Cannes Coastline Bay of Cannes Photo by G.Wilson

The Cannes Festival Theatre Site of Film Festival Photo by G.Wilson

The French city of Cannes is known widely for its annual film extravaganza. Lying off the city's eastern extremity are two lovely islands. Few tourists visiting that beautiful place fail to take the fifteen minute ferry ride across the tranquil waters of the Bay of Cannes to savour the sights of the historic Lerin Islands.

Isle St.Marguerite & St. Honorat Photo by G.Wilson

The smaller of the two islands is called L'ile Saint-Honorat. It bears the name of the son of a Roman consul, a gentle, pious man who left home and family to found on this fertile retreat what became a celebrated monastery called Abbaye de Lerins. It attracted a community of 500 eminent disciples whose doctrine was spread throughout Christendom by monks and missionaries one of whom was St. Patrick.

I'ile Saint Honorat

In addition to their studies, these devout individuals laboured in the fields about the monastery, creating by careful cultivation a tiny paradise of trees and flowers. The monks of the Abbey of Lerins still worship and work this land. They produce with a secret distillation process a fine liquor called Lerina and a delicately delicious acacia honey, both hightly prized by French and foreign visitors to the sanctuary.

I'ile Saint-Honorat

Lerin Abbey on I'ile Saint-Honorat photo by G. Wilson

Left Montastery Fortified Right Abbey Notre-Dame des Lerins

Fortified Monastery Photo by G. Wilson

In addition to the pious and the peaceful, this prosperous settlement attracted Saracens and barbarians who ran amok pillaging, plundering and murdering. In order to protect themselves from the desecration and deprivation of foreign invaders, the residents of St. Honorat built in the 12th century a great structure called a Fortified Monastery whose metre-thick stone walls were well protected on three sides by the waters of the Mediterranean.

This immense structure which once contained eighty-six room, is open to the public who marvel at the men who constructed this fortress so long ago. A huge cistern occupies the heart of the building in which sufficient water could be stored for the longest of sieges.

Wall of Fortified Monastery Photo by G. Wilson

A worn, narrow, circular stairway leads to a small doorway at the top through which one emerges to spectacular views. To the north, the city of Cannes wedged between the beach, the blue sea and the looming mountains of the Maritime Alps. To the south, the shimmering waters of the magnificent Mediterranean stretch wawy to the horizon.

Inside Fortified Monastery Photo by G. Wilson

Another View of Inside of Fortified Monastery Photo by G. Wilson

View from the top of Fortified Monastery Photo by G. Wilson

Mediterranean Moat Photo by G. Wilson

During World War II another breed of barbarian - the Nazis - occupied the island and built along its west coast, a string of ominously, ugly concrete bunkers. These savage reminders of that sad time still sully the landscape, now only simply subjects for the contemptive comments of curious tourists. Nearby, prevailing over these evil outposts in a dominant place beside the highway out of Cannes, is the familiar symbol of the human spirit - Winston Churchill's well-known - V for Victory.

Churchill The Indomitable Spirit Photo by G. Wilson

Ste. Marguerite Island and Fort photo by G.Wilson

Royal Fort on Ste. Marguerite Island Photo br G. Wilson

Royal Fort Photo by G.Wilson

Ste. Marguerite, the larger of the two Lerin Islands, is named after Honorat's equally pious sister and is closer to Cannes. Charming visitors with shaded walks through woods of fragrant maritime pine and eucalyptus trees, the island offers a restful refuge from the hustle and bustle of Cannes.

Dominating the crags of its rocky shore is Fort Royal, a star-shaped fortification occupying the site of a Roman fort. It was constructed in the early 1600s under Cardinal Richelieu. Captured by the Spanish in 1635, the fort was recaptured two years later by Napoleon. It currently serves as a youth hostel and a museum of the sea with items recovered from the depths of ancient Roman and Saracen ship wrecks.

Cardinal Jules Mazaran,Louis XIV's First Minister

At one time the fort served as a prison, its numbers including an inmate made famous by the great French writer Alexander Dumas.

Isolated Iron Cell of the Man In the Iron Mask

Another of his tales fostered the myth of The Man In The Iron Mask. This strange story, a fusion of fact and fiction, has fascinated writers throughout the centuries, their number including Voltaire.

