History des Alpes-Maritimes

In the Vallonet cave located in the commune of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, man (Homo erectus or Homo antecessor) was also present a million years ago. Here too, large carnivores have succeeded each other, such as the saber-toothed tiger, the wolf or the panther. It is one of the oldest sites where human presence is attested by archaeological evidence.

At the foot of Mount Boron in Nice, in the creek of Terra Amata, hunters of elephants, deer, rhinoceros, aurochs and wild boars tame the fire they light with twigs and maintain with sea grass.

A series of archaeological excavations have brought to light carved stones, rudimentary tools and animal bones that were used as food by prehistoric man (Homo erectus, Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens). The most significant fact, proof of the presence of human life on the Côte d'Azur 170,000 years ago, remains the discovery of the frontal bone of a Homo erectus in 2011 in the Lazaret cave in Nice. This prehistoric site dates from the Middle Paleolithic and is located at the foot of Mount Boron.

The Phoenicians begin to colonize the Côte d'Azur region. They created trading posts along the coast in Menton, Monaco, Villefranche-sur-Mer, Nice, Antibes and introduced the culture of the vine and the olive tree. But the interior of the land continued to belong to semi-savage tribes who were torn between them, such as the Vedianti, the Nerusi, the Oratelli, the Decaeates and the Ligurians who, in times of famine, came down from their mountains and plundered the coastal trading posts.

The Romans began to pacify and colonize the country to ensure the safety of their convoys. The country was transformed and covered with roads and monuments. The Romans traced the Aurelian way which followed the coastline to Italy.

While the emperor Augustus comes in person to reduce the last rebellious tribes and submit them to a definitive obedience, all the former colonies of Marseille pass under Roman authority. The names of the defeated peoples are inscribed on a gigantic monument erected to the glory of the Roman armies: this is the famous Alpine trophy or Augustus' trophy, which can still be seen today at La Turbie. The pax romana lasted until the end of the Western Roman Empire: it was a period of great prosperity during which the Roman people administered both shores of the Mediterranean, called Mare nostrum (Our Sea), built roads, developed agriculture and stimulated the oil and wine trade.

After the conversion of the emperor Constantine, Christianity spread rapidly throughout Provence where the peasants took the habit of leaving the isolated farmhouses to gather in fortified villages around a watering hole in the hinterland. Mary Magdalene is said to have taken refuge there to pray for the rest of her life in a cave in the Sainte-Baume. Tradition says she was buried in Saint-Maximin by the saint of the same name. The country is covered with new monuments: country chapels on the hills, fortified churches in the villages, convents and monasteries.

Barbarians from the north and east, the Visigoths, Burgundians, Ostrogoths and Franks invaded the region, destroying towns, villages and ramparts in an apocalypse of massacres, fires and looting: the Roman Empire collapsed.

The Arabs who had come from Spain and North Africa to seize the coastline and move northwards were stopped by Charles Martel in Poitiers. On their way they exterminated the 500 monks of the Lérins islands, an abbey founded by Saint Honorat in 410.

The first kingdom of Provence was created. However, the Saracens returned in force and invaded Provence again from the Gulf of Saint-Tropez and Grimaud, which, throughout the Middle Ages, experienced the horrors of war, exactions and pillaging.

Provence thus passed from hand to hand. Successively property of the Count of Barcelona and then of the Duke of Anjou, Provence went through great trials: wars generated by rivalries between the reigning families, the great black plague (1347-1349), brigandage and poor harvests.

The county of Nice was definitively detached from Provence and attached to the States of the House of Savoy. As the only maritime province enclosed within the kingdom of France, Nice and its county occupied an original place for four centuries.

After the death of the "good King René" of Anjou, who died in Aix, the region was offered to Louis XI and became French in 1486.

Wars raged in the region. The fortified architecture of the villages of the middle and high country as well as the numerous farms, a little isolated, bristling with barbicans and redoubts, are the vestiges.

During the reign of François I, the troops of Charles V invaded Provence. The cities of Saint-Laurent, Villeneuve-Loubet, Antibes, Grasse submitted but not Marseille, the emperor's army settled for a few days in Nice. The French troops entered Nice and plundered everything in their path. The war ended with the defeat of François I in Pavia in 1525.

The Eighth Italian War. Francis I decided to attack the Duke of Savoy, one of Charles V's main allies. He invaded Bresse and Savoy and seized Turin. Charles III was left with his "very faithful county of Nice" which he defended for 25 years. Charles V's army (which came to the aid of his brother-in-law Charles III) invaded Provence. It entered Nice on July 21 and crossed the Var on July 26. The French having practiced scorched earth tactics in Provence, Charles V returned to Nice in September, his army decimated by hunger.

