As now seen, Mentone is of comparatively recent date. Its reputation as a resort for health-seekers is only of ten or twelve years’ standing, and the larger part of its extensions has taken place within that period. At the end of last century, the town consisted of little more than a dense cluster of antiquated buildings, covering a conical hill, which rises from the sea-shore; the whole hemmed in by defensible walls, with the remains of a castle crowning the summit (since transformed into a cemetery), and a kind of sea-port claiming protection from the bastion on the projecting reef. While in this antiquated condition, there was no road through it fit for wheeled carriages. The only thoroughfare was the old Roman road, about twelve feet in width, sufficient alone for foot-passengers or mules, which wound its way as it best could along the coast—sometimes creeping up hills, at other times diving into ravines, and when arriving at towns, getting through them by narrow passages, well guarded at each end by gates. Such was the sole means of communication along the shore of the Western Riviera till within the memory of persons still living. Good reasons for this backward state of things might be found in political distractions, and more specially in the fact, that the whole of this part of the coast was for ages so much beset by predatory bands of Moors or Saracens, that it was advantageous to make every place as inaccessible as possible. Villages were placed far up the mountains, with a good outlook to the sea, and were approachable only by scarcely distinguishable tracks. While the towns were walled, the palazzos of the gentry adjoining the ancient route resembled the larger kind of fortified Border keeps, and could be entered only by drawbridges and strongly barred doors, protected by shot-holes. Several specimens of these bastel-houses still survive, though in a decayed condition, and are well worth investigation. The Saracens, however, established themselves on various parts of the coast; one of their strongholds being Eza, a small fortified town, already referred to as being seen on the road from Nice to Mentone. According to tradition, the person chiefly concerned in expelling these intruders was a noble Genoese, named Grimaldi, who, for his bravery and public services, received a gift of the territory of Monaco, in which his descendants afterwards bore rule. As this event is said to have taken place in the year 980, the House of Grimaldi must be reckoned one of the very oldest in Europe.