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diff --git a/21996-8.txt b/21996-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26653d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/21996-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4476 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Riviera Towns, by Herbert Adams Gibbons, +Illustrated by Lester George Hornby + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Riviera Towns + + +Author: Herbert Adams Gibbons + + + +Release Date: July 4, 2007 [eBook #21996] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIVIERA TOWNS*** + + +E-text prepared by Al Haines + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 21996-h.htm or 21996-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/9/9/21996/21996-h/21996-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/9/9/21996/21996-h.zip) + + +Transcriber's note: + + In the original book, all the illustrations were on the inside + of the book's front and back covers. In this e-text they have + been distributed where they fit the book's text. + + + + + +RIVIERA TOWNS + +by + +HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS + +Illustrations by Lester George Hornby + + + + + + + +New York +Robert M. McBride & Company +1931 + +Copyright, 1920, by +Robert M. McBride & Co. + +Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1920, +by Harper & Brothers + + + + +To + +Helen and Margaret + +Who Indulge + +The Author and the Artist + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + We wish to thank the editors of _Harper's + Magazine_ for allowing the republication + of articles and illustrations. + +H. A. G. + +L. G. H. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. GRASSE + II. CAGNES + III. SAINT-PAUL-DU-VAR + IV. VILLENEUVE-LOUBET + V. VENCE + VI. MENTON + VII. MONTE CARLO + VIII. VILLEFRANCHE + IX. NICE + X. ANTIBES + XI. CANNES + XII. MOUGINS + XIII. FRÉJUS + XIV. SAINT-RAPHÄEL + XV. THÉOULE + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +"A grandfather omnibus, which dated from the Second Empire." + +"The hill of Cagnes we could rave about." + +"The houses in the courts were stables downstairs." + +The river was swirling around willows and poplars. + +"Down the broad road of red shale past meadows thick with violets." + +Medieval streets and buildings have almost disappeared. + +"The Old Town takes you far from the psychology of cosmopolitanism and +the philosophy of hedonism." + +"La Napoule, above whose tower on the sea rose a hill crowned with the +ruins of a chapel. Behind were the Maritime Alps." + + + + +RIVIERA TOWNS + + +CHAPTER I + +GRASSE + +For several months I had been seeing Grasse every day. The atmosphere of +the Midi is so clear that a city fifteen miles away seems right at hand. +You can almost count the windows in the houses. Against the rising +background of buildings every tower stands out, and you distinguish one +roof from another. From my study window at Théoule, Grasse was as +constant a temptation as the two islands in the Bay of Cannes. But the +things at hand are the things that one is least liable to do. They are +reserved for "some day" because they can be done "any day." Since first +coming to Théoule, I had been a week's journey south of Cairo into the +Sudan, and to Verdun in an opposite corner of France. Menton and St. +Raphaël, the ends of the Riviera, had been visited. Grasse, two hours +away, remained unexplored. + +I owe to the Artist the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Grasse. One +day a telegram from Bordeaux stated that he had just landed, and was +taking the train for Théoule. The next evening he arrived. I gave him +my study for a bedroom. The following morning he looked out of the +window, and asked, "What is that town up there behind Cannes, the big one +right under the mountains?" + +"Grasse, the home of perfumes," I answered. + +"I don't care what it's the home of," was his characteristic response. +"Is it old and all right?" ("All right" to the Artist means "full of +subjects.") + +"I have never been there," I confessed. + +The Artist was fresh from New York. "We'll go this morning," he +announced. + +From sea to mountains, the valley between the Corniche de l'Estérel and +Nice produces every kind of vegetation known to the Mediterranean +littoral. Memories of Spain, Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Asia Minor, +Greece and Italy are constantly before you. But there is a difference. +The familiar trees and bushes and flowers of the Orient do not spring +here from bare earth. Even where cultivated land, wrested from the +mountain sides, is laboriously terraced, stones do not predominate. +Earth and rock are hidden by a thick undergrowth of grass and creepers +that defies the sun, and draws from the nearby mountain snow a perennial +supply of water. Olive and plane, almond and walnut, orange and lemon, +cedar and cork, palm and umbrella-pine, grape-vine and flower-bush have +not the monopoly of green. It is the Orient without the brown, the +Occident with the sun. + +The Mediterranean is more blue than elsewhere because firs and cedars and +pines are not too green. The cliffs are more red than elsewhere because +there is no prevailing tone of bare, baked earth to modify them into +brown and gray. On the Riviera one does not have to give up the rich +green of northern landscapes to enjoy the alternative of brilliant +sunshine. + +As we rode inland toward Grasse, the effect of green underground and +background upon Oriental foliage was shown in the olives, dominant tree +of the valley and hillsides. It was the old familiar olive of Africa and +Asia and the three European peninsulas, just as gnarled, just as +gray-green in the sun, just as silvery in the wind. But its colors did +not impress themselves upon the landscape. Here the olive was not master +of all that lives and grows in its neighborhood. In a landscape where +green replaces brown and gray pink, the olive is not supreme. Its own +foliage is invaded: for frequently rose ramblers get up into its +branches, and shoot out vivid flashes of crimson and scarlet. There is +also the yellow of the mimosa, and the inimitable red of the occasional +judas-tree. Orange trees blossom white. Lilacs and wisteria give the +shades between red and blue. As if in rebellion against too much green, +the rose-bushes put forth leaves of russet-brown. It is a half-hearted +protest, however, for Grasse rose-bushes are sparing of leaves. +Carefully cultivated for the purpose of bearing to the maximum, every +shoot holds clusters beyond what would be the breaking-point were there +not artificial support. Nature's yield is limited only by man's +knowledge, skill and energy. + +As we mounted steadily the valley, we had the impression that there was +nothing ahead of us but olives. First the perfume of oranges and flowers +would reach us. Then the glory of the roses would burst upon us, and we +looked up from them to the flowering orange trees. Wherever there was a +stretch of meadow, violets and daisies and buttercups ran through the +grass. Plowed land was sprinkled with mustard and poppies. The olive +had been like a curtain. When it lifted as we drew near, we forgot that +there were olives at all! + +The Artist developed at length his favorite theory that the richest +colors, the sweetest scents were those of blossoms that bloomed for pure +joy. The most delicate flavors were those of fruits and berries that +grew without restraint or guidance. "Nature is at her best," he +explained, "when you do not try to exploit her. Compare wild +strawberries and wild asparagus with the truck the farmers give you. Is +wisteria useful? What equals the color of the judas-tree in bloom? Do +fruit blossoms, utilitarian embryo, compare for a minute with real +flowers? Just look at all these flowers, born for the sole purpose of +expressing themselves!" All the while we were sniffing orange-blossoms. +I tried in vain to get his honest opinion on horse-chestnut blossoms as +compared with apples and peaches and apricots. I called his attention to +the fact that the ailanthus lives only to express itself, while the maple +gives sugar. But you can never argue with the Artist when he is on the +theme of beauty for beauty's sake. + +From the fairyland of the valley we came suddenly upon the Grasse railway +station, from which a _funiculaire_ ascends to the city far above. +Thankful for our carriage, we continued to mount by a road that had to +curve sharply at every hundred yards. We passed between villas with +pergolas of ramblers and wisteria until we found ourselves in the upper +part of the city without having gone through the city at all. + +We got out at the promenade, where a marvelous view of the Mediterranean +from Antibes to Théoule lies before you. The old town falls down the +mountain-side from the left of the promenade. We started along a street +that seemed to slide down towards the cathedral, the top of whose belfry +hardly reaches the level of the promenade. Before we had gone a block, +we learned that the flowers through which we had passed were not blooming +for pure joy. Like many things in this dreary world of ours, they were +being cultivated for money's sake and not for beauty's sake. Grasse +lives from those flowers in the valley below. We had started to look for +quaint houses. From one of the first doors in the street came forth an +odor that made us think of the type of woman who calls herself "a lady." +I learned early in life at the barber's that a little bit of scent goes +too far, and some women in public places who pass you fragrantly do not +allow that lesson to be forgotten. Is not lavender the only scent in the +world that does not lose by an overdose? + +The Artist would not enter. His eye had caught a fourteenth-century +_cul-de-sac_, and I knew that he was good for an hour. I hesitated. The +vista of the street ahead brought more attraction to my eye than the +indication of the perfume-factory to my nose. But there would still be +time for the street, and in the acquisition of knowledge one must not +falter. I knew only that perfumes were made from flowers. But so was +honey! What was the difference in the process? Visiting perfumeries is +evidently "the thing to do" in Grasse. For I was greeted cordially, and +given immediately a guide, who assured me that she would show me all over +the place and that it was no trouble at all. + +Why is it that some of the most delicate things are associated with the +pig, who is himself far from delicate? However much we may shudder at +the thought of soused pigs' feet and salt pork and Rocky Mountain fried +ham swimming in grease, we find bacon the most appetizing of breakfast +dishes, and if cold boiled ham is cut thin enough nothing is more dainty +for sandwiches. Lard _per se_ is unpleasant, but think of certain things +cooked in lard, and the unrivaled golden brown of them! Pigskin is as +_recherché_ as snakeskin. The pig greets us at the beginning of the day +when we slip our wallet into our coat or fasten on our wrist-watch, and +again when we go in to breakfast. But is it known that he is responsible +for the most exquisite of scents of milady's boudoir? For hundreds of +years ways of extracting the odor of flowers were tried. Success never +came until someone discovered that pig fat is the best absorbent of the +bouquet of fresh flowers. + +Room after room in the perfume factory is filled with tubs of pig grease. +Fresh flowers are laid inside every morning for weeks, the end of the +treatment coming only with the end of the season of the particular flower +in question. In some cases it is continued for three months. The grease +is then boiled in alcohol. The liquid, strained, is your scent. The +solid substance left makes scented soap. Immediately after cooling, it +is drawn off directly into wee bottles, the glass stoppers are covered +with white chamois skin, and the labels pasted on. + +I noticed a table of bottles labeled _eau-de-cologne_. "Surely this is +now _eau-de-liége_ in France," I remarked. "Are not German names taboo?" + +My guide answered seriously: "We have tried our best here and in every +perfumery in France. But dealers tell us that they cannot sell +_eau-de-liége_, even though they assure their customers that it is +exactly the same product, and explain the patriotic reason for the change +of name. Once we launched a new perfume that made a big hit. Afterwards +we discovered that we had named it from the wrong flower. But could we +correct the mistake? It goes today by the wrong name all over the world." + +I was glad to get into the open air again, and started to walk along the +narrow Rue Droite--which makes a curve every hundred feet!--to find the +Artist. I had seen enough of Grasse's industry. Now I was free to +wander at will through the maze of streets of the old town. But the law +of the Persians follows that of the Medes. Half a dozen urchins spied me +coming out of the perfumery, and my doom was sealed. They announced that +they would show me the way to the confectionery. I might have refused to +enter the perfumery. But, having entered, there was no way of escaping +the confectionery. I resigned myself to the inevitable. It was by no +means uninteresting, however,--the half hour spent watching violets, +orange blossoms and rose petals dancing in cauldrons of boiling sugar, +fanned dry on screens, and packed with candied fruits in wooden boxes for +America. And I had followed the flowers of Grasse to their destination. + +The Artist had finished his _cul-de-sac_. I knew that to find him I had +only to continue along the Rue Droite to the first particularly appealing +side street. He would be up that somewhere. The Artist is no +procrastinator. He takes his subjects when he finds them. The buildings +of the Rue Droite are medieval from _rez-de-chaussée_ to cornice. The +sky was a narrow curved slit of blue and gray, not as wide as the street; +for the houses seemed to lean towards one another, and here and there +roofs rubbed edges. Sidewalks would have prevented the passage of +horse-drawn vehicles, so there were none. The Rue Droite is the +principal shopping-street of Grasse. But shoppers cannot loiter +indefinitely before windows. All pedestrians must be agile. When you +hear the _Hué!_ of a driver, you must take refuge in a doorway or run the +risk of axle-grease and mud. Twentieth-century merchandise stares out at +you from either side--Paris' hats and gowns, American boots, typewriters, +sewing-machines, phonographs, pianos. One of the oldest corner +buildings, which looks as if it needed props immediately to save you from +being caught by a falling wall, is the emporium of enamel bathtubs and +stationary washstands, with shining nickel spigots labeled "Hot" and +"Cold." These must be intended for the villas of the environs, for +surely no home in this old town could house a bathroom. Where would the +hot water and cold water come from? And where would it go after you +opened the waste-pipe? + +But there are sewers, or at least drains, on the hillside. Grasse has +progressed beyond the _gare-à-l'eau_ stage of municipal civilization. +Before your eyes is the evidence that you no longer have to listen for +that cry, and duck the pot or pail emptied from an upper window. Pipes, +with branches to the windows, come down the sides of the houses. They +are of generous size, as in cities of northern countries where much snow +lies on the roofs. Since wall-angles are many, the pipes generally find +a place in corners. They do not obtrude. They do not suggest zinc or +tin. They were painted a mud-gray color a long time ago. + +After lunch, we strolled along the Boulevard du Jeu-de-Ballon, the +tramway street. In old French towns, the words boulevard and tramway are +generally anathema. They suggest the poor imitation of Paris, both in +architecture and animation, of a street outside the magic circle of the +unchanged which holds the charm of the town. But sometimes, in order to +come as near as possible to the center of population, the tramway +boulevard skirts the fortifications of the medieval city, or is built +upon their emplacement. It is this way at Grasse. One side of the +Boulevard du Jeu-de-Ballon is modern and commonplace. The other side +preserves in part the buildings of past ages. Here and there a bit of +tower remains. No side street breaks the line. You go down into the +city through an occasional arched passage. + +We stopped for coffee at the Garden-Bar, on the modern side of the +boulevard. The curious hodge-podge opposite, which houses the Restaurant +du Cheval Blanc and the Café du Globe, had caught the Artist's eye. The +building, or group of buildings, is six stories high, with a sky-line +that reflects the range of mountains under which Grasse nestles. Windows +of different sizes, placed without symmetry or alignment, do not even +harmonize with the roof above them. Probably there was originally a +narrow house rising directly above the door of the Cheval Blanc. When +the structure was widened, upper floors or single rooms were built on _ad +libitum_. The windows give the clew to this evolution, for the wall has +been plastered and whitewashed uniformly to the width of over a hundred +feet, and there is only one entrance on the ground floor. Working out +the staircases and floor levels is a puzzle for an architect. We did not +even start to try to solve it. The Artist's interest was in the +"subject," and mine in the story the building told of an age when man's +individual needs influenced his life more strongly than they do now. We +think of the progress of civilization in the terms of combination, +organization, community interest, the centralized state. We have created +a machine to serve us, and have become servants of the machine. When we +thank God unctuously that we live not as our ancestors lived and as the +"uncivilized" live today, we are displaying the decay of our mental +faculties. Is it the Arab at his tent door, looking with dismay and +dread at the approach of the Bagdad Railway, who is the fool, or we? + +Backed up at right angles to the stoop of the Cheval Blanc was a +grandfather omnibus, which certainly dated from the Second Empire. Its +sign read: GRASSE-ST. CÉZAIRE. SERVICE DE LA POSTE. The canvas boot had +the curve of ocean waves. A pert little hood stuck out over the driver's +seat. The pair of lean horses--one black, the other white--stood with +noses turned towards the tramway rails. The Artist was still gazing +skylineward. I grasped his arm, and brought his eyes to earth. No word +was needed. He fumbled for his pencil. But to our horror the driver had +mounted, and was reaching for the reins. I got across the street just in +time to save the picture. Holding out cigars to the driver and a soldier +beside him on the box, I begged them to wait--please to wait--just five +minutes, five little minutes. + +[Illustration: "A grandfather omnibus, which dated from the Second +Empire."] + +"There is no place for another passenger. We are full inside," he +remonstrated. + +But he had dropped the reins to strike a match. In the moment thus +gained, I got out a franc, and pressed it into his hand. + +"Your coach, my friend," I said, "is unique in all France. The coffee of +that celebrated artist yonder sitting at the terrace of the Garden-Bar is +getting cold while he immortalizes the Grasse-St. Cézaire service. In +the interest of art and history, I beg of you to delay your departure ten +little minutes." + +The soldier had found the cigar to his liking. "A quarter of an hour +will do no harm at all," he announced positively, getting down from his +place. + +The driver puffed and growled. "We have our journey to make, and the +hour of departure is one-thirty. If it is not too long--fifteen minutes +at the most." He pocketed the franc less reluctantly than he had spoken. + +The soldier crossed the boulevard with me. Knowing how to appreciate a +good thing, he became our ally as soon as he had looked at the first +lines of the sketch. When the minutes passed, and the soldier saw that +the driver was growing restless, he went back and persuaded him to come +over and have a look at the drawing. This enabled me to get the driver +tabled before a tall glass of steaming coffee with a _petit verre_. + +Soon an old dame, wearing a bonnet that antedated the coach, stuck out +her head. A watch was in her hand. Surely she was not of the Midi. +Fearing that she might influence the driver disadvantageously to our +interests, I went to inform her that the delay was unavoidable. I could +not offer her a cigar. There are never any bonbons in my pocket. So I +thought to make a speech. + +"All my excuses," I explained, "for this regrettable delay. The coach in +which you are seated--and in which in a very, very few minutes you will +be riding--belongs to the generation before yourself and me. It is +important for the sake of history as well as art that the presence in +Grasse of my illustrious artist friend, coincident with the St. Cézaire +coach before the door of the Cheval Blanc, be seized upon to secure for +our grandchildren an indelible memory of travel conditions in our day. +So I beg indulgence." + +Two schoolgirls smothered a snicker. There was a dangerous glitter in +the old dame's eye. She did not answer me. But a young woman raised her +voice in a threat to have the driver dismissed. Enough time had been +gained. The Artist signified his willingness to have the mail leave now +for St. Cézaire. + +Off went the coach, white horse and black horse clattering alternately +hoofs that would gladly have remained longer in repose. The soldier +saluted. The driver grinned. We waved to the old woman with the poke +bonnet, and lifted our glasses to several pretty girls who appeared at +the coach door for the first time in order that they might glare at us. +I am afraid I must record that it was to glare. Our friendly salutation +was not answered. But we had the sketch. That was what really mattered. + +We were half an hour late at the rendezvous with our carriage man for the +return journey to Cannes. But he had lunched well, and did not seem to +mind. Americans were scarce this season, and _fortes pourboires_ few and +far between. On the Riviera--as elsewhere--you benefit by your +fellow-countrymen's generosity in the radiant courtesy and good nature of +those who serve you until you come to pay your bill. Then you think you +could have got along pretty well with less smiles. We knew that our man +would not risk his _pourboire_ by opposing us, so we suggested with all +confidence that he drive round the curves alone and meet us below by the +railway station in "half an hour." We wanted to go straight down through +the city. The _cocher_ looked at his watch and thought a minute. He had +already seen the Artist stop suddenly and stay glued on one spot, like a +cat patiently waiting to spring upon a bird. He had seen how often +oblivion to time comes. The lesser of two evils was to keep us in sight. +So he proposed with a sigh what we could never have broached to him. +"Perhaps we can drive down through the city--why not?" "Why not?" we +answered joyously in unison, as we jumped into the victoria. + +Down is down in Grasse. I think our _cocher_ did not realize what he was +getting into, or he would have preferred taking his chances on a long +wait. He certainly did not know his way through the old town. He asked +at every corner, each time more desperately, as we became engaged in a +maze of narrow streets, which were made before the days of victorias. +There was no way of turning. We had to go down--precipitously down. +With brake jammed tight, and curses that echoed from wall to wall and +around corners, the _cocher_ held the reins to his chest. The horses, +gently pushed forward, much against their will, by the weight of the +carriage, planted all fours firm and slid over the stones that centuries +of sabots and hand-carts had worn smooth. The noise brought everyone to +windows and doors, and the sight kept them there. Tourist victorias did +not coast through Grasse every day. Advice was freely proffered. The +angrier our _cocher_ became the more frequently he was told to put on his +brake and hold tight to the reins. + +After half an hour we came out at the funicular beside the railway +station. + +"How delightful, and how fortunate!" exclaimed the Artist. "That +certainly was a short cut. We have saved several kilometers!" + +I thought the _cocher_ would explode. But he merely nodded. Far be it +from me to say that he did not understand the Artist's French for "short +cut." Perhaps he thought best to save all comment until the hour of +reckoning arrived. He did not need to. The ride back to the sea was +through the fairyland of the morning climb, enhanced a thousandfold, as +all fairylands are, by the magic of the twilight. One never can make it +up to hired horses for their work and willingness and patience. But we +did live up to local American tradition in regard to the _cocher_. