the assault was led and the looting directed by Carlo Grimaldi in person. Grimaldi’s share of the plunder was so substantial that on his return to Monaco he purchased with the money the town of Eze in 1341. It thus comes to pass that some of the savings of honest Hampshire citizens have been invested at one time in this very unattractive property. ----- [26] “The Riviera,” Macmillan, 1885. [27] John Ballar, “Historical Particulars relative to Southampton,” 1820. John Stowe, “Annals,” London, 1631. J. S. Davies, “History of Southampton,” 1883. XV THE TROUBADOURS OF EZE ABOUT the beginning of the thirteenth century there lived at Eze two troubadours, Blacas and Blacasette by name, father and son. They were Catalans by birth; but the family had settled in Provence and the two singers found themselves in the suite of Raymond Berenger, the Count of Provence. How it was that they came to Eze and how long they resided there is not known. Durandy states that the Blacas were owners of the manor of Eze and in describing the sack of the town in 1543 he speaks of the castle as “the castle of the Blacas.”[28] Certain it is that they were both men of position and were both much esteemed. Blacas, his biographer asserts, was admired more for “the nobleness of his manners” than for the merit of his poems.[29] The two of them wrote and dreamed of love and of fair women, of gardens and green fields. They formed for themselves a little literary circle, as if they were living in Old Chelsea, held Courts of Love and meetings with their poet friends in which they competed with one another. Indeed the first known poem of Blacas (written before 1190) was a tanzon with the troubadour Peyrols. A tanzon, it may be explained, was a competition in verse, the rhymers concerned contributing alternate couplets. For those who are curious as to the kind of poetry that rippled over the walls of Eze I append a verse by Blacas translated into the French of a later period from the Provençal in which it was written.