The French, allied with the Turks, laid siege to Nice, which resisted under the exhortations of a sort of local Joan of Arc named Catherine Ségurane, while religious civil wars succeeded the Italian wars.

While the whole region was once again being pillaged and massacred, the Spaniards seized part of the coast and the Lérins islands before being driven out in 1637.

During the reign of Louis XIV, the Duke of Savoy entered the war known as the "League of Augsburg", a coalition directed against France.

The county of Nice, conquered by Marshal Catinat, became French again for a short time, because the treaty of Turin in 1696 gave back to Duke Victor-Amédée all the territories he had lost.

In a rage, Louis XIV took back the city of Nice and had the citadel razed to the ground in 1705.

The Austrian army recaptured the town and took Grasse. Each campaign saw a flood of troops looting, raping, setting fire to, killing in desolation and misery. Provence deserves much credit for having each time raised its ruins, rebuilt its castles, replanted its fields and its olive trees.

Many emigrants took refuge in the county of Nice and engaged in counter-revolutionary demonstrations similar to those of the emigrants in Coblence. The Convention formed three departments: Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Basses-Alpes with the remnants of the former province of Provence. The department of Var, which stretches to the Var river at the gates of Nice, constitutes the border: the most famous crossing point was a wooden bridge at Saint-Laurent-du-Var, which was washed away many times by floods or demolished by wars, but was always rebuilt at the same place where the double bridge crossing the railroad and the A8 freeway is located today. Still under the Convention, the city of Nice was conquered by General Anselme. Masséna, a child of Nice, was then a battalion commander in the Var volunteer regiment and Bonaparte received his commanding officer's certificate.

Dugommier completes the conquest of the county of Nice which becomes French again for twenty years.

In the wake of the first Congress of Vienna, the troops of the King of Sardinia regained possession of the country.

Napoleon landed on a beach in Golfe-Juan surrounded by a handful of followers. He crossed Grasse, then the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and reached Grenoble by the route that is now known as the "Route Napoléon". He arrived in Paris on the 20th March without firing a single shot. After Waterloo, the county of Nice was once again taken from France.

Italy ceded Savoy and the county of Nice to France in gratitude for Napoleon III's help in the cause of Italian independence. The territory of the region drew its almost definitive contours: the department of Var kept its name, but lost the canton of Grasse which today forms with the former county of Nice, the department of Alpes-Maritimes within which flows the river Var!

1860 also marks the arrival of the railroad, which will considerably facilitate access to the region whose reputation and gentle way of life has toured Europe. It was the rise of aristocratic tourism. The Côte d'Azur attracted sovereigns and members of royal families. The Mediterranean coastline quickly seduced elegant ladies and gentlemen who, walking along the seashore, dazzled by so much light and intoxicated by the quality of the air, made this shoreline a popular place for aristocrats, the wealthy and the anonymous. All come to take their winter quarters and the most beautiful places of the area are then taken by storm: beautiful residences competing of originality are built on the heights of Cannes, Nice, Antibes and Menton, constituting today the witness of the unbridled enthusiasm of these people for the area as the English and their queen Victoria without forgetting the future king Edouard VII or the Russians with the empress Alexandra Feodorovna (widow of the tsar Nicolas Ier) who are the first to settle there. In 50 years, the modest fishing villages became elegant seaside resorts.

The man of letters Stéphen Liégeard, in love with his shores, wrote what was to become his most famous work: the French Riviera. In this book, the author describes "this beach bathed in rays which deserves our baptism of Côte d'Azur": the word is dropped, the myth is launched!

The Americans arrived and made the Côte d'Azur the chic meeting place of the summer season. Artists, writers, musicians and wealthy industrialists brought with them jazz, American bars and a certain form of opulence and joie de vivre. It was the apogee of the "sun cult". It was a great first that would end up launching the myth of the "French Riviera".

Italy declares war on France, the Italian army occupies Menton but Nice is not annexed.

The free zone was invaded by the German army following the landing of allied troops in North Africa. On 27 November of the same year, the French fleet (115 ships) scuttled at Toulon to avoid falling into the hands of the Axis forces.

The 7th American army, under the command of General Patch and mainly made up of the^1st Free French Army commanded by General de Lattre de Tassigny, landed at Dramont in the Saint-Raphaël region, liberating Provence in less than two weeks.

The upper Roya valley as far as Tende became definitively French following the peace treaty signed with Italy.

With the advent of paid vacations and the end of colonial rents, the English colony, which had been present on the "French Riviera" in the past, ended up dissolving into the crowd of new arrivals. Mass tourism led to the construction of new infrastructures on the coast, but also in the mountains with the construction of winter sports resorts. Isola 2000 being one of the precursors.