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +CAGNES + +American and English visitors to the Riviera soon come to know Cagnes by +name. It is a challenge to their ability to pronounce French--a +challenge that must be accepted, if you are in the region of Grasse or +Nice or Antibes. Two distinct tramway lines and several roads lead from +Grasse to Cannes and Cagnes. Unless you are very careful, you may find +yourself upon the wrong route. Once on the Cagnes tramway, or well +engaged upon the road to Cagnes, when you had meant to go to Cannes, the +mistake takes hours to retrieve. At Nice, chauffeurs and _cochers_ love +to cheat you by the confusion of these two names. You bargain for the +long trip to Cannes, and are attracted by the reasonable price quoted. +In a very short time you are at Cagnes. The vehicle stops. Impossible +to rectify your mispronunciation without a substantial increase of the +original sum of the bargain. Antibes is between Cagnes and Cannes. +Cagnes is nearer, and it is always to Cannes that you want to go. Spell +the name, or write it on a piece of paper, if you are to be sure that you +will be taken west instead of east. + +The place, as well as the name, is familiar to all travelers--from a +distance. Whether you move by train, by tramway or by automobile, you +see the city set on a hill between Cannes and Nice. But express trains +do not stop. The tramway passes some distance from the old town, and +prospect of the walk and climb is not alluring to the tramway tourist, +whose goal is places important enough to have a map in Baedeker, or a +double-starred church or view. If motorists are not in a hurry to get to +a good lunch, their chauffeurs are. You signal to stop, and express a +desire to go up into Cagnes. The hired chauffeur declares emphatically +that it cannot be done. If you do not believe him, he drives you to the +foot of the hill, and you see with your own eyes. Regretfully you pass +on to towns that are _plus pratiques_. More than once I had done this: +and I might have done it again had not the Artist come to the Riviera. + +We were afoot (the best way to travel and see things) on an April Sunday, +and stopped for lunch at the restaurant opposite the Cagnes railway +station. The Artist was not hungry. While I ate he went out "to find +what sort of a subject the _ensemble_ of the city on the hill over there +makes." He returned in time for cheese and fruit, with a sketch of +Cagnes that made the waitress run inside to get better apples and +bananas. She insisted that we would be rewarded for a climb up to the +old town, and offered to keep our coats and kits. + +Along the railway and tramway and motor-road a modern Cagnes of villas +and hotels and pensions, with their accompaniment of shops and humbler +habitations, has grown for a mile or more, and stretched out across the +railway to the sea. Two famous French artists live here, and many +Parisians and foreigners. There is also a wireless station. All this +shuts off from the road the town on the hill. Unless you had seen it +from the open country, before coming into the modern Cagnes, you would +not have known that there was a hill and an old city. It was not easy +for us to find the way. + +Built for legs and nothing else, the thoroughfare up through Cagnes is a +street that can be called straight and steep and stiff, the adjectives +coming to you without your seeking for alliteration, just as +instinctively as you take off your hat and out your handkerchief. + +"No livery stable in this town--come five francs on it," said the Artist. + +"Against five francs that there are no men with a waistline exceeding +forty-five inches!" I answered, feelingly and knowingly. + +But we soon became so fascinated by our transition from the twentieth +century to the fifteenth that we forgot we were climbing. Effort is a +matter of mental attitude. Nothing in the world is hard when you are +interested in doing it. + +Half way and half an hour up, we paused to take our bearings. The line +of houses, each leaning on its next lower neighbor, was broken here by a +high garden wall, from which creepers were overhanging the street, with +their fresh spring tendrils waving and curling above our heads. There +was an odor of honeysuckle and orange-blossoms, and the blood-red branch +of a judas-tree pushed its way through the green and yellow. The canyon +of the street, widening below us, ended in a rich meadowland, dotted with +villas and trees. Beyond, the Mediterranean rose to the horizon. While +the Artist was "taking it," the usual crowd gathered around: children +whose lack of bashfulness indicated that many city people were here for +the season or that tourists did find their way up to Cagnes; women always +eager to gossip with strangers, especially with those from lands across +the sea; old men proud to tell you that their city was the most +interesting, because the most ancient, on the Riviera. + +When we resumed our climb, the whole town seemed to be going our way. +Sunday-best and prayer-books gave the reason. Just as we were coming to +the top, our street made its first turn, a sharp one, and in the bend was +a church tower with a wee door under it. Houses crowded closely around +it. The tower was the only indication of the church. An _abbé_ was +standing by the door, calling in the acolytes and choir boys who were +playing tag in the street. The Artist stopped, short. I went up to the +_abbé_, who by features and accent was evidently a Breton far from home. + +"Do any fat men live up here?" I asked. + +"Only one," he answered promptly, with a hearty laugh. "The _curé_ has +gone to the war, and last month the bishop sent a man to help me who +weighs over a hundred kilos. We have another church below in the new +town, and there are services in both, morning and afternoon. Low mass +here at six, and high masses there at eight and here at ten. Vespers +here at three and there at four-thirty. On the second Sunday my +coadjutor said he was going to leave at the end of the month. So, after +next week, there will be no fat man. Unless you have come to Cagnes to +stay?" The _abbé_ twinkled and chuckled. + +"It is not to laugh at," broke in an oldest inhabitant who had overheard. +"We live from ten to twenty years longer than the people of the plain, +who have railways and tramways and carriages and autos right to their +very doors. We get the mountain air from the Alps and the sea air from +the Mediterranean uncontaminated. It blows into every house without +passing through as much as a single neighbor's courtyard. But our long +lease on life is due principally to having to climb this hill. +Stiffness, rheumatism--we don't know what it means, and we stay fit right +to the very end. Look at me. I was a grown man when people first began +to know who Garibaldi was in Nice. We formed a corps of volunteers right +here in this town when Mazzini's republic was proclaimed to go to defend +Rome from the worst enemies of Italian unity, those Vatican--But I beg M. +le Curé's pardon! In those days of hot youth the church, you know, did +not mean--" + +The _abbé_ twinkled and chuckled again, and patted the old man's shoulder +affectionately. "When you did not follow Briand ten years ago, it proved +that half a century had wrought a happy change. I understand anyway. I +am a Breton that has taken root, as everyone here does, in this land of +lofty mountains and deep valleys, of wind and sun, of sea and snow. +Mental as well as physical acclimatization comes. The spirit, the life, +the very soul of the _Risorgimento_ had nothing Italian in it. It was of +Piedmont and Savoy and the Riviera--a product of the Alpes Maritimes." + +I would have listened longer. But the bell above us began to ring, +several peals first, and then single strokes, each more insistent than +the last. The _abbé_ was still in the Garibaldi mood, and the volunteer +of '49 and I were in sympathy. He knew it, and refused to hear the +summons to vespers. But out of the door came a girl who could break a +spell of the past, because she was able to weave one of the present. She +dominated us immediately. She would not have had to say a word. A hymn +book was in her hand, opened at the page where she intended it to stay +open. "This afternoon, M. l'Abbé, we shall sing this," she stated. + +"No, we cannot do it!" he protested rather feebly. "You see, the +encyclical of the Holy Father enjoins the Gregorian, and I think the boys +can sing it--" + +The organist interrupted: "You certainly know, M. l'Abbé, that we cannot +have decent singing for the visits to the stations, unless the big girls, +whom I have been training now for two months--" + +"But we must obey the Papal injunction, Mademoiselle Simone," put in the +priest still more mildly. + +Mademoiselle Simone's eyes danced mockingly, and her mow confirmed beyond +a doubt the revelation of clothes and accent. Here was a +twentieth-century Parisienne in conflict with a reactionary rule of the +church in a setting where turning back the hands of the clock would have +seemed the natural thing to do. + +"Pure nonsense!" was her disrespectful answer. "With all the young men +away, the one thing to do is to make the music go." + +I had to speak in order to be noticed. "So even in Cagnes the young +girls know how to give orders to M. le Curé? The Holy Father's +encyclical--" I could stop without finishing the sentence, for I had +succeeded. The dancing eyes and the _moue_ now included me. + +"M. l'Abbé, it is time for the service," she said firmly. "If this +_Anglais_ comes in, he will see that I have reason." + +She disappeared. The _abbé_ looked after her indulgently, shrugged his +shoulders, with the palms of his hands spread heavenward, and followed +her. + +In the meantime the worshipers, practically all of them women and +children, had been turning corners above and below. I made the round of +the group of buildings, and saw only little doors here and there at +different levels. There was no portal, no large main entrance. When I +came back to the bend of the road, the music had started. I was about to +enter the tower door--Mademoiselle Simone's!--when I saw the Artist put +up his pencil. The service would last for some time, so I joined him, +and we continued to mount. + +Above the church tower, steps led to the very top of the hill, which was +crowned by a château. Skirting its walls, we came to an open place. On +the side of the hill looking towards the Alps, a spacious terrace had +been built out far beyond the château wall. Along the parapet were a +number of primitive tables and benches. The tiny café from which they +were served was at the end of a group of nondescript buildings that had +probably grown up on a ruined bastion of the château. Seated at one of +these tables, you see the Mediterranean from Nice to Antibes, with an +occasional steamer and a frequent sailing-vessel, the Vintimille _rapide_ +(noting its speed by the white engine smoke), one tramway climbing by +Villeneuve-Loubet towards Grasse and another by Saint-Paul-du-Var to +Vence, and more than a semi-circle of the horizon lost in the Alps. + +The Sunday afternoon animation in the _place_ was wholly masculine. No +woman was visible except the white-coiffed grandmother who served the +drinks. The war was not the only cause of the necessity of Mademoiselle +Simone's opposition to antiphonal Gregorian singing. I fear that the +lack of male voices in the vesper service is a chronic one, and that +Mademoiselle Simone's attempt to put life into the service would have +been equally justifiable before the tragic period of _la guerre_. For +the men of Cagnes were engrossed in the favorite sport of the Midi, _jeu +aux boules_. I have never seen a more serious group of Tartarins. From +Monsieur le Maire to cobbler and blacksmith, all were working very hard. +A little ball that could be covered in one's fist is thrown out on the +common by the winner of the last game. The players line up, each with a +handful of larger wooden balls about the size and weight of those that +are used in croquet. You try to roll or throw your balls near the little +one that serves as goal. Simple, you exclaim. Yes, but not so simple as +golf. For the hazard of the ground is changed with each game. + +Interest in what people around you are doing is the most compelling +interest in the world. Train yourself to be oblivious to your neighbor's +actions and your neighbor's thoughts, on the ground that curiosity is the +sign of the vulgarian and indifference the sign of the gentleman, and you +succeed in making yourself colossally stupid. Here lies the weakest +point in Anglo-Saxon culture. The players quickly won me from the view. +Watch one man at play, and you can read his character. He is an open +book before you. Watch a number of men at play, and you are shown the +general masculine traits of human nature. Generosity, decision, +alertness, deftness, energy, self-control--meanness, hesitation, +slowness, awkwardness, laziness, impatience: you have these +characteristics and all the shades between them. The humblest may have +admirable and wholesome virtues lacking in the highest, but a balance of +them all weighs and marks one Monsieur le Maire or the stonebreaker on +the road. + +The councils of Generals at Verdun did not take more seriously in their +day the problem of moving their men nearer the fortress than were these +players the problem of rolling their big balls near the little ball. Had +the older men been the only group, I should have got the idea that _jeu +aux boules_ is a game where the skill is all in cautious playing. But +there were young _chasseurs alpins_, home on leave from the front, who +were playing the game in an entirely different way. Instead of making +each throw as if the destinies of the world were at stake, the soldiers +played fast and vigorously, aiming rather to knock the opponent's ball +away from a coveted position near the goal than to reach the goal. The +older men's balls, to the number of a couple of dozen, clustered around +the goal at the end of a round. Careful marking, by cane-lengths, +shoe-lengths and handkerchief-lengths preceded agreement as to the +winner. At the end of a round of the _chasseurs alpins_, two or three +balls remained: the rest had gone wide of the mark, or had been knocked +many feet from the original landing-place by a successor's throw. During +half an hour I did not see the young men measure once. The winning throw +was every time unmistakable. + +The Artist leaned against the château wall, putting it down. The thought +of Mademoiselle Simone, playing the organ, came to me. How was the music +going? I must not miss that service. The view and the château and the +_jeu aux boules_ no longer held me. Down the steps I went, and entered +the first of the church doors. It was on the upper level, and took me +into the gallery; I was surprised to find so large a church. One got no +idea of its size from the outside. + +The daylight was all from above. Although only mid-afternoon, altar and +chancel candles made a true vesper atmosphere, and the flickering wicks +in the hanging lamps gave starlight. This is as it should be. The +appeal of a ritualistic service is to the mystical in one's nature. +Jewels and embroideries, gold and silver, gorgeous robes, rich +decorations, pomp and splendor repel in broad daylight; candles and lamps +sputter futilely; incense nauseates: for the still small voice is +stifled, and the kingdom is of this world. But in the twilight, what +skeptic, what Puritan resists the call to worship of the Catholic ritual? +I had come in time for the intercessory visit to the stations of the +cross. Priest and acolytes were following the crucifix from the chancel. +Banners waved. Before each station the procession stopped, the priest +and acolytes knelt solemnly (with bowed heads) and prayers were said. +While the procession was passing from station to station, the girls sang +their hymn in French. It was the age old pageantry of the Catholic +church, a pageantry that perhaps indicates an age old temperamental +difference between the Latin and the Anglo Saxon. + +When the service was over, I went around to the door under the tower. Of +course, it was to meet the _abbé_. Still, when I realize that I had +missed the organist, I was disappointed. The _abbé_ soon appeared from +the sacristy. I gave one more look around for Mademoiselle Simone while +he was explaining that he had just twenty minutes before it was necessary +to start down to the other church, but that it was long enough to take me +through the Moorish quarter. Although I had come to Cagnes to see the +old town, and to get into the atmosphere of past centuries, I must +confess that I followed him regretfully. + +The houses of the Moorish quarter are built into the ancient city walls. +Baked earth, mixed with straw and studded with cobblestones, has defied +eight centuries. There are no streets wide enough for carts, for they +hark back to the days when donkeys were common carriers. And in +hill-towns the progressive knowledge of centuries has evolved no better +means of transport. You pass through _ruelles_ where outstretched hands +can touch the houses on each side. Often the _ruelle_ is like a tunnel, +for the houses are built right over it on arches, and it is so dark that +you cannot see in front of you. The _abbé_ assured me that there were +house doors all along as in any other passage. People must know by +instinct where to turn in to their houses. + +When the _abbé_ left me to go to his lower vesper service, after having +piloted me back to the main streets, I decided to go up again to the +_place_ to rejoin the Artist. But under an old buttonwood tree, which +almost poked its upper branches into the château windows, stood +Mademoiselle Simone, waving good-by to another girl who was disappearing +around the corner of a street above. Her aunt, she declared, was waiting +for her at a villa half-way down the hill, at five. Just then five +struck in the clock-tower behind us. + +"Had you looked up before you spoke?" I asked. + +"Clocks do strike conveniently," she answered. + +Although Mademoiselle Simone repulsed firmly my plea that she become my +guide through the other side of the town, where two outlying quarters, +the _abbé_ had said, contained the best of all in old houses, queer +streets and an ivy-covered ruin of a chapel, she lingered to talk under +the buttonwood tree of many things that had nothing to do with Cagnes. +When I tried to persuade her to show me what I had not yet seen, on the +ground that I had made the climb up to the top because of my interest in +hill cities and wanted to write about Cagnes, she immediately answered +that she would not detain me for the world and made a move to keep her +rendezvous with the aunt. So I hastened to contradict myself, and assure +her that I had no interest whatever in Cagnes, that I was stuck here +waiting for the Artist, who would come only with the fading light. + +After Mademoiselle Simone left me under the buttonwood tree, I thought of +the Artist. He had finished and was smoking over a glass of vermouth at +one of the tables by the parapet of the _place_. + +"Great town," he said. "Bully stuff here. In buildings and villagers +have you found anything as fascinating as that purple and red on the +mountain snow over there? It just gets the last sun, the very last." + +"Yes," I answered, "but neither in a building or a villager of Cagnes. +There is a Parisienne--" And I told him about Mademoiselle Simone. He +was silent, and his fingers drummed upon the table, tipity-tap, +tipity-tap. "Show me your sketches," I asked. + +"No," he said scathingly. "No! You are not interested in sketches. Nor +should I have been, had you been more generous. You had the luck in +Cagnes." + +The prospect of a trout dinner at Villeneuve-Loubet took us rapidly down +the hill. We soon passed out of the fifteenth century into the +twentieth. Modern Cagnes, with its clang of tramway gong, toot of +locomotive whistle, honk-honk of motor horn, café terraces crowded with +Sunday afternooners, broad sidewalks and electric lights was another +world. But it was our world--and Mademoiselle Simone's. That is why +coming back into it from the hill of Cagnes was really like a cold +shower. For a sense of refreshment followed immediately the shock--and +stayed with us. + +The hill of Cagnes we could rave about enthusiastically because we did +not have to go back there and live there. It will be "a precious +memory," as tourists say, precisely because it is a _memory_. The bird +in a cage is less of a prisoner than we city folk of the modern world. +For when you open the cage door, the bird will fly away and not come +back. We may fly away--but we do come back, and the sooner the better. +We love our prisons. We are happy (or think we are, which is the same +thing) in our chains. And in the brief time that we are a-wing, do we +really love unusual sights and novel things? In exploring, is not our +greatest joy and delight in finding something familiar, something we have +already known, something we are used to? An appreciative lover and +frequenter of grand opera once said to me, "'The Barber of Seville' is my +favorite, because I know I am going to have the treat of 'The Suwanee +River' or 'Annie Laurie' when I go to it." There is an honest +confession, such as we must all make if we are to do our souls good. + +[Illustration: "The hill of Cagnes we could rave about."] + +So you understand why there is so much of Mademoiselle Simone in my story +of Cagnes, and why the Artist had a grouch. His afternoon's work should +have pleased him, should have satisfied him. He would not have finished +it had he met Mademoiselle Simone. He knows more of Cagnes than I do, +but he would rather have known more of Mademoiselle Simone. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +SAINT-PAUL-DU-VAR + +At the restaurant opposite the Cagnes railway station the waitress +welcomed us as old friends. She told us how lucky we were to come on a +Friday. Fish just caught that morning--the best we would ever eat in our +lives--were waiting for us in the kitchen. We flattered ourselves that +the disappointment was mutual when we had to tell her that there was time +only for an _apéritif_. Precisely because it was Friday and not Sunday, +there was no reasonable hope of running into Monsieur le Curé or +Mademoiselle Simone or a game of _boules_, if we climbed the steep hill +to Cagnes. On our last visit, we had seen from the top of Cagnes a +walled city crowning another hill several miles inland. +Saint-Paul-du-Var was our goal today. + +Electric trams run to Grasse and to Vence from Cagnes. The lines +separate at Villeneuve-Loubet, a mile back from the Nice-Cannes road. +The Vence tram would have taken us to Saint-Paul-du-Var along the road +that began to avoid the valley after passing Villeneuve-Loubet. It was +one of those _routes nationales_ of which the France of motorists is so +proud, hard and smooth and rounded to drain quickly, never allowing +itself a rut or a steep grade or a sharp turn. This national highway was +like all the easy paths in life. It meant the shortest distance +comfortably possible for obtaining your objective. It eliminated +surprises. It showed you all the time all there was to see, and kept you +kilometrically informed of your progress. It was paralleled by the +electric tram line. It enabled you to explore the country in true city +fashion. + +We were walking, and the low road, signpostless, attracted us. It +started off in the same general direction, but through the valley. It +was all that a country road ought to be. It had honest ruts and +unattached stones of various sizes. Cows had passed along that way. +Trees met overhead irregularly, and bushes grew up in confusion on the +sides. The ruthlessness of macadam, the pressure of fat tires, the +scorching of engines, had not banished the thick grass which the country +wants to give its roads, and would give to all its roads if the country +were not being constantly "improved." There were places where one could +rest without fear of sun and ditch-water and clouds of dust. Why should +one go from the city to the country to breathe tar and gasoline? Why +should one have to keep one's eyes wandering from far ahead to back over +one's shoulder for fifty-two weeks in the year? We wanted to get away +from clang-clang and honk-honk and puff-puff. Since the real vacation is +change, we welcomed the task of looking out for hostile dogs instead of +swiftly moving vehicles. Our noses wanted whiffs of hay and pig, and our +boots wanted unadulterated mud. + +We were not allowed to have our way without a warning. There always is +someone to keep you in the straight and narrow path. As we were turning +into the low road a passer-by remonstrated. + +"If you're going to Saint-Paul-du-Var," he explained, "you want to keep +to the high road. It's very muddy down there, and will take you longer." + +When our adviser saw that we did not stop, he raised his voice and +called, "There are no signposts and you may get lost." + +"You take the high road and we'll take the low," sang back the Artist. + +He who had meant well disappeared, shaking his head. No doubt, as he +shuffled along, he was muttering to himself over the inexplicable actions +of _ces drôles d'Anglais_. + +The miles passed coolly and pleasantly. Trees and bushes did not allow +many glimpses of the outside world. The dogs that barked were behind +farmhouse gates, and we had use for our stones only at an occasional +jackrabbit. "At" is a convenient preposition. It gives one latitude. +Jackrabbits on the Riviera are not like human products of the south. +They jump quickly. They