My discovery of the “Tour du Masque” (The Mask's Tower) on the climb up to Le Suquet was very unexpected. If the heavy studded door, rusty iron window grill, and rather sinister looking rusty brown iron face mask nailed to the arched lintel weren't troubling enough, the marble stone plaque with its mysterious words made the whole site feel very sinister.
At first I thought the name of the street, rue Mont Chevalier, was somehow linked to the tower and that the mask was a subtle way of alluding to the mysterious prisoner known as the Man in the Iron Masque. Now, in the light of new discoveries, I'm able to piece together (although not everything) the story of the tower and the history of Mont Chevalier.
From all accounts the tower was built in the 12th century and used for over two hundred years as a south-west passageway to enter the walled town (Le Suquet). In 1570 a studded door was installed by the tower's owner in order to create a private enclosed garden; by doing so he cut off this access route to all and sundry. Over time this door has been successively named Porte de Babylone, Porte d'Alsacio and Porte de Besson, and while today known as Porte de La Pantiéro it is also called Tour du Masque.
To the right of the wooden studded door is a large, stone plaque with very odd words:
The Tower of the Mask
XIIth century
Watchtower for the Citadel, defended throughout the centuries by the gallant Suquetanes militiamen against Barbarians. The Man in the Iron Mask is purported to have escaped Ile Saint-Marguerite to take refuge in the tower (the prisoner in the Bastille being only an unfortunate stooge). In circumstances that still remain mysterious, he died after a long period of contemplation and prayer, having forgiven his torturers. Dimittite et dimittemini (Forgive: and you will be forgiven. Luc Ch 6-V.37). Passerby, delay your journey and meditate on the sufferances of this tortured soul, whose ghost, on certain nights, haunts this site.
Surviving records concerning a masked prisoner on Ile St Marguerite date back to 1 July 1669 some ninety years after the wooden door was first installed. Further records show that the prisoner was taken to the Bastille prison in September 1698. One can only speculate that at some point during his thirty years in captivity he made good his escape and found refuge within the protective walls of the tower. Sadly, there is no date on the stone plaque as to when these events transpired. Equally, it would seem foolish to me to flaunt his presence for fear of reprisals from the reigning King. Thus I can only presume that the iron mask was nailed to the archway and the stone plaque fitted long after the prisoner died - yet called upon the descendents of the tower to mark his stay there.
While the mask still remains somewhat of a mystery, the road, rue Mont Chevalier, is now far less so. Indeed, I've now managed to find out that plans for its creation were actually drawn up in the 19th century. With the installation of the wooden door in 1570, people living at the bottom of Le Suquet hill could only get to Mass at Notre-Dame-d'Espérance via a muddy track on the east side of Le Suquet hill, replete with potholes that made negotiating it very difficult. As a passing note, this is the time of the French Restauration when Napoleon I of France was ousted in 1814, and the Allies restored the Bourbon Dynasty to the French Throne and, consequently, the Roman Catholic Church as a power in French politics.
During the Restauration period Cannes was attached to the Var and under the jurisdiction of its Préfet, a certain Jean-Georges Louis Armand Chevalier. When the request was put to him to have a road constructed up to the church , Monsieur Chevalier was quick to sympathise with the plight of the people of Cannes and found a staunch supporter in Monseigneur Richery, Bishop of Fréjus. At the end of October 1822 Louis XVIII's government gave their authorisation for construction work to commence; the Cannois welcomed this news with great enthusiasm. A year later, in May 1823, they made their way up to mass using the new road for the first time - a road without a name.
Monsieur Pierre Roustan, Cannes' Mayor, sought to remedy the oversight and felt that the road should be baptised rue du Mont-Chevalier as a mark of gratitude towards the man who made it all possible. With the support of his deputies, Monsieur Roustan approached the municipal counsellors with his proposal - it was unanimously accepted.
So while I discovered that in actual fact Mont-Chevalier has nothing at all to do with the Tour du Masque, nor that any allusion that the wearer of the mask was a Chevalier, I am still left with the unsolved puzzle of the mask. And for that I think more research is needed as my curiosity simply won't go away.