On the 30 of April 1687 the massive iron doors of Fort Royal opened to admit a most unusual prisoner. Known to the world only as the Man in the Iron Mask, this unknown individual was born in darkness and nourished in shadows. While a closely guarded captive, this very, very important prisoner was always treated with the greatest of care and consideration. His life sentence was served in comfort, his every wish but one quickly granted by the governor himself, who minutely monitored the words and actions of his star inmate and promptly reported thereon to Cardinal Jules Mazaran, the prime minister of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Louis XIV

Historians have suggested the masked man might have been either the brother of Louis XIV or his illigetimate son. Whatever the identity of this sad, celebrated soul, he harboured important secrets whose disclosure may have threatened an illustrious reputation, a prestigious career or, perhaps, even the throne itself. Consequently, he was locked up for life, eleven years of which he served in Cell 5, the second door on the right in Fort Royal prison. In 1698 this state prisoner was transferred to the Bastille, where he died in 1703, his identity for all eternity to remain a secret, inside an enigma, wrapped in a mystery.

The story has intrigued writers down through the ages and no one moreso than that great writer Alexandre Dumas. In the late 1840s, Dumas elaborated on the theme in the final installment of his Three Musketeers saga, where the prisoner is forced to wear an iron mask.

Alexandre Dumas (pere)

Alexandre Dumas, pere, (1802-1870) [his son, known as Alexandre Dumas, fils, was also a writer of some fame] was born on July 24, 1802 in the town of Villers-Cotterts. Dumas senior was the son of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a French General and Marie-Louise Lisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper. Thomas was the son of the Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie who served the government of France as Général commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of Saint-Domingue (now part of Haiti) and his black slave Marie-Césette Dumas. This made Alexandre Dumas a quadroon, a fact that prevented Alexandre receiving the acceptance in society his fame merited. The President of France, Jacques Chirac, admitted this was the result of racism and decided to right an old wrong.

Dumas was buried where he was born until November 30, 2002, when President Chirac ordered the exhumation of his body in preparation for a burial more fitting the fame of such a great writer. In a new coffin draped in blue velvet cloth flanked by Republican Guards costumed as Athos, Porthos and Aramis - the three musketeers - Dumas's body was transported to the Parthenon of Paris, where it joined such luminaries as Victor Hugo and Voltaire whose bodies were also buried there. Dumas's home, Le Chateau Monte Cristo, is outside Paris and is open to the public.

No writer was more widely read around the world than the great Alexandre Dumas. Best known for historical novels of fast-paced action. each serialized episode combining excitement and danger was eagerly awaited in 19th century France. Few have not thrilled to the adventurous escapades of Three Musketeers or that masked, sword-fighting fellow, Count of Monte Christo, their very names synonymous with excitement and danger.

But wait! Sacrebleu! What if Dumas was not, in fact, the person who penned these great tales! According to an article in the Post, it has been disclosed that Dumas may not have been sole author of these stories. Astonishingly, France's leading Dumas expert, Claude Schopp, in his Dictionary of Alexandre Dumas, which is due out in March, claims Dumas's negre, the French term for ghost writer, Auguste Jules Maquet, "was the real 'fourth musketeer' who actually came up with the plot for the trilogy featuring Porthos, Athos, Aramis and d'Artagnan." Schopp claim's Auguste Maquet wrote this story, but was told that while he had written a masterpiece, he needed a 'name' to have it published.

Dumas had achieved great popularity with a series of colourful dramas on historical subjects, like Henry III et sa cour and Antony.. His writing had earned him a great deal of money, which he quickly lost living the wild life. As a result, he was frequently broke or in debt. Fortuitously for Dumas, Maquet found him in Florence, where the former had fled to avoid his financial difficulties. Dumas asked Maquet if he would let him publish one of Maquet's novels in serial form. He consented and Dumas did under his own name and from that point on, the novels on which his reputation rests hit the presses relatively rapidly.

As these great novels were published, amazement was expressed at Dumas's astonishing energy, for the famous works appeared "at prodigious speed." Little wonder, for it now is known that they had already been written or were well under way by Maquet. The two had decided that Maquet would come up with the plots and background, which Dumas then embellished,expanded and published under his own, well-known name. Dumas reaped fame and Maquet francs. Not satisfied with this informal arrangement, Dumas convinced Maquet to waive ownership rights to their joint works and things went along swimmingly, until the pair parted over a dispute. Maquet sued unsuccessfuly for more money and rightful recognition. The latter came belatedly when the names of his famous works: The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo and La Reine Margot, were finally featured - engraved on his tombstone. One wonders whether this will result in another re-interment for Alexandre Dumas.

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