jump, too, in directions that cannot be +foretold. After one particularly bad throw, the Artist explained that he +did not enjoy inflicting pain. His boyish instincts had long ago been +controlled by reading S. P. C. A. literature. I told him that I thought +he had given up baseball too early in life. So had I. The jackrabbits +escaped. + +I am rarely oblivious to the duty of the noon hour. Although I knew the +Artist's habit of stopping suddenly, and the hopelessness of budging him +by plea or argument as long as the reason for stopping remained, it had +not occurred to me that there would be a risk in taking the low road. We +had started in plenty of time, and as we were out for a medieval town, I +thought he would not be tempted until we reached the vicinity of a +restaurant. But about a mile below Saint-Paul-du-Var the low road +brought us to a view of the city that would have held me at any other +time than twelve noon. I tried the old expedient of walking faster, and +calling attention to something in the distance. When the Artist halted, +moved uncertainly a few yards, and stopped again, we were lost. He did +not need to pronounce the inevitable words, "I'll just get this little +bit." The Artist's "just" means anything from twenty to ninety minutes. + +Food without companionship is not enjoyable, least of all on a holiday. +There was no use suggesting that we could come back this way, and +advancing that the light would be so much better later. The Artist had +started in. I cast around for some way of escape from an impossible +situation. The only farmhouse in sight was at the end of a long lane, +and did not look as if it could produce the makings of a meal. The +poorest providers and preparers of foodstuffs are their producers. Who +has not eaten salt pork on a cattle ranch and longed for cream on a dairy +farm? What city boarder has not discovered the woeful lack of connection +between the cackling of hens and the certitude of fresh eggs on the table +at the next meal? What muncher of Maine doughnuts in a Boston restaurant +has not thought of the "sinkers" offered to him when he was on his last +summer's vacation? + +A bridge crossed a stream just ahead of us. On the other side was a +thick clump of trees. I walked forward with the thought that a drink of +water at least might not be bad. When I got to the bridge I heard +plaintive barking and a man's voice. The man was explaining to the dog +why he ought not to be impatient. He would have his good bone, with +plenty of meat on it, in a little quarter of an hour. A house-wagon was +standing back from the side of the road. The owner was shaking a +casserole over a fire, and the dog was sniffing as near as he dared. The +dog gave me his attention, and the man turned. It was a favorite waiter +of a favorite Montparnasse café. + +"Pierre," I cried, "where did you drop from? What luck!" + +Pierre put the casserole on the window ledge, out of the dog's reach, and +greeted me. You never could surprise Pierre. He was always master of +the situation. One has to be in a Montparnasse café. I noted with +approval the precaution that Pierre had taken. Either the dog was very +hungry or there was something particularly tempting in the casserole. + +Pierre had gone to join his regiment on the second day of the war. I had +not seen him or heard of him since then. He told me that he had been +unable to shake off a _bronchite_, caught in the trenches. It was the +old story. When he left the hospital, the medical board declared him +unfit for further service and warned him against returning soon to city +life. The hope of recovery lay in open air and sunshine. + +"I determined to get well, Monsieur," he said. "I had money saved up. I +bought this wagon and a cinematograph outfit. I go to the little towns +in the Midi. One can take only four sous--two from the children--but I +get along. Now, when I am well, I shall not go back to Paris. Have you +ever lived in a wagon, Monsieur? No? Well, never do it, if you do not +want to realize that it is the only life worth living." + +Pierre was interested in the gossip of the Quarter. A frequent "_c'est +vrai_" and "_dîtes donc_" punctuated my news of American artists who had +gone home at last. When I told him of the few who had sold pictures in +America, his comment was "_épatant_," which he meant in no +uncomplimentary sense. The Artist was an old favorite of Pierre's. I +restrained his impulse to go right out to greet the Artist. Pierre +entered into my idea with alacrity. The dog was given a bone and +chained. The coal box was brought out from the wagon, and turned upside +down for a table beside a fallen tree. When all was ready, I watched +Pierre surprise the Artist. He put a napkin over his arm, and froze his +face. Then he tip-toed up to the Artist's elbow, and announced, +"_Monsieur est servi._" For once I was able to get the Artist away from +his work. + +What a meal we did have there beside that little stream! There were +bottles in Pierre's wagon, and he insisted upon opening more than one. +When we finally left Pierre to his dishes, we were well fortified for the +climb to Saint-Paul-du-Var, and in the mood to appreciate +enthusiastically all that was before us. + +Above on the left we could see the high road that we had deserted at +Villeneuve-Loubet. It did not come out of its way for Saint-Paul-du-Var, +but went straight on inland Vence-wards. A side road, on the level, came +over towards the gate of Saint-Paul-du-Var. To this road ours mounted, +and joined it just outside the town. In climbing we had the opportunity, +denied to the conventional, of seeing that Saint-Paul-du-Var was really +on the top of a hill. The walls rose sheer, and only the outer houses, +directly behind the ramparts, were in our line of vision. Nearly up to +the entrance to the city we passed between a tiny stone chapel and a +mill, whose wheel was a curious combination of metal and wood. The +Artist exclaimed that it would make a bully sketch. He saw its +picturesque possibilities. I wondered, on the other hand, whether it +would work and how it worked. Moss and grass on a millwheel in the Midi +are no surer signs of abandonment and disuse than a dry millrace. Where +things die fast they grow fast. A little water brings forth vegetable +life in a single day. Southern streams are not perennial. On the +Riviera, they are fed from nearby mountains, and are intermittent even in +their season. When the water ceases, the sun quickly bakes a crust of +silt and dries the stones of the river-beds gray-brown. + +A dwarf could hardly have said mass in the chapel. Its rear wall was the +rising ground, and there seemed to be a garden on the roof. Burial space +extending no farther than the roots of a sentinel cypress told the tale +of one man's vanity or devotion. The situation of the chapel prompted us +to look over the ground for traces of a lunette bastion on the +counterscarp. We found that the chapel was built upon an earlier +foundation of stone taken from a fortification wall, and that later +builders had made over the chapel into a belvedere. Steps on the side of +the slope led to the roof, upon which two benches had been placed. What +past generations have left us we use for purposes of our own. We talk +sentimentally of our traditions, but we test them by their utility. + +Saint-Paul-du-Var fails to satisfy twentieth-century standards. It is +not a thriving, bustling city. It is not a tourist center. The walls +are as they were five centuries ago. The space inside is sufficient for +the population, and one gate serves all needs. The medieval aspect is +not destroyed by buildings outside the walls, and the medieval atmosphere +is undisturbed by hotel touts and postcard vendors. When we presented +ourselves before the gate, not a soul was in sight. A bronze cannon of +Charles-Quint's time stuck its nose out of the ground by the portcullis. +We had to pull off grass and dirt to find the inscription. While we were +examining the towers that flanked the gate, a wagon rattled slowly by. +The driver did not look at us. A woman with a basket of vegetables on +her head met us under the arch. She did not look at us. We found the +same indifference in the town. Even the small boys refrained from +staring or grinning or yelling or asking for pennies. None volunteered +to show us around. + +"The interest in our arrival at Saint-Paul-du-Var," commented the Artist, +"is all on our side." + +Human nature is full of contradictions. We should have been annoyed if +people had bothered us. We were as much annoyed when they paid no +attention to us. + +We went up in one of the towers to reach the ramparts. Keeping on the +walls all the way around the town involved an occasional bit of climbing. +We had to forget our clothes. That was easy, however, for every step of +the way was of compelling interest _extra et intra muros_. Outside, the +panorama of the Riviera, sea and mountains, towns and valleys, lay before +us to the four points of the compass. Inside, houses of different +centuries but none post-Bourbon, each crowding its neighbor but none +without individuality of its own, faced us and curved with us. For once, +the Artist failed to single out a subject. + +Seaward, beyond the valley through which we had come, were +Villeneuve-Loubet and Cagnes. On the right we could see to the Antibes +lighthouse, and on the left, across the Var, to the point between Nice +and Villefranche. Landward were Vence and the wall of the Alpes +Maritimes. The afternoon sun fell full on the snow and darkened the +upper valleys of the numerous confluents of the Var and Loup rivers. + +Sketching was tomorrow's task. There was time only for exploration of +the city before sunset. We came down at the tower opposite the one from +which we had started on our round. On the road to the electric tram, we +saw the _restaurant-hôtel_, a cube of whitewash, but we were far from the +temptation of banalities. Tea or something, and a place to spend the +night, could be found within the walls. + +Saint-Paul-du-Var caught us in its fascinating maze. We forgot that we +were thirsty. There was just one street. It zigzagged its way across +the town from the gate. You lost the points of the compass and hardly +realized that you were going over the top of a hill. The street curved +every hundred yards, and frequently turned around three sides of a single +building. Fountains were at the bends. One of them, opposite the +market, fed a square pool that was the city laundry. Women, kneeling on +the edge, were at the eternal task. We passed the centers of municipal +life, post-office, _mairie_, _gendarmerie_, school and church. + +Churches of Riviera towns, like the character and speech and features of +the people, are a reminder of the recency of the French occupation. +There is a replica of the church of Saint-Paul-du-Var in a thousand +Italian cities. When you enter the colorless building from the plain +curved porch, the chill strikes right into your bones. Windows do not +compete with candles. You have to grope your way toward the altar. +Unless you strain your eyes, or lamps are burning, side chapels pass +unnoticed. If you are looking for inscriptions or want to admire the old +master's picture, with which every church claims to be endowed, you must +get the verger with his taper. Altars are gaudily decorated and statues +bejeweled and be (artificial) flowered in Hispano-Italian fashion. The +_mairie_, reconstructed from an ancient palace or castle, was more +interesting. Beside the mairie a medieval square tower, which may have +been a donjon, was occupied on the ground floor by the _gendarmerie_. +Bars on the upper windows indicated that it was still the prison. + +We tried the alleys that led off from the street, thinking each might be +a thoroughfare to take us back to the ramparts. They ended abruptly in a +_cul-de-sac_ or court. The _culs-de-sac_, uninviting to eye and nose, +were as Italian as the church. The houses in the courts were stables +downstairs. Man and beast lived together. Flowers and wee bushes grew +up around the wells in the center of the courts. Everything was built of +stone and red-tiled. But there was none of the dull gray-and-red +monotony of northern towns near the sea or of the sharp gray-and-red +monotony of towns of the Mediterranean peninsulas. Grass sprouted out +between the stones of the walls and the tiles of the roofs. From +window-ledges and eaves hung ferns. A blush of moss on the stones added +to the green of plant life, and softened the austerity of the gray. +Nature was successful in asserting herself against man and sun and sea. + +[Illustration: "The houses in the courts were stables downstairs."] + +We were expressing our enthusiasm in a court where the living green +combined with age to glorify the buildings. We did not see the +dilapidation, we did not smell the dirt, we did not feel the squalor. A +woman was lighting a fire in a brazier on her doorstep. She looked +hostilely at us. We beamed in counteraction. She looked more hostilely. +As the Artist wanted to sketch her house, some words seemed necessary. I +detailed our emotions. Was not her lot, cast in this picturesque spot, +most enviable? + +"We want to take away with us," I said, "a tangible memory of this +beautiful, this picturesque, this verdant court in which you live." + +"If you had to live here," she announced simply, "you'd want to go away +and forget it." + +The fumes had burned from the charcoal. The woman picked up the brazier, +carried it inside without another word or look, and slammed the door +behind her with her foot. + +The Artist was already in his sketch, but he paused to growl and +philosophize. "If she had waited a minute longer," he complained, "I +should have had her and the brazier. Funny how unappreciative people +are. You and I, _mon vieux_, would like nothing better than to stay +here. From the other side of her house that woman must have a great view +of the sea and the mountains. Is she going to watch the sunset? No, she +is going to make soup for her man on that brazier in a dark hole of a +room, and feel sorry for herself because she doesn't live in Paris where +she could go to the movies every night." + +Our ardor for Saint-Paul-du-Var lasted splendidly through the sunset on +the ramparts. We had found the ideal spot. Hoi polloi could have their +Nice and their Cannes! But when night fell, there were few lights on the +street, and shopkeepers looked at us in stupid amazement when we inquired +about lodgings. We did not dare to ask in the drinking places, for fear +they might volunteer to put us up. In the _épiceries_, we were offered +bread and sardines. There was no butter. So we went rather less +reluctantly than we had thought possible an hour earlier out of the gate +towards the _hôtel-restaurant_. An old man was camped against the wall +in a wagon like Pierre's. He had been sharpening Saint-Paul-du-Var's +scissors and knives. We confided in him, and asked if he thought the +_hôtel-restaurant_ would give us a good dinner and a good bed. The +scissors-grinder wrinkled his nose and twinkled his eyes. "The last tram +from Vence to Cagnes stops over there at eight-ten," he said decisively. +"You have five minutes to catch it. Get off at Villeneuve-Loubet, and go +to the Hôtel Beau-Site. The proprietor is a _cordon bleu_ of a _chef_. +He has his own trout, and he knows just what tourists like to eat and +drink. Motorists stop there over night, so you need have no fear." + +"But--" I started to remonstrate. + +The Artist was already hurrying in the direction of the tram. I followed +him. + +The next morning the Artist went back to Saint-Paul-du-Var for his +sketches. I did not accompany him. Saint-Paul-du-Var was a delightful +memory, and I wanted to keep it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +VILLENEUVE-LOUBET + +On a hill a mile or so back from the Cannes-Nice road, just before one +reaches Cagnes, a castle of unusual size and severity of outline rises +above the trees of a park. The roads from Cagnes to Grasse and Vence +bifurcate at the foot of the hill on which the castle is built. What one +thinks of the castle depends upon which road one takes. The traveler on +the Vence road sees a pretentious entrance, constructed for automobiles, +with a twentieth-century iron gate and a twentieth-century porter's +lodge. The park looks well groomed. The wall along the Vence side is as +new as the gate and the lodge. The stone of the castle is white and +fresh. One dismisses the castle as an imitation or a wholesale +restoration by an architect lacking in imagination and cleverness. But +if the left hand road toward Grasse is taken, one sees twelfth-century +fortifications coming down from the top of the hill to the roadside. +There are ruins of bastions and towers overgrown with bushes and ivy. +Farther along an old town is revealed climbing the hill to the castle. +There is nothing _nouveau riche_ about Villeneuve-Loubet. The only +touches of the modern are the motor road with kilometer stones, the iron +bridge over the Loup, and the huge sign informing you that the hotel is +near by. + +Had we limited our inland exploration to the Vence side of the hill, the +Artist and I would not have discovered Villeneuve-Loubet. Had we been +hurrying through toward Grasse in automobile or tram, we would probably +have exclaimed "how picturesque" or "interesting, isn't it?" and +continued our way. Luck saved us. + +A scissors-grinder at the gate of Saint-Paul-du-Var recommended the trout +and beds of the Villeneuve-Loubet hotel. Just as the moon was coming up +one April evening, we got off the Vence-Cagnes tram at the junction of +the Grasse tramway, and walked to the revelation of what the castle +really was. We decided to eat something in a hurry, and go around the +town that very evening. + +When, helped by the sign, we reached the Hôtel Beau-Site, the proprietor +came forward with his best shuffle and bow. Trout? Of course there were +trout, plenty of them. Alas, in these days when business was very, very +bad, when people had no money to travel, and visitors accordingly were +scarce, there were too many trout. But that was to the advantage of +_messieurs_. He, Jean Alphonse, could give a large choice, and the +dinner would have all his attention. It was his pride and rule to give +personal attention always to every dish that left his kitchen, but with +the _monde_ of a regular season, he could not take every fish out of the +pan himself, and see that the slices of lemon were cut, and the parsley +put, just as he had always done when he was the _chef_ of Monsieur Blanc. +We knew Monsieur Blanc. Monsieur Blanc died eight years ago, but that +was the way of the world. Now messieurs could go right along with him +and pick out their own fish. The net was down by the pool, and he would +get a lamp in just one little minute. For that would be best. The moon +was coming up, true. But one could not trust the moonlight in choosing +fish. + +The garden of the Hôtel Beau-Site contains a curious succession of bowers +made by training bamboo trees for partitions and ceilings. As we went +through them, Jean Alphonse explained that these natural _salons +particuliers_, where parties could have luncheon out-of-doors and yet +remain sheltered from the sun and in privacy, combined with the trout to +give his hotel a wonderful vogue in tourist season. We, of course, +insisted that the reputation of the chef must be the third and +controlling attraction. The pool was full, and the trout had no chance. +It was not a sporting proposition; but just before dinner one does not +think of that. Even our choice out of the net was gently guided by Jean +Alphonse. Since human nature is the same the world over, is it +surprising that the tricks calculated to captivate and deceive are the +same? I recalled a famous restaurant in Moscow, where one went to the +fountain with a white-robed Tartar waiter and thought he picked his fish. +I have no doubt that Jean Alphonse believed that his idea was original, +and that we were experiencing a new sensation. + +Jean Alphonse did not boast idly of his cuisine. He possessed, too, the +genius of the successful boniface for knowing what would please his +guests. He sensed our lack of interest in the wines of the Midi, and, +helped by the Artist's checked knickers and slender cane, set forth a +bottle of old Scotch. We refused to allow him to open the dining-room +for us, and had our dinner in a corner of the café. Villeneuve-Loubet's +_élite_ gathered to see us eat. The _garde-champêtre_, the veteran of +1870, the chatelain's bailiff, the local representative in the Legion of +Honor (rosette, not ribbon, if you please), and two _chasseurs alpins_, +home from the maneuvers on sick leave, ordered their coffee or liqueur at +other tables, but were glad to join us when we said the word. Soon we +had a dozen around us. The history of the war--and past and future +wars--and of Villeneuve-Loubet was set forth in detail. + +Had it not been for the moon, we should certainly have gone from the +table to our rooms. But the full moon on the Riviera makes a more +fascinating fairyland than one can find in dreams. We did not hesitate, +when the last of our friends left, to follow them out-of-doors. +Villeneuve-Loubet might prove to be a modest town tomorrow, old, of +course, and interesting: but we were going to see it tonight under the +spell of the moon. We were going to wander where we willed, with all the +town to ourselves. We were going to live for an hour in the Middle Ages. +For if there was anything modern in Villeneuve-Loubet, the moonlight +would hide it or gloss it over; if there was anything ancient, the +moonlight would enable us to see it as we wanted to see it. I pity the +limited souls who do not believe in moonshine, and use the word +contemptuously. One is illogical who contends that moonshine gives a +false idea of things; for he is testing the moonshine impression by +sunshine. It would be as illogical to say that sunshine gives a false +idea of things on the ground that moonshine is the standard. If sunshine +is reality, so is moonshine. The difference is that we are more +accustomed to see things by sunlight than by moonlight. Our test of +reality is familiarity, and of truth repetition. + +Villeneuve-Loubet is built against a cliff. The houses rise on tiers of +stone terraces. They are made of stone quarried on the spot. Red tiles, +the conspicuous feature of Mediterranean cities, are lacking in +Villeneuve-Loubet. The roofs are slabs of stone. The streets are the +surface of the cliff. We climbed toward the castle through a ghost-city. +The moon enhanced the gray-whiteness that was the common color of ground, +walls and roofs. The shadows, sharp and black, were needed to set forth +the lines of the buildings. + +The picture called for a witch. The silence was broken by the tapping of +a cane. Around the corner the witch hobbled into the scene, testing each +step before her. She was dressed in black, of course, and bent over with +just the curve of the back the Artist loves to give to his old women. +She was a friendly soul, and did not seem amazed to find strangers +strolling late at night in her town. We were "_Anglais_," and that was +explanation enough to one who had seen three generations of tourists. +She stopped to talk with us. When had we arrived at Villeneuve-Loubet? +Had we come up from Nice that afternoon and did we plan to stay for a day +or two with Jean Alphonse at the Hôtel Beau-Site? Did we not agree that +Villeneuve-Loubet was superb? Perhaps we were artists? So many artists +came here to paint and sketch the old houses. What was our impression of +her country? We knew that she meant by "country" not France but +Villeneuve-Loubet, and mustered our best vocabulary to admire the town, +the solid foundations, the houses, the protecting castle, and above all, +the unique streets of stone. + +"But it must be very difficult to go up and down in winter. How do you +manage when the rock is frozen over with snow and ice?" I asked. + +"It does not freeze here," she answered. + +The moon-whiteness had made me think of winter, and it had not occurred +to me that there would be no snow and ice. Ideas are pervasive. We +place them immediately and unquestioningly upon the hypothesis that +happens to fit. + +The church, of eighteenth-century architecture, is the last building at +the upper end of the town. It stands on a terrace outside the lower wall +of the castle, an eloquent witness of the survival of feudal ideas. In +order that the lord of the manor need not go far to mass, when there +happened to be no private chaplain in the castle, the town-folk must +climb to their devotions. I tried the church door from habit. It was +not locked. The Artist refused to go in. + +"Why should one poke around a church, especially at night and this +night?" he remonstrated, and walked over to the wall of the terrace. + +"There may be something inside," I urged. + +"There _is_ something outside," he answered, with his back turned upon +the castle as well as church. + +I could see my way around, for the windows of nave and transept were +large, and had plain glass. Moonlight was sufficient to read +inscriptions that set forth in detail the pedigree of the chatelains. +The baptismal names overflowed a line, and were followed by a family name +almost as