The French: '''Tête de Chien'''|i=no (Testa de Can; "Dog's Head") is a 550 m (1,804 ft) high rock promontory near the village of La Turbie in the French: [[Alpes-Maritimes]]|i=no department of France.[1] It overlooks the Principality of Monaco, and is the highest point on the French: Grande Corniche|i=no road.[1] [2]
The American diplomat Samuel S. Cox, in his 1870 travel book Search for Winter Sunbeams in the Riviera, Corsica, Algiers and Spain wrote that the French: Tête de Chien|i=no more resembled a tortoise than a dog's head, and believed that French: Tête de Chien, or rather Testa de Can, was a corruption of Testa de Camp ("Field Head"), as it was where Caesar stationed his troops after the conquest of Gaul.[3] Vere Herbert, the heroine of Ouida's 1880 novel Moths is described as living under the French: Tête de Chien|i=no, "...within a few miles of the brilliant Hell [Monaco]."[4]
In 1897, Gustave Saige described it as "a vertical escarpment of circular shape which gives it a characteristic appearance; it's the Dog's Head."[5]
In 1944, Leopold Bohm, a German defence company commander, was stationed on the French: Tête de Chien|i=no and saw a low flying airplane crash into the sea, which had been pursued by two other planes.[6] Bohm's observation was on the day of the disappearance of the aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and it has been speculated that Bohm saw the final flight of Saint-Exupéry.[6]