long, MARCH-TRIPOLY DE PANISSE-PASSIS. Longest of all was the +list of titles. The chatelains were marquesses and counts and knights of +Malta and seigneurs of a dozen domains of the northlands as well as of +Provence. March-Tripoly and some of the seigneural names told the story +that I have often read in church inscriptions near the sea in Italy, in +Hungary, in Dalmatia and in Greece, as well as in Provence and Catalonia. +The feudal families of the Mediterranean are of Teutonic and Scandinavian +origin. They were founded by the stock that destroyed the Roman Empire, +barbarians, stronger, more energetic, more resourceful, more resolute +than the southerners whom they made their serfs. When feudalism, through +the formation of larger political units by the extension of kingly +rights, began to decline, the chatelains preserved their prestige by +supporting the propaganda to redeem the Holy Sepulcher. They took the +Cross and went to fight the Saracens in Africa and Asia. When climate +rather than culture latinized them, later northmen came and dispossessed +them. The men of the north have always been fighting their way to the +Mediterranean. Are Germans and Russians disturbing the peace of Europe +any more or any differently than Northern Europeans have always done? +Since the dawn of history, the Mediterranean races have had to contend +with the men of the north seeking the sun. + +Behind the church, ruins of centuries, overgrown with shrubbery and ivy, +cling to the side of the cliff from the castle to the valley road. The +great square mass of the castle rises on top of a slope far above the +church terrace. A moat, filled with bushes, is on a level with the +terrace, and beyond the moat is a wall. An unkept path leads through the +moat to a modest door. From the towers and arch above one can see that +the former entrance to the castle, by means of a portcullis, was on this +side. But the outer wall has been rebuilt, leaving only a servants' +door. Evidently the chatelain used to enter by climbing up through +Villeneuve-Loubet as we had done. Since the motor road was made on the +other side of the hill, he and his guests can ignore Villeneuve-Loubet. + +The Artist was sitting on the wall of the terrace, engrossed in midnight +labor. He was willing to stop for a pipe. Above us the castle, +dominated by a pentagonal tower, rose toward the moon. Below us, the +blanched roofs of Villeneuve-Loubet slanted into the valley. As long as +the pipe lasted, I was able to talk to the Artist about the men of the +north seeking the sun. But when the bowl ceased to respond to matches, +he said; "All very well, but I know one man of the north who is going to +seek his bed." + +Before reaching the Hôtel Beau-Site, however, a street on the left +attracted us. It seemed to end in a flight of steps that dipped under +arches, and we could hear the swift rush of water. We were not so sleepy +as we thought, for both of us were still willing to explore. The steps +led to the flour mill. We followed the mill-race until we reached the +Grasse tram road near the river. By the tram station, a light was +shining from the open door of a café in a wooden shanty. We went in, and +found Villeneuve-Loubet's officer of the Legion of Honor smoking his pipe +over a cup of _tilleul_. + +"There has been an accident in the gorge of the Loup," he said. "The +last tram from Grasse was derailed, and two automobiles from Cagnes went +up an hour ago. As I am the _maire_, I must wait for news. There may be +something for me to do." + +Monsieur le Maire told us that he had spent his life in the West African +coast trade, with headquarters in Marseilles. If he had stayed there to +end his days, he would have been one of a hundred thousand in a great +city, cast aside and ignored by the new generation. But in his native +_pays_ he was in the thick of things. To return to their old home is not +wholly a question of sentiment with Frenchmen who retire from business in +the city or the colonies. Money goes farther, and one can be an +official, with public duties and honors, and enjoy the privilege of +writing on notepaper bearing the magic heading, _République Française_. +Monsieur le Maire told us that the chatelain came often, and never forgot +to invite him to meet the guests at the castle. Some years ago I used to +think that it was a peculiar characteristic of the French to enjoy being +made much of and exercising authority. But since I have traveled in my +own and many other countries I have come to realize that this +characteristic is not peculiarly French. + +When Monsieur le Maire spoke of the chatelain, I had my opening. Full of +the idea of the men of the north seeking the sun, I was ready to spread +to others the impression I had made upon myself of my own erudition and +cleverness. At the risk of boring the Artist, I repeated and enlarged +upon my deductions from the inscription of the March-Tripoly de +Panisse-Passis. Monsieur le Maire looked at me with malicious amazement. + +"_La-la-la!_" he cried. "Not so fast. You haven't got it right at all, +at all, at all! The castle of Villeneuve-Loubet is the only one in this +corner of Provence that belongs to its pre-Revolutionary owners, but +there are many centuries between feudal days and our time. Castles +remain, but history changes. The March-Tripoly de Panisse-Passis are not +a feudal family, and they do not come from the north. The African part +of the name is due to an unproven claim of descent from a French consular +official in Tripoli of the sixteenth century. The château, after a +succession of proprietors, came to the Panisse family through marriage +with the daughter of a Marseilles notary, who got the château by +foreclosing a mortgage. During the Revolutionary period, the property +was saved from confiscation by a clever straddle. The owner stayed in +France, and supported the Revolution, while the son emigrated with the +Bourbons. The peerage was created just a hundred years ago by Louis +XVIII, in reward for the refusal of the Panisses to follow Napoleon a +second time after the return from Elba." + +Another pervasive idea! + +"The Moon got you," was the laughing comment of the Artist. + +Historical reminiscences died hard, however. We discussed the possible +Saracen origin of the pentagonal tower, and the vicissitudes of the +castle during the struggles between Mohammedans and Christians, feudal +lords and kings, Catholics and Protestants, Spaniards and French. +Monsieur le Maire was a Bonapartist, and he insisted that the chief glory +of Villeneuve-Loubet was the association with Napoleon. + +"When Napoleon was living at Nice," he said, "he used to come out here +often. Napoleon thought that the view of sea and mountains from +Villeneuve-Loubet was the finest on the Riviera. He could stand up there +and look out towards his native island, and contemplate the mountains the +crossing of which was his first great step to fame. Napoleon (and here +Monsieur le Maire winked at the Artist) was a man of the sun seeking the +north--just like Caesar, ho! ho!" + +The arrival of the tram, which had recovered its equilibrium, helped me +to recover mine. We said good night to Monsieur le Maire, and before +turning in went out on the iron bridge that spanned the Loup. + +The river, swollen by the spring thaw and rains, had overflowed its +banks, and was swirling around willows and poplars. It was not deep, and +the water flashed in the moonlight as it rippled over the stones. There +was a smell of fresh-cut logs. We looked beyond a sawmill into a gorge +of pines that ended in a transversal white mountain wall. + +[Illustration: The river was swirling around willows and poplars.] + +"Bully placer ground!" I exclaimed. + +The Artist leaned over the bridge, looked down, and sighed just one word, +"Salmon!" + +We sought the Hôtel Beau-Site in silence. + +Monuments of men's making create a diversity of atmospheres and call +forth a diversity of reminiscences. They cause imagination to run riot +in history. But nature is the same the world over, and there would be +reactions and yearnings if one knew nothing of the past from books. +There is no conflict. Nature transcends. We dreamed that night not of +crusaders, but of Idaho and the Bitter Root Range. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +VENCE + +The most picturesque bit of mountain railway on the Riviera is the +fourteen miles from Grasse to Vence. Yielding to a sudden impulse, we +took it one afternoon. The train passed from Grasse through olive +groves and fig orchards and over two viaducts. A third viaduct of +eleven arches took us across the Loup. We were just at the season when +the melting snows made a roaring torrent of what was most of the year a +little stream lost in a wide gravel bed. The view up the gorge gave us +the feeling of being in the heart of the mountains. And yet from the +opposite windows of the train we could see the Mediterranean. Then we +circled the little town of Tourettes at the foot of the Puy de +Tourettes, with high cliffs in the background, and a wild luxurious +growth of aloes below. We almost circled the village, crossing the +ravines on either side on viaducts. A sixth long viaduct brought us to +Vence. We had a rendezvous that evening at Cannes. There was no time +to stop. We kept on to Nice to make the only connection that would get +us back to Cannes. + +Afterwards the Artist and I spoke often of Vence. Twice we planned to +go to Vence, but found the fascination of Villeneuve-Loubet and +Saint-Paul-du-Var justifiable deterrents. + +On the terrace of our favorite café in the Allées de la Liberté at +Cannes on Easter evening we announced the intention of making a special +trip to Vence the next day. + +"Tomorrow is Easter Monday, and the children have no school," said the +Artist's hostess. "We shall make a family party of it, train to Cagnes +where I may have a chance to see your Mademoiselle Simone, a trout +luncheon at Villeneuve-Loubet with the rest of that bottle of which you +boys spoke, and Vence in the afternoon." + +The orders had been given. There was an early morning stir at the +Villa Étoile, a scramble to the Théoule railway station, and before +nine o'clock we were all aboard for the hour's ride to Cagnes. When we +got off the train, there was just one _cocher_ available. He looked at +papa and mamma and Uncle Lester and the four babies and their nurse, +and raised his hands to heaven. But Villeneuve-Loubet was not far off +and we were careful to say nothing of the afternoon's program. Léonie +and the children were packed into the carriage. The rest of us +followed afoot. + +Our cheerful host at Villeneuve-Loubet greeted us effusively. He had +many holiday guests, but he remembered the Artist and me, and the +splendid profit accruing from every drink out of the bottle only _les +Anglais_ called for. There were plenty of trout, fresh sliced +cucumbers, and a special soup for the kiddies. The _cocher_ was so +amenable to Léonie's charms and to drinks that cost less than ours that +he consented to further exertion for his horse. But the climb to Vence +was out of the question--a physical impossibility, he declared. And +we, having seen the horse at rest and in action, could only sorrowfully +agree. It was too much of a job to maneuver all the children (the baby +could not walk) to the tramway halt, nearly a mile away, and on and off +the cars. The mother said that she could not be a good sport to the +point of abandoning all her handicaps for several hours in a place +where the river flowed fast and deep. So it was agreed that she would +have at least the excursion to Saint-Paul-du-Var, and the Artist and I, +determined this time on Vence, would see her the next evening for +dinner at Cannes. + +So we made our adieux, and hurried off to get the tram at the +bifurcation below the castle. Half an hour later our tram passed the +carriage jogging up the hill. As luck had it, we turned out just then +on a switch to let the down car pass. The temptation of Vence was too +much for Helen. The _cocher_ seemed a fatherly sort of a man. There +was a quick consultation from tram to carriage. A reunion with the +handicaps was set for two hours later in front of the triple gate of +Saint-Paul-du-Var, and another passenger got on the tram. + +Around a curve we waved farewell to our children. After all, Vence was +only three miles beyond Saint-Paul. As we passed the Saint-Paul halt, +our old friend, the postman, was on the platform to receive the +mailbag. We told him that the kiddies were coming, and slipped him ten +francs to look after them until our return. + +"_Soyes tranquilles, M'sieu-dame,_" he reassured us. "_Moi, je suis +grand'père._" + +Beyond Saint-Paul the tramway left the road and climbed over a viaduct +to Vence. + +Ventium Cassaris was a military base of great importance in the days of +imperial Rome. It was the central commissariat depot for the armies in +Gaul, and had a forum and temples. During the Middle Ages it was a +stronghold of the Holy Roman Empire. It stands on the side of a +fertile hill more than a thousand feet above the sea. The site was +probably chosen because of the wall of rocks on the north which shelter +it from the mistral, a wind that the Romans found as little to their +liking as later interlopers. In peace as in war the outside world has +never been able to keep away from the Riviera. + +The Artist announced his intention of spending a couple of days +sketching, and left us to seek a hotel. Helen and I found that there +was no tram to Saint-Paul-du-Var that would enable us to pick up the +children in time for the train to Théoule unless we returned without +seeing Vence. So we decided to give an hour to the town and walk back +to Saint-Paul. + +As at Grasse a boulevard runs along the line of the old fortifications. +Some of the houses facing it have used the town wall for foundations or +are themselves remnants of the wall. But at Vence the _boulevard de +l'enceinte_ is circular--a modest _Ringstrasse_, marking without +interruption the old town from the new. We dipped in and out of alleys +under arches, and made a turn of the streets of the old town. Much of +the medieval still survives in Vence, as in other hill towns of the +Riviera. But only behind the cathedral did we find a remnant of +imperial Rome. A granite column supporting an arch, and reliefs and +inscriptions built in the north wall of the cathedral, are all that we +saw of Vence's latinity. + +The cathedral, however, is the most interesting we found on the +Riviera. It is a Romanesque building, built on the site of the +second-century temple, and its tall battlemented tower harks back to a +tenth-century _château fort_. The interior is striking: double aisles, +simple nave with tiers of arches of the tenth century, a choir with +richly carved oak stalls, a fourth-century sarcophagus for altar, and a +font and lectern of the Italian Renaissance. + +It was just a glimpse. But sometimes glimpses make more vivid memories +than longer acquaintance. At the end of our hour we left Vence and +hurried down the broad road of red shale past meadows thick with +violets. We went through the deep pine-filled ravine over which we had +crossed on the viaduct. Then the climb to Saint-Paul-du-Var. + +[Illustration: "Down the broad road of red shale past meadows thick +with violets."] + +We might have taken our time. Christine and Lloyd and Mimi came +running to greet us, bringing with them little friends who had probably +never before played with children from Paris. We did not need to ask +what kind of a time they had been having. Children are the true +cosmopolitans. Hope lay under a tree on her blanket playing with her +pink shoes. Nearby, at a table in front of the Café de la Porte, +Léonie was treating the _cocher_ and the postman to a glass of beer. + +"I got bread and honey and milk for the children's _goûter_," explained +Léonie, "and _Monsieur le cocher_ and I are having ours with _Monsieur +le facteur_." + +As the children did not seem to be tired and the _cocher_ was in no +hurry, Helen and I made a tour of the walls, and took a photograph of +our handicaps and their faithful attendants in front of the great gate +built by Francis I, who prized Saint-Paul-du-Var as the best spot to +guard the fords of the river against Charles V. + +A reader of this manuscript declares that the chapter on Vence ought to +be struck out. + +"They [I suppose she means the home folks] will never understand," she +insists. + +I am adamant. + +"When they come to the Riviera, they will understand," I answer. + +Between Saint-Raphaël and Menton the most sacred responsibilities do +not weigh one down all the time. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MENTON + +In architectural parlance the cornice is the horizontal molded +projection crowning a building, especially the uppermost member of the +entablature of an order, surmounting the frieze. The word is also used +in mountaineering to describe an overhanging mass of hardened snow at +the edge of a precipice. In the Maritime Alps it has a striking +figurative meaning. There are four _corniches_--the main roads along +the two sections of the Riviera, Menton to Nice and Théoule to +Saint-Raphaël, where the mountains come right down to the sea and +nature affords no natural routes. The Grande Corniche and the Petite +Corniche run from Nice to Menton, and the Moyenne Corniche from Nice to +Monte Carlo. The Corniche d'Or or Corniche de l'Estérel is the new +road from Théoule to Saint-Raphaël. The word is incorrectly used, for +the most part, concerning the two coast roads, the Petite Corniche and +the Corniche l'Estérel. For although these beautiful roads do at many +points stand high above the sea, they descend as often as possible to +connect with the coast towns. But the analogy with the architectural +term is perfect in so far as the Grande Corniche and the Moyenne +Corniche are concerned. At every point these wonderful roads, +undisturbed by tramways and unbroken by towns (except La Turbie on the +Grande Corniche and Éze on the Moyenne Corniche), you feel that you are +traveling along a horizontal molded projection above temples built with +hands and the activities of humankind. + +From Nice to the Italian frontier the railway, darting in and out of +tunnels, keeps near sea level. A small branch climbs from Monte Carlo +to La Turbie. The tramway from Nice to Menton follows the Petite +Corniche, with a branch to Saint-Jean on Cap Ferrat. + +For tourists, Nice is the center of the Riviera, the place to come back +to every night after day excursions. Everything is so near that this +is possible. Nice is the terminus of railways and tramways east and +west. It is the home of the ubiquitous Cook. You can buy all sorts of +excursion tickets, and by watching the bulletin posted in front of the +Cook office on the Promenade des Anglais, it is possible to "cover" the +Riviera in a fortnight. But this means a constant rush, perched on a +high seat, crowded in with twenty others, on a _char à banes_, and only +a kaleidoscopic vision of Mediterranean blue, hillside and valley green +and brown, roof-top red, wall gray and mountain white. At the end of +your orgy, instead of distinct pictures, you carry away an impression +of the Riviera in which the Place Masséna is a concrete image and the +rest no more than dancing bits of colored glass. Saint-Raphaël and +Menton are the luncheon breaks of two days, and the Grande Corniche is +a beautiful vague mountain road over which you whizzed. + +And yet there are those who go to the Riviera every year for a daily +ride over the Grande Corniche, and who dream during ten months of two +months at Menton! + +Sitting with our legs daggling over the stone coping at the entrance of +the port in Nice, the Artist and I figured out--on the basis of just +time for a glimpse and a few sketches--how long it would take us to +wander through the Riviera. Reserving March and April each year, we +discovered that the allotted three score and ten, seeing that we had +already come to half the span, would be inadequate. And there were +other parts of the world! So we decided to see what we could, eschew +the "day excursions," draw on the memories of former years, and let it +go at that. Grande Corniche and Moyenne Corniche would be explored +afoot on sunny days and gray; shelter would be sought at Menton; and on +the return to Nice, Monte Carlo and Villefranche would be the only +tramway stops for us. + +To Ventimiglia, as if he foresaw what part of the Riviera would +eventually fall to France, Napoleon I was the builder of La Grande +Corniche. His engineers, planning for horse-drawn vehicles in an age +when time was not money, made the ascent easy by striking inland for +several kilometers up from the valley of the Paillon and circling Mont +Gros and Mont Vinaigrier. For the first two miles you have Nice and +Cimiez below you. Then the road turns, passes the observatory of +Bischoffsheim (who won posthumous fame by his having built the house +where Wilson lost the battle of Paris in 1919), and goes over the Col +des Quatre Chemins. Here begins the matchless succession of views of +the loveliest portion of the Riviera coast. Below you is the harbor of +Villefranche, between Montboron, which hides Nice, and Cap Ferrat +jutting far into the sea with Cap de l'Hospice breaking out to the +left. The sea is always on your right as you continue to climb. +Ancient Éze is on a lower hill midway between you and the +Mediterranean. If you have made an early start from Nice, La Turbie +will come most conveniently in sight a little before noon. + +The only town of the Grande Corniche high up from the sea is on the +line given in ancient maps as the frontier between Gaul and Italy, and +it is evident that the Roman road followed here the route chosen by +Napoleon. For here the Senate raised the _trophaeum Augusti_ to +commemorate the subjugation of the Gauls and the new era of +tranquillity from invasion for the Empire. On its site one of the most +interesting medieval towers in southern France was the ruin par +excellence of the Riviera until a few years ago. It is now "restored" +so well that it leaves nothing to the imagination--a crime quite in +keeping with the spirit of the new age of the "movies." Its architect +wanted you to see at a glance just what it used to be. You feel that +he would have put arms on the Venus de Milo! As we stood there, a +guide came up and began to tell us the history of the tower. We moved +over to the terrace. From Montboron to Bordighera the Riviera lay +below us, a panorama which commanded silence. Up came the guide +fellow, and started to name each place. + +"I am about to commit murder," I cried. + +"I'll save you the bother by telling him to chase himself with this +franc," said the Artist, pulling out the coin. "If only the restorer +of the Tower of Augustus were around, he'd come in for a franc too." + +La Turbie is not a town to hurry away from after lunch. Its old +gateways and leaning houses brought out the Artist's pencil. I tried +to explore the paths up the Tête du Chien. _Défense de pénétrer_--and +then selections from the Code about how spies are treated. The same +fate met me on the Mont de la Bataille. France may love Italy just +now--but she is taking no chances! As far as I could judge, every high +slope was fortified. I had tea at one of the hotels perched above the +town, counted my money, and suggested to the Artist that we slip down +to Monte Carlo for the night. + +The next morning we took the little railway back to La Turbie and +continued our walk. From La Turbie the Grande Corniche makes a gradual +descent behind the principality of Monaco to Cabbé-Roquebrune, and +joins the Petite Corniche at Cap Martin. Three miles farther on the +Promenade du Midi leads into Menton. This is the most beautiful +stretch of the Grande Corniche; and it is paralleled by no other road, +as the new Moyenne Corniche ends at Monte Carlo. The view is before +you as you go down. The vegetation becomes more tropical. You are +nearer the sea, and the feeling of _dolce far niente_ gets into your +bones as you approach Cap Martin. + +Mont Agel's limestone side gives you back the heat of the sun. It is a +radiator. No wonder lemons flower all the year round, and you discover +on the same tree buds, flowers, green and yellow fruit. No wonder the +palms are not out of their setting as at Cannes and Nice. Locusts, +flourishing where there is seemingly no ground to take root in, live +from the air, and give forth pods that almost hide the leaves in their +profusion. The undergrowth of myrtle and dwarf ilex above becomes +aloes and sarsaparilla and wild asparagus as we go down to the sea. We +have left the cypresses and cork-trees, and eucalyptus struggles in our +nostrils with orange and lemon. Even the ferns are scented! The +Artist looks with apathetic eye on the rocks and ruined castle of +Roquebrune. When we reach Menton we are willing to sink into +cane-seated rockers on the Hôtel Bristol porch, call for something in a +tall glass with ice in it, and let the morning walk count for a day's +journey. + +The tourists who know Menton only as a mid-day luncheon break have +robbed themselves of an experience that no other Riviera town offers. +The Promenade des Anglais at Nice is interesting in the sense that the +Avenue des Champs-Elysées is interesting. The Mediterranean is +accidental--an unimportant accessory. The Promenade du Midi at Menton +is another world. And this other world, with its other world climate, +reveals itself to you with increasingly keen delight, as you ride (you +do not walk at Menton) around Cap Martin, up the mountain to old +Sainte-Agnès, in the gorge of Saint-Louis, along the Boulevard du +Garavan, and out to the Giardino Hanbury. You say _giardino_ instead +of _jardin_ because Mortola is just across the Italian frontier. The +eccentric Englishman chose this spot, without regard to political +sovereignty present or future, as the best place to demonstrate the +catholicity of the Riviera climate to tropical flora. I simply mention +these drives; for you do not ride at Menton any more than you walk. +The man who wants to keep his energy and work on the Riviera must not +go farther east than Nice. + +But why another world? And another world even from that of the rest of +the French Riviera? It is partly the climate and the consequent flora, +but mostly the light. The general aridity of the Riviera, with the +prevalence of everbrowns and evergreens, strikes unpleasantly at first +the visitor from the North. Sunshine and riotous colors of flowers and +blossoming trees do not make up for the absence of water-fed green. +When it rains, the Northerner's depression cannot be fought off. The +chill gets to his soul as well as to his bones. He prays for the sun +he has come south to seek. But when the sun returns, the dust annoys +him. The high wind gets on his nerves. + +The casual tourist, whose stay is brief, even if he has come in the +most favorable season, is "not so sure about the Riviera, you know." +He is impatient with himself because, after the first vivid impression, +panoramas and landscapes leave him unsatisfied. There is no +compensation for the absence of water-fed green in the canvas of nature +_until one becomes responsive to other colors_. I do not mean +particular patches of color in flowers and blossoms. These are of a +season. Often they pass in a week. The sun that gives rich life kills +quickly. The glory of south lands, especially along the sea, is the +constant changing of colors. These colors you will drink in only when +by familiarity you have become sensitive to lights and shadows. + +If you stay long enough at a place like Menton you will be ready for +Southern Italy and Greece. You will be able to drink in the beauty of +landscapes without foliage. And when you have acquired this sense, +your own country will be a new world to you. Never again, as long as +you live, will you tire of any landscape. + +The sun veils and unveils itself more often and more quickly and more +unexpectedly at Menton than at any place on the Riviera. And the +setting for watching the changes is perfect. Menton can say, in the +words of the old sundial, + + "Son figlia del sole, + Eppure son ombre." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MONTE CARLO + +San Marino and Andorra have maintained their independence from the Middle +Ages, but as republics. The only reigning families who kept their +domains from being engulfed in the evolution of modern Europe are those +of Liechtenstein and Monaco. What will happen to Liechtenstein with the +disappearance of the Hapsburg Empire is uncertain. Wedged in between the +Vorarlberg portion of the Austrian Tyrol and Switzerland, Liechtenstein +is almost as out of the way, as forgotten, as unimportant, as San Marino +and Andorra. Monaco is in a different situation. The smallest country +in the world covers only eight square miles, and never was very much +larger than it is today. Until half a century ago Monaco was an Italian +principality and not at all an anomaly. For Italy had been broken up +into small political units from the Roman days. At the time of the +unification of Italy, the Italians had to part with a portion of the +Riviera to France. Monaco lost a bit of her coast line--the Menton +district--and became an enclave in France. + +Because of the traditional friendship of the Grimaldi family for France, +the principality was saved from extinction when the protectorate of Savoy +(established by the Congress of Vienna) was withdrawn in 1861. In fact, +the male line of the Grimaldi died out just after the War of Spanish +Succession, and the present house is of French descent. But whether +Grimaldi or Matignon, the princes of Monaco have fought for a thousand +years on the side of France against the British especially, but also +against the Italians, Spanish and Germans. As unhesitatingly as his +predecessors had always done, Prince Albert espoused the cause of France +in 1914; his son fought through the war in the French army. + +And there is another reason for the continued independence of Monaco. +Republics have no sense of gratitude. After the fall of Napoleon III +Monaco would hardly have survived save for the gambling concession. Four +years before the Franco-Prussian War, a casino and hotels built on the +Roche des Spélugues had been named Monte Carlo in honor of the reigning +prince. The concession, granted to a Frenchman, François Blanc, was too +valuable to spoil by having Monaco come under French law! The Republic +tolerated Monaco--on condition that no French officer in uniform and no +inhabitant of the Département des Alpes-Maritimes (which surrounds +Monaco) be allowed in the gaming rooms of the Casino. It was also agreed +that except in petty cases handled in a magistrate's court all crimes +should be judged by French law and the criminals delivered for punishment +to France. + +The arrangement is admirable from the French point of view. The Riviera +has its gambling place of world-wide fame with no opprobrium or +responsibility attaching to the French Government. The +extra-territoriality does not extend to criminals. The inhabitants of +the neighboring French towns are not demoralized by the opportunity to +gamble. French army officers are protected from corruption. It is +presumed that the rest of the world, which can afford a trip to the +principality, will be able to take care of its own morals! + +The Monégasques are similarly protected by their sovereign. They, too, +are forbidden to gamble. They profit from the concession in that there +are no taxes to pay in the rich little principality and in that several +hundred thousand foreigners come every year to give big prices for every +little service. But they run no risk of being caught by the snare they +set for others. Prince and people, the Monégasques are like the wise old +bartender, who said in a tone of virtuous self-satisfaction, "I never +drink." + +When Tennyson, traveling along the Grande Corniche, saw Monaco, it was of +the old medieval principality that he could write: + + "How like a gem, beneath, the city + Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd." + +The old walled town, on its promontory, must indeed have seemed a gem in +an unsurpassed setting in the time of Tennyson. For the little Port of +Hercules and the other promontory, Spélugues, were tree- and shrub- and +flower-lined. There was nothing to break the spell of old Monaco. Now, +alas, the Casino and hotels of Monte Carlo cover Spélugues, and between +the promontories La Condamine has sprung up, a town of red-roofed villas, +larger than either Monaco or Monte Carlo and forming with them an +unbroken mass of buildings. Monaco is simply an end of the city, +distinct from the rest of the agglomeration only because it is high up +and on a cape jutting out into the sea. + +Unless one went up to explore the old town, one would not realize that it +was more than the palace with its garden and the post-Tennyson cathedral, +too prominent for the good of the medieval spell. La Condamine and Monte +Carlo have reached the limit of expansion. In front is the sea, behind +the steep wall of the mountain. The principality is all city. But the +mountains and sea prevent the exclusion of nature from the picture. +Despite the modern growth of Monaco, from the Grande Corniche the words +of the poet still hold good. Monaco is no longer a predominantly +medieval picture perhaps--but it is still a gem. + +The old town is as attractive in walls and buildings as other rock +villages of the Riviera. Three main streets, Rue Basse, Rue du Milieu +and Rue des Briques, run parallel from the Place du Palais out on the +promontory. They are crossed by the narrowest of city alleys, _à +l'Italienne_, and to the right of the Rue des Briques, around the +Cathedral, is the rest of the town. Nowhere does the old town extend to +the sea. + +On the sites of the ancient fortifications the present ruler, Prince +Albert, has made gardens and built museums for his collections of +prehistoric man and of ocean life. One ought never to dip into museums. +If you have lots and lots of time (I mean weeks, not hours), or if you +have special interest in a definite field of study, museums may be +profitable. But "doing" museums is the last word in tourist folly. Yes, +I know that skeletons and the cutest little fish are in those museums. I +am not ashamed to confess that I never darkened their doors. Life is +short, and while the Artist revels in his subjects, I find more interest +in studying the living Monégasques than their--and our--negroid ancestors. + +For there is a separate race, with its own patois, in Monaco. You would +never spot it in the somewhat Teutonic cosmopolitanism of the Condamine +and Monte Carlo tradesmen and hotel servants. It is not apparent in the +impassive _croupiers_ of the Casino. But within a few hundred yards, in +half a dozen streets and lanes, the physiognomy, the mentality, the +language of the people make you realize that regarding Monaco as a +separate country is not wholly a polite fiction to relieve the French +Government of the responsibility for the Casino. These people are +different, children as well as grown-ups. They are neither French nor +Italian, Provençal nor Catalan, but as distinct as mountain Basques are +from French and Spanish. It is not a racial group distinction, as with +the Basques. In blood, the Monégasques are affiliated to their Provençal +and Italian neighbors. + +What one sees in the old town of Monaco is a confirmation of the +assertion of many historians that nationality, in our modern political +sense of the word, and patriotism, as a mass instinct shared by millions, +are phenomena of the nineteenth century. Steam transportation, +obligatory primary education, universal military service, are the factors +that have developed national consciousness, and the exigencies and +opportunities and advantages of the industrial era have furnished the +motive for binding people together in great political organisms. Today +if there were no outside interests working against the solidarity of +human beings leading a commonwealth existence in the same country, the +political organism would soon make the race rather than the race the +political organism. + +San Remo and Menton and Monaco are Riviera towns all within a few miles +of each other. People of the same origin have three political +allegiances. In half an hour your automobile will traverse the +territories of three nations. Italians and French fight under different +flags and were within an ace of being lined against each other in the +war. Monégasques do not fight at all. Taxes and tariff boundaries, +schools and military obligations, make the differences between the three +peoples. Put them all under the same dispensation and where would be +your races? + +In the old days the _raison d'être_ of the principality was the power to +prey upon commerce. From their fortress on the promontory the Grimaldi +organized the Monégasques to levy tolls on passing ships. Italy was not +a united country. France had not yet extended her frontiers to the +Riviera. This little corner of the Mediterranean escaped the Juggernaut +of developing political unity that crushed the life out of a dozen other +feudal robber states. And when the logical moment for disappearance +arrived, Monte Carlo saved Monaco. Another means of preying upon others +was happily discovered. The Monégasques abandoned pistols and cutlasses +for little rakes. The descendants of those who stood on the poops of +ships now sit at the ends of green tables. The gold still pours in, +however, and no law reaches those who take it. + +There is this difference: you no longer empty your pockets to the +Monégasques under compulsion, and the battlements of old Monaco play no +part in your losses. The proverb dearest to American hearts says that a +sucker is born every minute. It is incomplete, that proverb. It should +be rounded out with the axiom that at some minute every person born is a +sucker. + +So I look over to the great white building which is the salvation of the +Monégasques--their symbol of freedom from taxes and military service--and +know that the strength of Monaco is the weakness of the world. I return +to the Place du Palais. The Artist is reluctantly strapping up his +tools. We glance for a brief moment at the best sunset view on the +Riviera. Ships sail by unmolested. No more have they fear of the Tête +du Chien and of the huge stone _boulet_ that Fort Antoine used to lance +if a merchantman dared to be deaf to the call of the galley darting forth +from the Port of Hercules. But we? + +The Artist's fingers are nimble with the buckle after a day with the +pencil. Pipe is filled from pouch with an inimitably deft movement of +one hand. Reluctant is generally the right word to use when I speak of +the Artist leaving his work. I am not so sure now. As I hope, he does +not suggest a west-bound tram at the foot of the Palais or the 6:40 +train; he says, + +"If we alternate eighteen and thirty-six this evening, putting by half +each time we win--" + +"Like that English old maid we saw last week," I interrupted, "who +doubled just once instead of splitting. I can see the drop of the jaw +now. Even without the false teeth, it would have been hideous." + +"On the red then as long as we last," conceded the Artist, who knew my +horror of complicated figure systems, "and there's the sign." + +He pointed to the red fringe that lit up fading Cap Martin. + +"If we do not get over soon," I answered, "black will be the latest tip +of nature." The Riviera towns under the lee of mountains do not have a +lingering twilight. + +But when we had finished dinner an _affiche_ announcing _Aïda_ turned us +from the Salles de Jeu to the Salle du Théâtre. To most people gambling +is a pastime not taken seriously. Only when it is a passion does one +find in it the exclusive attraction of Monte Carlo. This is proved by +the excellence of Monte Carlo opera. No metropolis boasts of a better +orchestra and chorus; and the most famous singers are always eager to +appear at Monte Carlo. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +VILLEFRANCHE + +During the heat of the war, shortly after the intervention of the +United States, I wrote a magazine article setting forth for American +readers the claims of France to Alsace-Lorraine and trying to explain +why the French felt as they did about Alsace-Lorraine. Of course I +spoke of Strasbourg and Mulhouse; but a copy-reader, faithfully making +all spellings conform to the Century Dictionary, changed my MS. reading +to Strassburg and Mulhaüsen. Can you imagine my horror when I saw +those awful German names staring out at me under my own signature--and +in an article espousing the side of France in the Alsace-Lorraine +controversy? Perhaps not--unless you understand the feeling of the +actual possessor and the aspirant to possession of border and other +moot territories. "By their spelling ye shall know them!" is their +cry. Later, I happened to be in America when that dear good faithful +copy-reader changed my Bizerte to the dictionary's Bizerta in an +article on Tunis, and was able to go to the mat with him. I explained +that the spelling was an essential part of the political tenor of the +article. + +All this I repeated to the wife and critic combined in one delightful +but Ulster-minded person who insisted that in English Menton must be +spelled Mentone. + +"You write Marseilles instead of Marseille and put the 's' on Lyon too: +I've seen you do it!" she cried. "And the French call London Londres!" + +"But those cities happen not to be in _terre irredente_," I explained. +"Menton lies too near the Italian frontier for a friend of France to +call it Mentone, whatever the English usage may be. If we retain +Mentone, why have we abandoned Nizza for Nice, Eza for Éze, Roccabruna +for Roquebrune, Monte Calvo for Mont Chauve, Testa del Can for Tête du +Chien, Villa Franca for Villefranche?" + +"Since you have at last arrived at Villefranche, you had better start +your chapter," was her woman's answer. + +You may have a confused picture, you may even forget many places you +have visited in your travels, but Villefranche? Never! Whether you +have first seen Villefranche as you came around the corner of Montboron +from Nice or across the neck of Cap Ferrat from Beaulieu on the Petite +Corniche, as you came through the Col des Quatre Chemins on the Grande +Corniche, or as you climbed up behind Fort Montalban on the Moyenne +Corniche, the memory is equally indelible. But each _corniche_ gives a +different impression of the only natural harbor on the Riviera. The +Petite Corniche, which mounts rather high around Montboron, is the near +view. You see only the _rade_ with Cap Ferrat as a background. +Approaching in the opposite direction, Montboron is the background. On +the Moyenne Corniche the _rade_ comes gradually into your field of +vision. You are way above the sea, but the harbor still forms the +principal part of the water foreground in the picture. On the Grande +Corniche, where the Riviera coast from Cap d'Antibes to Cap Martin is +before you, and the Mediterranean rises to meet the sky, every +outstanding feature of the picture is a cape or town, fortification or +lighthouse, except at Villefranche. Here the land is the setting. The +water of the harbor, changing as you look to green and back to blue +until you are not sure which is the color, is the feature that attracts +and holds you. Montboron, the littoral and Cap Ferrat are as secondary +as the prongs and ring which hold a precious stone. + +The water edge of the harbor has become conventionalized to a large +extent by the artificial stone wall built at the inner end and part-way +along the Montboron slope, to make possible railway and carriage road, +and by the quays and breakwaters. But enough of the unimproved line +remains to indicate how the harbor must have looked before the masons +got to work. The rocks of Villefranche are copper with streaks of +brown-gray that change in depth of color as the sunlight changes in +intensity. Water and rocks are not afraid to compete with flowers and +trees and mountain shades for the Artist's attention. Villefranche as +a maritime picture wins. And yet foliage and flora are no mean rivals. +Turning the point of Montboron from Nice has brought you from the +climate where many southland growths are exotic to the beginning of the +tropical portion of the Riviera which extends into Italy, with Menton +and Bordighera as its most typical spots. + +Villefranche comes close after Menton--and ahead of Beaulieu and Monte +Carlo and Condamine--in the claim to a perennial touch of the south. +From Montboron to the hills east of Oneglia the mountain wall protects +from the north wind and radiates the sun. But there is no deep harbor +like that of Villefranche: and no other place has a Cap Martin to form +a windshield from strong sea breezes. + +Climate as much as the safe anchorage attracted pirates. From the +Caliph Omar to the last of the Deys of Algiers, Mohammedan corsairs +swept the Mediterranean. Because the Maritime Alps deprived the +inhabitants of the Riviera of retreat to or succor from the hinterland, +this coast was the joy of Saracens and Moors, Berbers and Turks. It is +hard to believe that up to a hundred years ago the Riverains--the +inhabitants of all the Mediterranean littoral, in fact, from Gibraltar +to Messina--were constantly in danger of corsair raids just as our +American pioneer ancestors were of Indian raids. The lay of the land +and the lack of a powerful suzerain state to defend them made the +Riverains facile prey. Villefranche afforded the easiest landing. Try +to climb up from Villefranche over crags and through stone-paved and +rock-lined ravines to the Moyenne Corniche, and then on to the higher +mountain-slopes, and you can imagine how difficult it was to get away +from raiders, and why the Barbary pirates took a full bag of luckless +Riverains on every raid. You comprehend the raison d'être of the +fortified hill towns, and Éze, perched on her cliff, has a new meaning +as you look down on Villefranche. This fastness was held by the +Saracens long after the crescent yielded elsewhere to the cross--and +then became a frequent refuge for the descendants of the victors in the +medieval struggle. + +From the moment the French entered Algiers at the beginning of the July +Monarchy, they felt that their claim to the gratitude of the Riverains +justified the annexation of a portion of the Riviera. The treaty that +extended French sovereignty to beyond Menton was signed at +Villefranche, and immediately the little harbor was transformed into a +French naval port. Until warships became floating fortresses +Villefranche was useful to France. Now it sees only torpedo-boats and +destroyers, and the lack of direct communication with the interior has +prevented its commercial development. Better an artificial breakwater +with no Alps behind than a natural harbor with a Cap Ferrat. + +Occasionally a huge ocean liner, chartered by an American tourist +agency for an Eastern Mediterranean tour, drops into Villefranche +roadstead. These chance visits, to give the tourists a day at Nice and +Monte Carlo, demonstrate that Villefranche could be a port of call for +the leviathans, commercial and naval, of the twentieth century. How +much easier it would be to go to the Riviera directly from London and +New York, instead of having a wearisome train journey added to the +ocean voyage! But freights pay a large part of passenger rates, and +the routing from great port to great port is as rigid and unalterable +as the fact that a straight line is not the shortest distance between +two points on land. Trains and ships must pass by way of great centers +of population. + +A naval cemetery is the memorial of Villefranche's naval past in the +last brilliant decade of the Second Empire and the early years of the +Third Republic. A little American corner, which our Paris Memorial Day +Committee never forgets, bears witness to the period when the American +flag was known everywhere in the Mediterranean. We used to have the +lion's share of the carrying trade, and Villefranche was a frequent +port of call for American warships. Now we have rarely even single +warships or freighters in the Mediterranean. The only American +passenger line that serves Mediterranean ports is the old Turkish Hadji +Daoud Line of five small and dirty Levantine ships, which ply along the +coast of Asia Minor and in and out of the Greek islands, camouflaged +under our flag. + +The old town of Villefranche is on the western side of the harbor +between the Petite Corniche and the water. Like all Riviera towns on a +main road it has grown rapidly and medieval streets and buildings have +almost disappeared, giving way to the banal architecture of the end of +the nineteenth century. The garish brick villas of the head of the +gulf are excrescences in their lovely garden setting. But after one +has reached the eastern side of the harbor and gone through Font Saint +Jean, the tramway road, with its noise and dust and variegated +bourgeois fantasies, can be abandoned. + +[Illustration: Medieval streets and buildings have almost disappeared.] + +If we except Cap Martin, no Riviera walks are lovelier than those of +Cap Ferrat. On the Villefranche side, until you have passed through +Saint Jean, the alternative to the tramway road is an inhospitable +though tantalizing lane. For large estates, shut off by walls and +hedges, are between you and the harbor. Unless you are lucky enough to +know one of the owners, you will not see the harbor of Villefranche +from the best of the lower vantage points. This side of Villefranche +is so sheltered that one resident, an American, has been able to +transform his garden into a bit of old Japan where the cherry trees +blossom in Nippon profusion and colors. + +It is best to pass across the cape, not turning in at the tramway +bifurcation, until you reach the Promenade Maurice-Rouvier, which +skirts the Anse des Fourmis along the sea from Beaulieu to Saint Jean. +After you have reached Saint Jean the peninsula is before you. A maze +of superb roads tempt you, circling the fort several hundred feet above +sea level, crossing the peninsula on the slopes of the fort, and +following the sea. Returning to Saint Jean, there is still another +walk directly ahead of you to the east. The Cap du Saint Hospice is +pine-clad, with a sixteenth-century tower at its end. + +The Artist and I made a mistake of twelve hours in our visit to Saint +Hospice. We should have come in the morning for the sunrise. To +remedy the error we decided to spend the night at the Hôtel du Pare +Saint Jean. But the sun got up long before we did. + +"Our usual luck," said the Artist with a grin that had nothing of +regret in it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +NICE + +Unless the traveler has some special reason for starting at another +point, he first becomes acquainted with the Riviera at Nice, and +radiates from Nice in his exploration of the coast and hinterland. The +Artist confessed to me that in student days the Riviera meant Nice to +him, with the inevitable visit to lay a gold piece on the table at +Monte Carlo. And it was Nice of the Carnival and Mardi-Gras. I in +turn made a similar avowal. We knew well the Promenade des Anglais, +the Casino and the Jardin Public opposite, the Place Masséna beyond the +garden, where you take a tram or a _char à banc_ to almost anywhere, +and the Avenue de la Gare. The Artist had the advantage of me in his +intimate sketching knowledge of the old Italian city back from the Quai +du Midi, while I knew better than he the Avenue de la Gare. How many +times have I pushed a baby carriage up and down that street while my +wife shopped! + +Nice was to us a resort, cosmopolitan like other famous playgrounds of +the world, and where one strictly on pleasure bent had the same kind of +a time he would have at Aix-les-Bains or Deauville, Wiesbaden or +Ostend, Brighton or Atlantic City. You strolled among crowds, you +bought things you did not want, you could not get away from music, you +danced and went to the theater or opera, and you spent much too much of +your time in hotels and restaurants. If you went on excursions, you +enjoyed them, of course. But you always hurried back to Nice in order +not to miss doing something of exactly the same kind that you could +have done any day in the place you came from. + +You have to give Nice time, and get out of your rut, before you awaken +to its unique characteristics. Then, if you detach yourself from the +amusement-seekers, the time-killers, the apathetic, the bored, the +_blasé_ and the conscientious tourists, you begin to realize that the +metropolis of the Riviera (including its suburbs and Monte Carlo) is a +world in itself--an inexhaustible reservoir for exploration and +reflection. Because it is the only place in Europe where Americans +(North and South) can honestly say that they feel at home, because it +was made for and by everybody and caters to everybody, Nice stands the +test of cosmopolitanism. Every great capital and every seaport at the +cross-roads of world trade is cosmopolitan, but in a narrower sense +than Nice. Capitals and seaports have the general character, in the +last analysis the atmosphere, of the country they administer and serve. +None has the _sans patrie_ stamp of Nice. If Edward Everett Hale had +allowed his hero to go to Nice, the man without a country would not +have felt alone in the world. + +I was on the Suez Canal when the Germans heralded the Verdun offensive. +I hurried back to France, and spent a couple of days with my wife at +Nice before going on to the front. They were, perhaps, the most +critical days of the war, when one watched the _communiqué_ with the +same intensity as one tried to read hope into serious bulletins from a +loved one's bedside. After leaving Nice, I discovered that the pall of +death did hang over France. But in Nice there seemed to be no mass +instinct of national danger, no sickening anxiety. On the Avenue de la +Gare I noticed hundreds pass by the newspaper bulletins without +displaying enough interest to stop and read. + +Two years later, at another critical moment when the Germans were once +more closing in on Paris and bombarding the city with the long-distance +cannon, I spoke at the Eldorado. The meeting, organized by the Préfet +and Maire, drew a large and sympathetic audience. Among residents and +visitors are to be found thousands of intense patriots. But when I +left the theater and walked back to my hotel, I realized that Nice in +1918 was like Nice in 1916. The population as a whole, inhabitants and +guests, had no French national consciousness. When I delivered the +same message in the municipal casino of Grasse the next day, I knew +that I was again in France. Frenchmen themselves attribute the lack of +war spirit in Nice to the general indifference and lesser patriotism of +the Midi! But this is because Nice means the Midi to most of them. +They are unfair to the Midi. In no way does Nice represent the Midi of +France except that it basks in the same sun. + +The common explanation of the failure of France to assimilate Nice is +that only sixty years have passed since the annexation and that a large +portion of the Niçois are Italian in blood and culture and instincts. +There may be some truth in all this. But two generations is a long +time, and France has proved her ability to make six decades count in +attaching to herself and stamping in her image other border +populations. Two factors have worked against the assimilation of Nice: +the maintenance of the independence of Monaco, with privileges and no +responsibilities for its inhabitants; and the enormous number of +foreign residents, who have lost their attachment to their own +countries and who do not care to give or are incapable of giving +allegiance to the country in which they live. Add to these +demoralizing influences, at work throughout the sixty years, the flood +of tourists and temporary residents of all nations; and is it to be +wondered at that the Niçois, native and alien, have so little in common +with France? + +When you stroll along the Promenade des Anglais, with its hotels and +palm-surrounded villas, the Mediterranean coast line extending +alluringly from the distant lighthouse of Antibes in the west to the +Château, set in green, in the foreground to the east, you feel that you +are in one of the fairy spots of the earth. The sea, the city climbing +up the hill to Cimiez, the white-capped mountains beyond, and on the +handsome promenade the best-gowned of Europe, all in the brilliant +sunshine of a soft spring day--what could be more charming? And then, +suddenly, your unwilling nostrils breathe in a strong whiff of sewage. +Have you been mistaken? Surely you are dreaming. The Casino dances on +the water. A bevy of girls come out of the Hôtel Ruhl to join the +Lenten noon-day throng. Nothing disagreeable like sewage--but there it +is again! Whew! Where can that sewer empty? Fault of French +engineering, an American would say. + +But the sea has brought me that smell on the boardwalk in front of the +Traymore at Atlantic City. It is difficult to get ahead of nature, and +the undertow does bring back what you thought you were rid of. + +Figuratively speaking, the surprise on the Promenade des Anglais meets +you every day in your study of Nice. The city charms: and it repels. +You have been drinking in its beauty and its fascination. Suddenly +something sordid, ugly, disgusting, breaks the spell. On the Promenade +des Anglais sewage greets the eye as well as the nose. Not vicious +women and poor little dolls alone, but cruel and weak faces, shifty and +vapid faces, self-centered and morose faces, leech faces, pig faces, of +well-tailored men--you watch them pass, you remember what you have seen +at the tables, in near-by Monte Carlo, and the utter depravity of your +race frightens you. Except clothes and jewels and the ability to get a +check cashed, what is the difference between these people and the +sailors from a hundred ships, making merry with their girls in the +narrow streets back from the Vieux Port of Marseilles? + +The law of compensation often comforts and cheers. But as often it is +remorseless. Broken health and empty purses, desperation, mute +suffering and madness, we saw at Monte Carlo. Where the world flocks +for pleasure, agony of soul reveals itself more readily than elsewhere +because of its incongruity. Nice is full of tragedy, and none takes +the pains to conceal it as at Monte Carlo. The casual visitor creates +his own atmosphere in Nice, and he goes away with the most pleasant +memory, having found what he sought. But you cannot stroll day after +day on the Promenade without marking many that do not smile. You watch +them and you see unhappiness, unrest, despair, and resignation. It you +become acquainted with the life and gossip of the various colonies, you +will not need a Victor Marguerite to reveal to you the inner life of +the world's "playground." More frequently than not it is a case of on +with the dance. What a price people do pay to play! + +Just one illustration. The Russians used to be an important factor in +the social life of Nice. They had money and they could give an +American points on spending. Attracted by the sun, many made their +homes in Nice. They lived like the lilies of the field. They could +count on a sure thing. The moujiks of great estates toiled for them, +and from the days of their great-great-grandfathers the revenues had +never ceased. During the first years of the World War, the Russians +were in high favor at Nice. They were the powerful allies of France, +brothers-in-arms, who fought for the common cause. Then came the +Revolution. Cosmopolitan Nice would have forgiven the defection of +Russia. But when the revenues from Petrograd and Moscow banks no +longer came in, that was another matter! Where the pursuit of pleasure +is king, there is no pity for the moneyless courtier, whatever the +cause of his change of fortune. The Russians sold their jewels and +their fur coats, the rugs and furniture of their villas, and then the +villas themselves. Perhaps they were "accommodated" a little bit at +first. But they were soon left to their own resources. + +Before the end of the war, the center of the Russian colony was a soup +kitchen on a side street, presided over by princesses and served by +beautiful million-heiresses of the old régime. Good stuff in those +girls, too, who smiled as gayly as of old and talked to me eagerly +about becoming governesses or stenographers. And real _noblesse_ in +the old men who climbed up the narrow stairs with their pails, coming +to fetch their one meal of the day. In one of them I recognized a +former ambassador to France. The last time I had seen him he was on +horseback between Czar Nicholas and President Loubet crossing the Point +Alexandre III on the opening day of the Paris Exposition of 1900. + +Enough of shadows! None ever went to Nice in search of them, and +comparatively few stay long enough to find them. They are in the +picture, and there would be no true picture without them. But they +ought to stay in the background. They do stay there. You smell the +sewage rarely. The all-pervading sunshine is a tonic. Speculating +about why others came here and what they are doing with their lives may +hold you through the rainy season. The Carnival puts you in a more +material frame of mind. Unless Lent is early, the sun begins to warm +the cockles of your heart on Mardi-Gras, and by May it will almost +blind you on the water-front. One is not in the mood to let the +misfortunes and unhappiness and evil of others cloud his joy. After +all, of the quarter million pleasure-seekers who come to Nice each +year, the greater part are in as good moral health as yourself, and +very few of them have any more reason than you to be "in the dumps." + +Unless one becomes engrossed in the study of cosmopolitan human nature +to the point of being sunshine-proof, one soon tires of the foreign +residential and hotel and shopping quarters of the city. They lack +"subjects," as the Artist would put it. But at the eastern end of +Nice, the Old Town, home of Garibaldi and many another Red Shirt, takes +you far from the psychology of cosmopolitanism and the philosophy of +hedonism. This is the direction of Grande Corniche, of villa-studded +winding and mounting roads, of the best views (if we except Cimiez) of +city and sea. + +[Illustration: "The Old Town takes you far from the psychology of +cosmopolitanism and the philosophy of hedonism."] + +A mountain stream of varying volume, but always a river before the end +of Lent, separates the _ville des étrangers_ from the _vieille ville_. +The Paillon, as it is called, disappears at the Square Masséna, and +finds its way to sea through an underground channel. From the center +of the city you cross the Paillon by the Pont Garibaldi or the Pont +Vieux. Or you can enter the Old Town from the Place Masséna and the +Rue Saint-François de Paule, which leads into the Cours Saleya. Here +is the most wonderful flower market in the world, with vegetables and +fruit and fowls encroaching upon the Place de la Préfecture. Behind +the Préfecture you can lose yourself in a labyrinth of narrow streets +that indicate the Italian origin of Nice. If you bear always to the +right, however, you either make a circle or come out at the foot of the +Château. + +East of the Jardin Public, the Promenade des Anglais becomes the Quai +du Midi, renamed Quai des Etats-Unis in the short-lived burst of +enthusiasm of 1918. At least, the aldermen of Nice were more cautious +than those of most French cities, and did not call it Quai du +Président-Wilson _nel dolce tempo de la prima etade_! Following the +quay and keeping the Old Town on the left, you come to the castle hill, +still called the Château, although the great fortress of the Savoyards +was destroyed by the Duke of Berwick in the siege of 1706. The hill is +now a park, surmounted by a terrace, and is well worth the climb to +look down upon the city and the Baie des Anges, especially at sunset. +At the end of the Quai du Midi (excuse my diffidence, the Quai des +Etats-Unis) stands the low Tour Bellanda, the only tower remaining of +the old fortifications. The Château is a promontory, and when you take +the road which skirts it, be sure to hold tight to your hat. The +Niçois call the windy corner Rauba Capéu (Hat Robber). + +Now you are in still another Nice, the Port, protected by a long jetty, +on which is perched a lighthouse. The Niçois, traditionally seafaring +folk, are proud of their little port, with its clean-cut solid stone +quays. Steam-born transportation on land and sea, demanding facilities +undreamed of in the good old days and tending to concentration of trade +at Marseilles and Genoa, has prevented the maritime development of +Nice. But there is local coast traffic and competition with Cannes and +Monte Carlo for yachts. Fishing and pleasure sailing add to the volume +of tonnage. And the Niçois do not let you forget that their city is +the port for Corsica. + +Beyond the harbor, the Boulevard de l'Impératrice de Russie leads to +Villefranche. Another name to change! In the midst of what is most +beautiful we cannot get away from tragedies, from reminders of blasted +hopes. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +ANTIBES + +Between Menton and Monte Carlo the coast is broken by Cap Martin, +between Monte Carlo and Nice by Cap Ferrat, between Nice and Cannes by +Cap d'Antibes. The capes are larger and longer as we go west, just as +the distances between more important towns grow longer. Although it +does not seem so to the tourist, it is much farther from Nice to Cannes +than from Nice to Menton. The eastern end of the Riviera is so crowded +with things to see, and town follows town in such rapid succession, +that you think you have gone a long way from Nice to the Italian +frontier. And except for skipping the two larger promontories, railway +and tramway alike follow right along the coast. From Nice to Cannes, +the tramway is inland from the railway. So is the automobile road. +You fly along at a rapid rate, with only rare glimpses of the sea, and +pass through few villages until you reach Antibes. + +From Nice, from Saint-Paul-du-Var, and from Cagnes you cannot see the +Riviera coast beyond Antibes. The Cape, with its lighthouse and fort, +is your horizon. This corresponds with history as well as with +geography: for the Cap d'Antibes was the old Franco-Italian frontier. +It is still in a very real sense a boundary line. The word Riviera, +which has kept its Italian form, was applied historically to the coast +lands of the Gulf of Genoa. From Antibes to Genoa we had the Riviera +di Ponente, and from Genoa to Spezia the Riviera di Levante. Only +after Napoleon III exacted the district of Nice as part payment for +French intervention in the Italian war of liberation was the term +"French Riviera" gradually extended to include the coast far west of +Antibes. + +What was added to France under Napoleon III has lost its purely Italian +character. But it has not gained the stamp of France. From Antibes to +Menton, the Riviera is more remarkably and undeniably international +than any other bit of the world I have ever seen. Some of the old +towns back from the coast are becoming French in the new generation. +But along the coast you are not in France until you reach Antibes. You +may have thought that you were in France at Menton and Beaulieu and +Nice. But the contrast of Antibes and Grasse, which are French to the +core, makes you realize that sixty years is not sufficient to destroy +the traditions and instincts of centuries. + +At Antibes and along the closely built up coast and between Antibes and +Cannes, the international atmosphere is by no means lost. It requires +the contrast of Cannes with Saint-Raphaël to show the difference +between a cosmopolitan and a genuine French watering place. But the +French atmosphere begins to impress one at Antibes. A knowledge of +history is not needed to indicate that here was the old frontier. + +Since the days of the Greeks Antibes has been a frontier fortress. +Ruins of fortifications of succeeding centuries show that the town has +always been on the same site, on the coast east of the Cape, looking +towards Nice. Antipolis was a frontier fortress, built by the Phoceans +of Marseilles to protect them from the aggressive Ligurians of Genoa. +Nice was an outpost, whose name commemorates a Greek victory over the +Ligurians. At the mouth of the Var, from antiquity to modern times, +races and religions, building against each other political systems for +the control of Mediterranean commerce, have met in the final throes of +conflicts the issue of which had been decided elsewhere--and often long +before the fighting died out here. Phoenicians and Greeks, +Carthaginians and Romans, Greeks and Romans, Romans and Gauls, Gauls +and Teutonic tribes, Franks and Saracens, Spanish and French and +Italians met at the foot of the Maritime Alps. There was never a time +in history when governmental systems or political unities did not have +as a goal natural boundaries, and, once having reached the goal, did +not feel that security necessitated going farther. Invasions thus +provoked counter-invasions. + +On sea it has been as on land. Something is acquired. Immediately +something more must be taken to safeguard the new acquisition. + +All this comes to one with peculiar force at Antibes. You look at Nice +from your promontory, and your eye follows the coast from promontory to +promontory, and you can picture how the Phoceans, once established at +Antibes, were tempted to extend the protective system of Marseilles. +You have only to turn around and follow the coast beyond the Estérel to +understand how the Ligurians, if they had captured Antibes, would still +have felt unsafe. And then your eye sweeps the range of the white +Maritime Alps. Hannibal had to cross them to carry the war into Italy. +So did Napoleon. And Caesar, to save the Republic from a recurrence of +the menace of the Cimbri and Teutoni, brought his armies into Gaul. +The Saracens were once on this coast. When they were expelled from it, +the French went to Africa as the Romans before them had gone to Africa +after expelling the Carthaginians from Europe. + +Of the medieval fortress, erected against the Saracens, two square +keeps remain. The strategic importance of Antibes during the heyday of +the Bourbon Empire is attested by the Vauban fortifications. The high +loopholed walls enclosing the harbor have not been maintained intact, +but the foundation, a pier over five hundred feet long, is still, after +two centuries and a half, the breakwater. The view towards Nice from +Vauban's Fort Carré or from the larger tower, around which the church +is built, affords the best panorama of the Maritime Alps on the +Riviera. Nowhere else on the Mediterranean coast, except from Beirut +to Alexandretta or on the Silician plain or in the Gulf of Saloniki, do +you have so provoking a contrast of nearby but unattainable snow with +sizzling heat. This may not be always true. The day of the aeroplane, +as a common and matter-of-fact means of locomotion, is coming. + +Looking towards the Alps from the Fort Carré, the donjon of +Villeneuve-Loubet and the hill towns of Cagnes and Saint-Paul-du-Var, +where we had passed happy days, seem as near as Nice. Farther off on +the slope of Mont Férion we could distinguish Tourette and Levens side +by side with their castles, and in the foreground Vence. To the left +was Tourrettes. Back from the Valley of the Loup was exploration and +sketching ground for another season. But just a few kilometers ahead +of us, halfway to Villeneuve-Loubet, Biot tempted us. We had driven +through this town not mentioned by Baedeker, and had promised ourselves +a second visit to the old church of the Knights Templar. But life +consists of making choices, and one does not readily turn his back on +the Cap d'Antibes. In the town you are just at the beginning of the +peninsula whose conical form and unshutinness (is that a word: perhaps +I should have used hyphens?) enables you to walk five miles punctuating +every step with a new exclamation of delight. + +Only we did not walk. Joseph-Marie, who would have been Giuseppe-Maria +at Nice, stopped to look over the Artist's shoulder and incidentally to +suggest that we might have cigarettes. A veteran of two years at +twenty, his empty left sleeve told why he was _reformé_. Glad to get +out of the mess so easily, he explained to us laconically; and now he +was eking out his pension by driving a cart for the Vallauris pottery. +The express train "burned" (as he put it) the pottery station, and he +had come to put on _grande vitesse_ parcels at Antibes. Cannes was a +hopeless place for the potters: baskets of flowers always took +precedence there over dishes and jugs. The Artist believed that +Joseph-Marie's horse could take us around the cape with less effects +from the heat than we should suffer, and that for ten francs +Joseph-Marie could submit to his boss's wrath or invent a story of +unavoidable delay. I agreed. So did Joseph-Marie. If we proved too +much heavier than pottery, we would take turns walking. At any rate, +the Artist's kit had found a porter. + +We took the Boulevard du Cap to Les Nielles, were lucky in finding the +garden of the Villa Thuret open, and then let our horse climb up the +Boulevard Notre-Dame to the lighthouse on top of La Garoupe, as the +peninsula's hill is called. Here the Riviera coast can be seen in both +directions. The view is not as extended as that of Cap Roux, for +Cannes is shut off by the Cap de la Croisette. But in compensation you +have Nice and the hill towns of the Var, and while lacking the clear +detail of Cap Ferrat and Cap Martin you get the background of the +Maritime Alps which is not visible east of Nice. And the Iles de +Lérins look so different from their usual aspect as sentinels to Cannes +that it is hard to believe they are the same islands. Near the +lighthouse and semaphore a paved path, marked with the stations of the +cross, leads to a chapel. + +The Villa Thuret is the property of the state, and is used as a +botanical nursery for the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. In variety, +however, it does not rival the Giardino Hanbury near Menton, and in +beauty it is surpassed by the private garden of Villa Eilenroc, near +the end of the Cap d'Antibes. These two gardens, the most remarkable +of the Riviera, were made by Englishmen who preferred the sun and +warmth of the Riviera to their native land. The most wonderful garden +on Cap Ferrat is the creation of an American. Cannes was "made" by +Lord Brougham. The other important estate of the Cap d'Antibes, +Château de la Garoupe, is the property of an Englishman. As at +Arcachon and Biarritz and Pau, as at Aix-les-Bains, Anglo-Saxon +ownership of villas and German ownership of hotels and the prevalence +of Teutons as shopkeepers and waiters prove the passion of men of the +north for lands of the south. + +Twenty years ago, just after Fashoda, there was a strong current of +uneasiness among British residents on the Riviera. The experiences of +civilians caught by Napoleon and kept prisoners for years had passed +into English history and literature. British consuls were surprised to +find that thousands of their compatriots, of whom they had had no +previous knowledge, were living all the year round on the Riviera. +These people came to make inquiry about what would be done to them if +France did declare war suddenly against Great Britain. Would they be +given time to leave the country? Fifteen years later the calamity of a +sudden interruption of a peaceful existence, basking in the sun, did +fall upon foreigners, but statesmen had shuffled the cards around, and +this time the civilians caught in the net were Germans and Austrians. +The Napoleonic principle still held. Italy could be seen with the +naked eye. But none were allowed to pass out. Tourists and residents, +subjects of the Central Powers, were arrested and imprisoned on the +Iles de Lérins, where they remained five years, many of them in sight +of their villas on the coast and the hotels they had built and managed. +They stayed longer than Marshal Bazaine, who managed to escape, but not +as long as the mysterious Man with the Iron Mask. + +One of the keepers at the Antibes lighthouse had been an auxiliary +soldier in the fort of Sainte-Marguerite during the early years of the +war. He told us that some of the trapped tourists were very restive, +but that most of the German civilians who were residents of the Riviera +were far from being discontented with their lot. Better a prison on +the Ile Sainte-Marguerite than exile from the Riviera! This was better +taste and wiser philosophy than we expected of Germans. One could go +far and fare worse than an enforced sojourn on one of the loveliest +islands of the Mediterranean, whose pine forests are reminiscent of +Prinkipo. From 1914 to 1919 life was much harsher beyond those Alps. + +Saint-Honorat, the smaller island half a mile from Sainte-Marguerite, +was a monastic establishment from the fourth century to the French +Revolution. It passed into ecclesiastical hands again in the Second +Empire and became a Cistercian monastery. Although the restoration was +accomplished with distressing thoroughness forty years ago, some parts +of the chapel date back to the seventh century, and a huge double +donjon--the dominating feature of the island from the coast--remains +from the twelfth-century fortifications. A road, on which are ruins of +four medieval chapels, runs round the island. We were unable to visit +Sainte-Marguerite and on Saint-Honorat pencil and paper had to be kept +out of sight. But I must not wander to another day. + +Joseph-Marie liked our tobacco and the horse did not mind stopping en +route. It was six o'clock when we reached Juan-les-Pins, only a mile +from Antibes on the other side of the cape. Two miles farther along +the coast, at Golfe-Juan, where the road turns in to Vallauris, we +climbed down from the cart, brushed much dust from our clothes, and +started home along the coast road to Cannes. Joseph-Marie waved his +empty sleeve in farewell, happy in our promise to look him up some day +in Vallauris with a pocketful of cigarettes. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +CANNES + +Of one-half of Tarascon the prince whom Tartarin met in Algiers +displayed an astonishingly detailed knowledge. Concerning the rest of +the town he was as astonishingly noncommittal. When it leaked out that +the prince had been in the Tarascon jail long enough to become familiar +with what could be seen from one window, Tartarin understood his +limitation. My picture of Cannes is as indelible as the prince's +picture of Tarascon. For most of my Riviera days were spent in a villa +across the Golfe de la Napoule from Cannes. Not infrequently our baby +Hope gave us the privilege of seeing Cannes by sunrise. We ate and +worked on a terrace below our bedroom windows. Every evening we +watched Cannes disappear or become fairyland in the moonlight. + +What we saw from the Villa Étoile was the Golfe de la Napoule from the +Pointe de l'Esquillon to the Cap de la Croisette. The Corniche de +l'Estérel rounded the Esquillon and came down to sea level at Théoule +through a forest of pines. It passed our villa. The curve of the gulf +between us and Cannes was only seven miles. First came La Napoule, +above whose old tower on the sea rose a hill crowned with the ruins of +a chapel. A viaduct with narrow arches carried the railway across the +last ravine of the Estérel. In the plain, between two little rivers, +the Siagne and the Riou, was a grove of umbrella pines. Here began the +Boulevard Jean Hibert, protected by a sea-wall in concrete, leading +into Cannes. The town of Cannes, flanked on the left by Mont Chevalier +and on the right by La Croisette, displayed a solid mass of hotels on +the water front. Red-roofed villas climbed to Le Cannet and La +Californie, elbowing each other in the town and scattering in the +suburbs until the upper villas were almost lost in foliage. Behind +were the Maritime Alps. Not far beyond La Croisette, the Cap d'Antibes +jutted out into the sea. At night the lighthouses of Cannes and +Antibes flashed alternately red and green, and between them Cannes +sparkled. Inland to the left of Cannes were Mougins on a hill and +Grasse above on the mountain side. Occasional trails of smoke marked +the main line of the railway along the coast and the branch line from +Cannes to Grasse. In the sea lay the Iles de Lérins, Sainte-Marguerite +almost touching the point of La Croisette. + +[Illustration: "La Napoule, above whose tower on the sea rose a hill +crowned with the ruins of a chapel. Behind were the Maritime Alps."] + +But unlike the Prince, we did have a chance to see Cannes at other +angles. Cannes was the metropolis to which we went hopefully to hire +cooks, find amusement, and buy food and drink. Théoule had neither +stores nor cafés, and after the Artist came we were glad to vary the +monotony of suburban life. It is always that way with city folk. How +wonderful the quiet, how delightful the seclusion of the "real +country"! But after a few weeks, while you may hate yourself for +wanting noise and lights, while you may still affect to despise the +herding instinct, you find yourself quite willing to commune with +nature a little less intimately than in the first enthusiastic days of +your escape from the whirl and the turmoil of your accustomed +atmosphere. Not that Cannes is ever exactly "whirl and turmoil;" but +you could have tea at Rumpelmayer's, you could dance and listen to +music and see shows at the Casino, and you could look in shop windows. +On the terrace of the Villa Étoile we thanked God that we were out in +the country, and we loved our walks on the Corniche road and back into +the Estérel. But it was a comfort to have Cannes so near! We were not +dependent upon the twice-a-day _omnibus_ train, which made all the +stops between Marseilles and Nice. An hour and a half of brisker +walking than one would have cared to indulge in farther east on the +Riviera took us to Cannes, and the _cochers_ were always reasonable +about driving out to Théoule in the evening. + +From our villa to La Napoule we were still in the Estérel. Then we +crossed the mouth of the Siagne by a bridge, and came down to the sea +on the Boulevard Jean Hibert. Between the mouth of the Siagne and Mont +Chevalier are the original villas of Cannes and the hotels of the +Second Empire. Here Lord Brougham built the Villa Eleonore Louise in +1834, when Cannes was a fishing village, not better known than any +other hamlet along the coast. Here are the Château Vallombrosa (now +the Hôtel du Pare), the Villa Larochefoucauld and the Villa Rothschild, +whose unrivaled gardens are shut off by high walls and shrubbery. They +are well worth a visit: but you must know when and how to get into +them. As you near Mont Chevalier, the sea wall, no longer needed to +protect the railway (which for a couple of miles had to run right on +the sea to avoid the grounds and villas laid out before it was dreamed +of), recedes for a few hundred feet and leaves a beach. + +On Mont Chevalier is the Old Town, grouped around a ruined castle and +an eleventh-century tower. The parish church is of the thirteenth +century. The buildings on the quay below, facing the port, are of the +middle of the nineteenth century. But they look much older. For they +were built by townspeople, and serve the needs of the small portion of +the population which would be living in Cannes if it were not a +fashionable watering place. Despite its marvelous growth, Nice has +always maintained a life and industries apart from tourists and +residents of the leisure class. Cannes, on the other hand, with the +exception of the little Quartier du Suquet, is a watering place. It +needs Mont Chevalier, as Monte Carlo needs Monaco, to make us realize +that Cannes existed before this spot was taken up and developed by +French and British nobility. The square tower and the cluster of +buildings around it, the hotels and restaurants of fishermen on the +Quai Saint Pierre, dominate the port. This bit out of the past, and of +another world in the present, is at the end of the vista as one walks +along the Promenade de la Croisette: and the Boulevard Jean Hibert runs +right into it. The touch of antiquity would otherwise be lacking, and +the Artist would scarcely have considered it worth his while to take +his kit when we went to Cannes. + +The port is formed by a breakwater extending out from the point of Mont +Chevalier, with a jetty opposite. Except for the fishermen, who are +strong individualists and sell their catch right from their boat, the +harbor's business is in keeping with the city's business. Its shipping +consists of pleasure craft. Among the yachts whose home is Cannes one +used to see the _Lysistrata_ of Commodore James Gordon Bennett. How +many times have I received irate messages and the other kind, too, both +alike for my own good, sent from that vessel! In the garden of his +beautiful home at Beaulieu, between Villefranche and Monaco, the +Commodore told me of the offer he had received from the Russian +Government for this famous yacht. Not many months after the +_Lysistrata_ disappeared from its anchorage at Cannes, the man who had +been the reason--and means--of Riviera visits to more journalists than +myself died at Beaulieu. + +Only on the side of Mont Chevalier has the harbor a quay. The inner +side is bordered by the Allées de la Liberté, a huge rectangle with +rows of old trees under which the flower market is held every morning. +At the Old Town end is the Hôtel de Ville and at the east end the +Casino. Running out seaward from beside the Casino is the Jetée Albert +Edouard. To its very end the jetty is paved, and when a stiff sea wind +is blowing you can drink in the spray to your heart's content. Behind +the Casino is a generous beach. This is one great advantage of Cannes +over Nice, where instead of sand you have gravel and pebbles. The +Riviera is largely deserted before the bathing season sets in, but one +does miss the sand. At Cannes kiddies are not deprived of pails and +shovels and grownups can stretch out their blankets and plant their +umbrellas. + +The Promenade de la Croisette runs along the sea from the Casino to the +Restaurant de la Réserve on La Croisette. The difference between the +Promenade de la Croisette and the Promenade des Anglais was summed up +by an English friend of mine in five words. "More go-carts and less +dogs," he said. "More wives and less _cocottes_," the Artist put it. +Of course there are some children at Nice and some _cocottes_ at +Cannes. And where fashion reigns the difference between _mondaine_ and +_demi-mondaine_ is unfortunately not always apparent. Gold frequently +glitters. But Cannes is less garish than Nice in buildings and in +people. + +Doubling the Cap de la Croisette, we are in the Golfe Juan, with the +Cap d'Antibes beyond. Here Napoleon, fearing his possible reception at +Saint-Raphaël, landed on his return from Elba. A column marks the +spot. Bound for the final test of arms at Waterloo, Napoleon little +dreamed that twenty years later his English foes would begin to make a +peaceable conquest of this coast, and that within a hundred years +French and English would be fighting side by side on French soil +against the Germans. How much did the Englishman's love of the Riviera +have to do with the Entente Cordiale? What part did the Riviera play +in the Franco-Russian Alliance? British and Russian sovereigns always +showed as passionate a fondness for this corner of France as their +subjects. There were even English and Russian churches at Cannes and +Nice. Men who played a vital part in forming political alliances were +regular visitors to the Riviera. At the beginning of the Promenade de +la Croisette, only three miles from the Napoleon column, stands Puech's +remarkable statue of Edward VII, who spoke French with a German accent, +but who never concealed his preference for France over the land of his +ancestors. + +One charm of Cannes is the feeling one has of not being crowded. At +Nice and along the eastern Riviera hotels and villas jostle each other. +Around Cannes the gardens are more important than the buildings. +Striking straight inland from the Casino past the railway station, the +broad Boulevard Carnot gradually ascends to Le Cannet. This is the +only straight road out of Cannes. All the other roads wind and turn, +bringing you constantly around unexpected corners until you have lost +your sense of direction. Branches of trees stick out over garden walls +overhung with vines. Many of the largest hotels can be reached only by +these _chemins_. You realize that the city has grown haphazard, and +that no methodical city architect was allowed to make boulevards and +streets that would disturb the seclusion of the villa-builders, who +plotted out their grounds with never a thought of those who might later +build higher up. So roads skirted properties. The result does not +commend itself to those who are in a hurry. But it gives suburban +Cannes an aspect unique on the Riviera. Many of the hotels thus hidden +away are built on private estates, and if you want to get to them you +have to follow all the curves. + +The labyrinthine approach adds greatly to the delight of a climb to La +Californie. If you go by carriage, unless you have a map, you are +tempted to feel that the _cocher_ is taking a roundabout route to +justify the high price he asked you. But if you go afoot--and without +a map--you may find yourself back at the point of departure before you +know it. But however extended your wanderings, the beauty of the roads +is ample compensation, and when you reach at last the Square du +Splendide-Panorama, nearly eight hundred feet above the city, you are +rewarded by a view of mountains and sea, from Nice to Cap Roux, which +makes you say once more--as you have so often done in Riviera +explorations--"This is the best!" + +After lunch at the observatory we decided to walk on to Vallauris and +look up our friend of Antibes at the pottery. A _cocher_ without a +fare persuaded us to visit the aqueduct at Clausonne en route to +Vallauris. He painted the glories of the scenery and of Roman masonry. +"You will never regret listening to me," he urged. We followed the +wave of his hand, and climbed meekly aboard, although at lunch we had +been carrying on an antiphonal hymn of praise to the pleasure and +benefit of shanks' mare. + +We did not regret abandoning our walk. I managed to get the Artist by +the Chapelle de Saint-Antoine on the Col de Vallauris and to limit him +to a hasty _croquis_ of the Clausonne Aqueduct. We were out for +pleasure, with no thought of articles. When you feel that you are +going to have to turn your adventures to a practical use, it does take +away from the sense of relaxation that a writer like anyone else craves +for on his day off. On the road to Vallauris we were more struck by +the heather than any other form of vegetation. The mountains and hills +were covered with it, and whatever else we saw, heather was always in +the picture on the hills and mimosa along the roadside. From the roots +of transplanted Mediterranean heather--and not from briar--are made +what we call briarwood pipes. When a salesman assures you that the +pipe he offers is "genuine briar," if it really was briar, you would +think it wasn't. When names have become trademarks, we have to persist +in their misuse. + +Vallauris was called the golden valley (_vallis aurea_) because of the +pottery the Romans discovered the natives making from the fine clay of +the banks of the little stream that runs into the Golfe Juan. For +twenty centuries the inhabitants of Vallauris have found no reason to +change their _métier_. They are still making dishes and vases and +statuettes, and there is still plenty of clay. Moreover, modern +methods have not found a substitute either for the potter at his wheel +or for the little ovens of limited capacity when it comes to turning +out work that is flawless and bears the stamp of individuality. We can +manufacture almost everything en masse and in series except pottery. +Joseph-Marie was not in evidence at Vallauris: but we found the potters +glad to show us their work, seemingly for the pride they had in it. Of +course you did have a chance to buy: but salesmanship was not obtrusive. + +The great industry of Cannes is fresh cut flowers. The flower market +of a morning in the Allées de la Liberté is richer in variety than that +of Nice. There is less charm, however, in the sellers. In Nice you +simply cannot help buying what is offered you. Pretty faces and soft +pleading voices draw the money from your pocket. You look from the +flowers to those who offer them: and then you buy the flowers. At +Cannes, on the other hand, you ask yourself first what in the world you +are going to do with them after you have them. Perhaps this difference +in your mood is the reason of the enormous industry that has been +developed in Cannes. You are not asked to buy flowers because a seller +wants you to and is able to lure you with a smile. You are told that +here is the unique chance to send your friends in Paris and London a +bit of the springtime fragrance of the Riviera. + +"Three francs, five francs, ten francs, _monsieur_, and tomorrow +morning in Paris or tomorrow evening in London the postman will deliver +the flowers to your friend." + +Pen and ink, cards, gummed labels or tags are put under your nose. You +are shown the little reed baskets, in rectangular form, that will carry +your gift. If your Paris or London friend knows Latin, and thinks a +minute, he will realize that Cannes is living up to her name in thus +utilizing her reeds to send out over Europe an Easter greeting, +jonquils, carnations, roses, geraniums with the smell of lemons, orange +blossoms, cassia, jessamine, lilacs, violets and mimosa. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MOUGINS + +We were about to enter the Casino at Cannes. The coin had been flipped +to decide which of us should pay, and we were starting up the steps +when a yell and a clatter of horses' hoofs made us look around. A +victoria was bearing down upon us. The _cocher_ was waving his whip in +our direction. We recognized the man who had driven us to Grasse. + +"A superb afternoon," he explained, "and Mougins is only twelve +kilometers away. With Mougins at twelve kilometers, it is incredible +to think that you would be spending an afternoon like this in the +Casino. I would surely be lacking in my duty--" + +"What is Mougins?" I interrupted. + +"All that is beautiful," explained the _cocher_ enthusiastically. "A +city on a hill. A glorious view." + +"That settles it," said the Artist, turning away. "Every city is on a +hill, and all views are glorious." + +"But Mougins is different," insisted the _cocher_, "and the view is +different. Besides, the wine is unique. It is sparkling, and can be +taken at five o'clock with little cakes. There are roads you have not +seen, and pretty girls at work in the rose fields. We shall drive +slowly." + +There had been much wandering during the past fortnight and we were +ready for a quiet afternoon at the Casino. But we allowed ourselves to +be persuaded. The Casino was always there, and we had never heard of +_vin mousseux_ on the Riviera. Baedeker, as if in duty bound to miss +nothing, records the existence of Mougins, three kilometers east of the +Cannes-Grasse road after you pass the ten-kilometer stone on the way to +Grasse--then gives the next town. Mougins is not starred, and nothing +around Mougins is starred. Was not that a reason for going there? + +English royalty used to come to Cannes, and every season more middle +class Britishers woke up to the fact that it would be pleasant to write +home to one's friends from Cannes. Hôtels and villas increased +rapidly. When English royalty went elsewhere, Russian Grand Dukes and +Balkan princelings saved the day for the snobs. Consequently, the town +has spread annoyingly into the country. A row of hotels faces the sea, +and on side streets are less pretentious hotels, invariably advertised +as a minute's walk from the sea. A mile inland is another quarter of +fashionable hotels for those whom the splashing of the waves makes +nervous. Then the interminable suburbs of villas and _pensions_ +commence. + +When city people seek a change of climate, they do not always want a +change of environment. They are intent upon living the same life as at +home, upon following the same round of amusements. They cannot be +happy without their comforts and conveniences, and this means the +impossibility of getting away from streets and buildings and noises and +crowds. The class that has monopolized the Riviera has tried to +recreate Paris in the Midi. If one wants to find the country right on +the sea coast, one must get off the train before reaching Cannes. +Between Cannes and the Italian frontier, one does not have the sea +without the city. Only by going inland can one find the country +without missing the sight and feel of the sea. For everywhere the land +rises. The valleys rise. Roads keep mounting and curving to avoid +heavy grades, and foothills do not hide the Alps and the Mediterranean. +After escaping from Cannet, the outermost suburb, the road to Mougins +goes through a valley of oranges and roses. There are stone farmhouses +with thatched roofs and barns that give forth the smell of hay. There +are cows and chickens. + +We were congratulating ourselves upon having given up the casino long +before we reached Mougins. We forgave the _cocher_ his exaggeration +about the workers in the rose fields. When one sees in paintings and +in the cinematograph pretty girls engaged in agricultural pursuits, it +is more than even money that they are models and actresses in disguise. +I am enthusiastic in my cult of the country, but I have never carried +it to the point of becoming ecstatic over country maidens. There must +be, of course, as many good-looking girls in the country as in the +city. But could a chorus of milkmaids to satisfy New York or Paris be +recruited outside New York or Paris? + +When we reached the uncompromising stretch of road that led up to +Mougins, we took mercy upon the horses. The _cocher_ had not driven +them as slowly as he had promised. We walked a mile through olive +orchards, and were in the town before we realized it. Unlike other +hill cities of the Riviera that we had visited, Mougins has no castle +and no walls. Few traces remain of outside fortifications. All around +Mougins the land is cultivated. One does not realize the abruptness of +the hilltop, for the city rises from fields and vineyards and orchards. +Saint-Paul-du-Var and Villeneuve-Loubet remind one of the days when +self-defense was a constant preoccupation. Mougins long ago forgot +feudal quarrels, foreign invasions and raids of Saracens and Barbary +pirates. The peasants still live together on a hilltop, going forth in +the morning and coming back in the evening. But they have taken the +stone of their walls for fences, and of their towers for barns. They +have brought their tilled land up the hillside to the city. + +On the main street, we had the impression that the medieval character +of Mougins was lost by rebuilding. Ailanthus trees and whitewashed +walls and red-tiled roofs greeted us. The church and the market-place +were of the Third Republic. Sleepy cafés displayed enameled tin +advertisements of Paris drinks. The signs in front of the notions shop +declared the merits of rival Paris newspapers. But when we were +hunting out a vantage point from which to get the view of Cannes and +the Mediterranean, the Artist saw much to tempt his pencil. Back from +the main street, old Mougins survived, none the less charming from the +constant contrasts of old and new. + +The arch of a city gate, perfectly preserved on one side, lost itself +in a modern building across the street. A woman, leaning out of a +window, wanted to know what the Artist was doing. I explained our +interest in the arch. Had there been a gate in her grandmother's time? +Why, when so much of a former age had disappeared, did this half-arch +remain? The woman was puzzled. It was incomprehensible that anyone +should be interested in the arch, which had always been there. I +thought I would try her on other subjects. + +"Did many travelers come to Mougins from America?" I asked. + +"Oh, yes. And you are an American, aren't you?" + +Obviously America was a more interesting subject than archaeology. + +While the Artist was finishing his sketch she chatted pleasantly with +me. Yes, she had often talked with American visitors. She revealed, +however, the French provincial's customary ignorance of our life and +asked the usual questions about our wealth and our skyscrapers. I am +not altogether sure that I set her right about her fabulous +misconception when the Artist's drawing was completed. + +Mougins lives in medieval fashion, if not wholly in medieval houses. +Dependent upon occasional water from the heavens for carrying sewage +down the hillside, Mougins has no use for gutters and drains. Rubbish +is thrown from windows, and tramped down into last year's layer of +pavement. Goats enjoy the rich pasturage of old boots and cans and +papers and rags and vegetables that had lived beyond their day. +Although, as we walked through the alleys, we saw no one, heard no one, +the houses were inhabited: for much of the garbage was painfully +recent, and clothes flapped on lines from window to window over our +heads. The Artist suggested that the townspeople might be taking a +siesta. But it was late in the afternoon for that. Then we remembered +that Mougins was an agricultural community, and that the work of the +town was in the fields. This explained also why we saw no shops and no +evidences of trade. Olives, flowers, wine, fruit and vegetables are +taken to the markets of Cannes and Grasse, and the people of Mougins +buy what they need where they sell. Mougins has only bakeries and +cafés. Bread and alcohol alone are indispensable where people dwell +together. + +We circled the city, and came out on the promenade across which we had +entered Mougins. Every French town has an illustrious son, for whom a +street is named, on whose birthplace a tablet is put, and to whom a +monument is raised. Our tour had taken us through the Rue du +Commandant Lamy. We had read the inscription on his home, and were now +before his monument, a bust on a slender pedestal, with the glorious +sweep of La Napoule for a background. The peasants of Mougins, as they +go out to and return from the labor of vineyard, orchard and field, +pass by the Lamy memorial. Even when they are of one's own blood, is +there inspiration in the daily reminder of heroes? How many from +Mougins have followed Lamy's example? I have often wondered whether +monuments mean anything except to tourists. + +As I had recently been writing upon French colonial history, Lamy's +daring and fruitful journeys in Central Africa were fresh in my mind, +and I remembered his tragic death in the Wadai fifteen years ago. An +old man had just come up the hill, and was dragging weary legs encased +in clay-stained trousers across the promenade. A conical basket of +lettuce heads was on his back, and he used the handle of his hoe as a +cane. + +"Did you know Lamy?" I inquired. + +"Lamy was a boy in this town when I was a grown man going to my work. +I used to pass him playing on this very spot," he answered. + +As we walked along toward the main street, we asked whether there were +others from Mougins who, like Lamy, had played a part in the history of +France abroad. No, the people of Mougins liked to stay at home. +Fortunately for the prosperity of the country, the young men returned +after their military service, and the attractions and opportunities of +city life rarely took them and held them farther away than Cannes and +Grasse. The Artist had his eye on the lettuce basket and the hoe, and +I wanted to hear more of life in Mougins. We asked the old man to +share a bottle with us. + +The _cocher_ was waiting in front of a café, and corroborated the +statement on a huge painted sign, that here was to be found the true +_vin mousseux_ of Mougins. It was evident that we were not the first +tourists to come from Cannes. The _cocher_ was a friend of the +proprietress, who made us welcome in the way tourists are greeted. +Little cakes and a dusty bottle were produced promptly, and in the +stream of words that greeted us we could gather that this was a +red-letter occasion for us, and that it was possible to have the _vin +mousseux_ of Mougins shipped to Paris by the dozen or the hundred. +This annoyed us and dampened our ardor for the treat. The Artist and I +share a foolish feeling of wanting to be pioneers. We like to believe +that our travels take us out of the beaten path, and that we are +constantly discovering delectable places. After us the tourists--but +not before! + +The corkscrew of the proprietress, however, consoled us. A corkscrew +through whose handle the beaded pressure of gas escapes before the cork +is drawn may be common enough. But the fact remains that neither of us +had seen one. We expressed our delight and wonder, and the Artist +naïvely told the proprietress, before he tasted the wine, that he felt +rewarded for the trip to Mougins just for the discovery of the +corkscrew. After the first sip, I added that now we knew why we had +walked up the long hill. The proprietress and the _cocher_ beamed. +Our enthusiasm meant money to them. The old man twisted his mouth +contemptuously. + +"Tell me, then," he said, "what was your thought of me when you saw me +coming up the hill to the promenade with my burden of lettuce heads? +And when I told you that I had seen Lamy playing as a boy on the spot +where his statue stands? Sorry for me, were you not? Lamy had the +good sense, you think, to quit Mougins, and go out to glory. I and the +rest of Mougins, you think, have stayed here because we do not know any +better. It is all in the point of view. One of you is enthusiastic +over a patent corkscrew, and the other over the wine. You tourists +from the city cannot understand us. It is because you carry your +limitations with you. You think you lead a large, broad, varied life. +You do not. Finding the greatest interest of Mougins in a patent +corkscrew and sparkling wine betrays you." + +"_Ces messieurs_ have a passion for the country and for towns away from +the railroad," remonstrated the _cocher_. "This afternoon I tempted +them from the Casino at Cannes. They are a thousand times enthusiastic +about Mougins, your homes, your streets, your views, and all they have +seen in the valley coming here. If they had limitations, would they +have wanted to come? It is senseless to think that they make the +effort, that they spend the money, just to be pleased with what they +see from their own world or what reminds them of their own world. I +spend my life with tourists, and they always appreciate, I have never +known them to fail to thank me for having brought them to Mougins." + +Our critic--and, indeed, our judge--turned on the _cocher_. + +"Tell me," he said sharply, raising his voice witheringly, "would you +risk bringing tourists to Mougins if there were not this café and the +_vin mousseux_?" + +The _cocher_ puffed his cigar vigorously. The Artist, highly +delighted, broke an almost invariable rule to prove that the greatest +interest of Mougins was not the corkscrew. He opened his sketch-book. +While the old man was fingering the sketches, I ordered another bottle. + +Our guest had been the vanguard of the homeward procession. All +Mougins was now passing before us. + +"Now you see," continued our mentor, "what it is to live. A score of +men who knew Lamy have passed before you. They did not go to Africa to +hunt negroes and to put our flag on the map at the same time as the +names of unknown towns. They are here, and will eat a good dinner +tonight. Lamy is dead. Now I do not say that we are heroes, and that +our point of view is heroic. But I do say that we are not to be +pitied. And I say, moreover, that we do as much for France as Lamy +did. If we had all gone to Africa, there might be more names on the +map, but there would be less food in the markets of Grasse and Cannes." + +"Oh, for the ghost of Gray," commented the Artist "He would be face to +face with the 'unseen flower'--but not blushing!" + +"A case of _auream quisquis mediocritatem diligit_," I answered. + +We were getting classical as well as philosophical, and it was time to +go. To whom was the mediocrity? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +FRÉJUS + +The ride from Théoule to St. Raphaël, by the Corniche de l'Estérel, gives +a feeling of satiety. The road along the sea is a succession of curves, +each one leading around a rocky promontory into a bay that causes you to +exclaim, "This is the best!" For thirty-five kilometers there is +constantly a new adjustment of values, until you find yourself at the +point where comparatives and superlatives are exhausted. The vehicle of +language has broken down. Recurrent adjectives become trite. When the +search for new ones is an effort, you realize that nature has imposed, +through the prodigal display of herself, a limit of capacity to enjoy. +Of copper rocks and azure sea; of mountain streams hurrying through +profusely wooded valleys; of cliffs with changing profiles; of conifers; +of enclosed parks, whose charm of undergrowth run wild and of sunlit +green tree-trunks successfully hides the controlling hand of man to the +uninitiated in forestry; of hedges and pergolas and ramblers and villas +and lighthouses and islets and yachts, we had our fill. + +But at La Napoule a Roman milestone announced that we were on the road to +Forum Julii: and the very first thing that attracted us when we reached +St. Raphaël was a bit of aqueduct on the promenade. It looked singularly +out of place right by the sea, and surrounded by an iron fence quite in +keeping with those of the hotels across the street. The inscription +(Third Republic, not Roman) told us that this portion of the aqueduct +from the River Siagne to Fréjus was removed from its original emplacement +and set up here under the prefectship of Monsieur X, the subprefectship +of Monsieur Y, and the mayorship of Monsieur Z. The fishing village that +has rapidly grown into one of the most important "resorts" of the Riviera +claims distinction on historical grounds. Napoleon landed at St. Raphaël +on his return from Elba. Gounod composed Romeo and Juliet here. General +Galliéni was cultivating his vineyard here when the war of 1914 broke +out, and the call to arms sent him from his seclusion to become the +savior of Paris. But when ruins became fashionable in the last decade of +Queen Victoria, it was necessary for St. Raphaël to have an ancient +monument. An arch of the aqueduct was imported to the beach with as +little regard for congruous setting as Mr. Croesus-in-Ten-Years shows in +importing an English lawn to his front yard at Long Branch and a gallery +of ancestral portraits to his dining-room on Fifth Avenue. + +The Artist looked at the ruins in silence. He tried to gnaw the ends of +his mustache. His eyes changed from amusement to contempt, and then to +interest. I was ready for his question. + +"Say, where is this town Fréjus?" + +The _cocher_ protested. He had bargained to take us to St. Raphaël, the +horses were tired, and anyway there was no good hotel, no food, nothing +to do at Fréjus. + +"Where is Fréjus?" repeated the Artist. The _cocher_ pointed his whip +unwillingly westward along the shore. The Artist turned to me with his +famous nose-and-eyes-and-chin-up expression. + +"What do you say, _mon vieux_?" + +"Decidedly Fréjus," I answered. + +Accustomed to American queerness, the _cocher_ resigned himself to the +reins for another five kilometers. + +Since the River Argens began to flow, it has been depositing silt against +the eastern shore of the Gulf of Fréjus, at the point of which stands St +Raphaël. Consequently the road, sentineled by linden trees, crosses a +rich plain, and is more than a mile from the sea when it reaches the city +of Julius Caesar. The upper ends of the mole of the ancient port, high +and dry like ships at low tide, join the walls of the canal. You have to +look closely to distinguish the canal and the depression of the basin +into which it widens near the town. For where land has encroached upon +sea, vegetable gardens and orchards have been planted. Inland, the +arches from the aqueduct of the Siagne shed their bricks in wheat fields +and protrude from clumps of hazels. As it enters the city, the road +turns back on itself and mounts to the market-place. The sharp outward +bend of the elevation above the narrow stretch of lowland suggest that +there was a time, long before Roman days, when Fréjus, like the towns of +the Corniche de l'Estérel, was built on a promontory. + +Fréjus belongs to no definite period. It is not Roman, medieval, modern. +It is not a watering-place fashionable or unfashionable, a manufacturing +town prosperous or struggling, a port bustling or sleepy, a +fishing-village or a flower-gathering center. Fréjus suggests no marked +racial characteristics in architecture or inhabitants. It is neither +distinctly Midi nor distinctly Italian--as those terms are understood by +travelers. Fréjus is unique among the cities of the Cote d'Azur because +it has no unmistakable _cachet_. Fréjus suggests Rome, the Middle Ages, +the twentieth century. Fréjus embraces pleasure-seeking, industries, +fish, flowers, and soldiering. Mermaids, delightfully reminiscent of the +Lido and Abbazia in garb, dive from the end of the mole into a safe +swimming-pool; children of the proletariat in coarse black _tabliers_, +who have not left sandals and white socks on the beach behind them, fish +for crabs; naval aviators start hydroplanes from an aerodrome beside the +Roman amphitheater; fishermen, of olive Mediterranean complexion, dry +copper-tinted nets on the beach, laying them, despite the scolding of the +Senegalese guards, upon piles of granite and cement blocks with which +laborers are building a new pier. + +We had come to the beach for an after-luncheon smoke, and when we were +not looking at the Senegalese and workmen, our eyes wandered from +hydroplanes and machine-gun-armed motor-boats to the mermaids on the +Roman mole. Not till we ran out of tobacco and the mole ran out of +mermaids did we realize that Fréjus was still unexplored and unsketched. +We gave ourselves a six o'clock rendezvous on the beach. The Artist +started to seek Roman ruins, while I turned towards the market-place, +cathedral bound. Sea-level villas came first, and then a quarter of +sixteenth-century houses, many of which showed on the ground floor +medieval foundations. In two places I got back to the Romans. A cross +section of thin flat bricks with generous interstices of cement in the +front wall of a greengrocer's opposite, indicated the line of the Roman +fortification. Walking around the next parallel street, I managed to get +into a garden where a long piece of the wall remained. + +I came out to the St. Raphaël carriage road at a corner where arose a +huge square tower of the Norman period. Almost to its crumbling top, +houses had been built against it on two sides. The angle formed by the +alley through which I came and the main street had fortunately kept the +other two sides clear. The tower was the home of a wine and coal +merchant, who had laid in a supply of cut wood on his roof to the height +of several feet above the irregular parapet. Outside one of the narrow +vertical slits, which in ages past had served as vantage point for a +vizored knight fitting arrow to bow, hung a parrot cage. "Coco" was +chattering Marseilles sailor French. + +A single gargoyle remained. It was a panther, elongated like a +dachshund. He was desecrated and humiliated by having tied around his +middle the end of the clothesline that stretched across the alley. This +proved, however, that he still held firmly his place. The panther, +ignoring change of fortune, looked down as of yore, snarling, and with +whiskers stiffened to indicate that if he had been given hind legs, they +would be ready for a spring. So worn was the gargoyle that ears and chin +and part of forehead had disappeared. But you can see the snarl just as +you can see the Sphinx's smile. When a thing is well done, it is done +for all time. If a poor workman had fashioned that gargoyle, there would +have been no panther and no snarl when it was put up there. But a master +worked the stone, and what he wrought is ineradicable. It will disappear +only with the stone itself. When we speak of ruins, we mean that a part +of the material used in expressing a conception has not resisted climate +and age and earthquake and vandalism. Armless, Venus de Milo is still +the perfect woman. Headless, Nike of Samothrace is still symbolic of the +glory of prevailing. + +In the morning, before reaching St. Raphaël, we passed an African soldier +limping along the dusty road. He was dispirited even to the crumpled +look of his red fez, and the sun, shining mercilessly, glinted from his +rifle-barrel to the beads of perspiration on the back of his neck. We +were going fast, and had just time to wave gayly to cheer him up. He did +not return our salute. This struck us as strange. Fearing that he might +be ill, we made the _cocher_ turn round, and went back to pick him up. +He declared that a sprained ankle made it impossible for him to keep up +with his regiment, which had been marching since early morning. He was +grateful for the lift, and beamed when we assured him that we could take +him as far as St. Raphaël. At that time we were not thinking of going to +Fréjus, the garrison town of the African troops. When we overtook the +regiment and reached his company, we tried to intercede with the French +sergeant. The sergeant was adamant and positive. + +"A thousand thanks, but the man is shamming. He is lazy. He must get +out." + +We had to give up our soldier. The sergeant knew his men, and justice is +the basic doctrine which guides the discipline of the French colonial +army. The regiment of Algerians must have stopped for lunch or +maneuvers. For they were just coming through the Place du Marché when I +reached there. Only the colonel was on horse. At the turn of the road, +the captains stood out of rank to watch their companies wheel. Our +soldier of the morning passed. He had forgotten his limp. The sergeant +recognized me, and pointed to the soldier. His left upper eyelid came +down with a wink, as if to say, "Don't I know them!" + +There is a spirit of _camaraderie_ between officers and men in Fréjus +that one never sees in native regiments of the British army. The French +have none of our Anglo-Saxon feeling of caste and race prejudice, which +makes discipline depend upon aloofness. French officers can be severe +without being stern: and they know the difference between poise and pose. +We Anglo-Saxons need to revise radically our judgment of the French in +regard to certain traits that are the _sine qua non_ of military +efficiency. Energy, resourcefulness, coolness, persistence, endurance, +pluck--where have these pet virtues of ours been more strikingly tested, +where have they been more abundantly found, than in the French army? + +The sign of the French colonial army is an anchor, and Fréjus is full of +officers who wear it. They are mostly men of the Midi, Roman Gauls every +inch of them. The Lamys, the Galliénis, the Joffres, the Fochs, the +Lyauteys were born with a genius for leadership in war. Their aptitude +for African conquest and their joy in African colonization are the +heritage of their native land. The fortunes of southern France and +northern Africa were inseparable through the ten centuries of the spread +of civilization and the Latin and Teutonic invasions in the Western +Mediterranean. The connection was unbroken from the time that Hannibal +marched his African troops through Fréjus to Italy until the Omayyads +conquered Tunis, Algeria and Morocco. It is the most natural thing in +the world to see African troops in Fréjus. They belong here now, because +since men began to sail in ships, they have always been at home here as +friends or enemies. Mediterranean Africa and Mediterranean France +received simultaneously political, social and religious institutions, and +from the same source. As the Crescent wanes, Gaul is coming back into +her own. + +Fréjus shopkeepers suffer from the proximity of the upstart St. Raphaël. +Fréjus keeps the bishop, but St. Raphaël has taken the trade. There is +now only one business street. It runs from the Place du Marché through +the center of the city to the Place du Dôme. You can get from one +_place_ to the other in about five minutes. Few people were on this +street in mid-afternoon. None were going into the shops. I chose the +department store, and asked the only saleswoman in sight for a collar. +She brought down two styles, both of which were bucolic. Matched with a +beflowered tie, either would have gone perfectly around the neck of a +Polish immigrant in New York on his wedding day. I suggested that I be +shown some other styles. The saleswoman gazed at me stonily. + +"A bus leaves the corner below here for St. Raphaël every hour. You are +there in twenty minutes. Or you can go by train in six minutes." + +Up went the boxes to their shelf. There was nothing for me to do but get +out. + +One says Place du Dôme or Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, depending upon +whether sympathies are ultramontane or anti-clerical. For cathedral and +city hall touch each other at right angles. LIBERTÉ-ÉGALITÉ-FRATERNITÉ +is the legend in large letters on the cathedral wall: the one notice +posted on the Hôtel de Ville is a warning of the last day to pay taxes. +Two beggars stand guard at the cathedral portal: Senegalese with fixed +bayonets flank the archway leading to the municipal courtyard. The Hôtel +de Ville is a modern building, typical of French official taste of the +present day: the cathedral is an edifice of several epochs, with a brick +facade reminiscent of Bologna. The episcopal palace, adjacent to the +cathedral, is part of the same structure. But it is used for government +offices, and the entrance to its upper floor is by a staircase from the +vestibule of the cathedral. The _Service de Santé Municipale_ occupies +the rooms along the portico that faces the cloister. The cure of souls +has been banished to a private house across the street. + +The cathedral quarter is wholly Louis XVI and First Empire. If I had +begun my ramble there, I should have found much to admire. But I had +been spoiled by the Louis XIII quarter nearer the sea. Travel +impressions are largely dependent upon itinerary. I am often able to +surprise a compatriot whose knowledge of Europe is limited to one +"bang-up trip, and there wasn't much we missed, y'know," by being able to +tell him the order in which he visited places. It is an easy thing to +do. You simply have to notice how the tourist compares cities and other +"sights." He is blissfully ignorant of the fact that his positive +judgments, his unhesitating preferences are accidental. They do not +express at all his real tastes and his real appreciation of values. +However cultivated and intelligent an observer he may be, unless he has +carefully weighed and made proper allowance for the influence of +itinerary, his judgments and preferences are not to be taken seriously. +For years I honestly believed that the Rue de la Porte Rosette was one of +the finest streets in the world. I told my friends of it. But when +Alexandria was revisited, the Rue de la Porte Rosette was a shabby +thoroughfare. After a year in the interior of Asia Minor, the Rue de la +Porte Rosette was the first street through which I drove in coming back +to European civilization. The next time I saw it I was fresh from years +of constant residence in Paris. In my memory, Sofia is a gem of an +up-to-date city, while Bucharest is a poor imitation of the occidental +municipality. The chances are more than even that my comparative +estimate of the two Balkan capitals is wholly wrong. For each time I +have visited Sofia, it was in coming from Turkey, while stops at +Bucharest have followed immediately after Buda-Pest and Odessa. + +I wandered through the cathedral quarter with less enthusiasm than was +its due, and soon decided to rejoin the Artist. He was not in the +neighborhood of any of the Roman ruins. He was not sitting behind an +_apéritif_ on a café terrace. He was not watching soldiers play football +in the courtyard of the barracks. He was not sketching the Norman tower. +He was not exploring alleys of the medieval quarter. He was not looking +at hydroplanes over the fence of the aerodrome. My quest had led me +unconsciously back to the beach. There was still an hour before our +rendezvous. But where we had stretched in the sand after lunch was a +delightful spot, and I had remembered to have my pouch filled at a tabac. +I was not going to feel bored waiting for him. Where the laborers were +working on the pier, the black soldier guards called out to me to beware +of danger. Not being skilled in dodging construction machinery I gave it +a wide berth. The place of our siesta had to be reached by going through +ruins and climbing over a dune. The Artist was there. + +"You know," he explained, ignoring with the sweep of his hand the Roman +mole where a new bevy of mermaids had appeared, "the progress of aviation +has fascinated me ever since that July day at Rheims when Wright went up +and stayed up. Just look what those fellows are doing!" + +Hydroplanes were appearing from the aerodrome. When they struck the +water there was a hiss, which grew in volume and acuity as they skimmed +the waves. After a few hundred yards, the machines rose as easily as +from land, circled up to the clouds and into them. Coming down, the +aviators practiced dipping and swerving by following and avoiding the +purposely irregular course of motor-boats. An officer, who spoke to us +to find out, I suppose, who we were and why we were there, remarked that +the aviators were beginners. We were astonished. If this was learning +to fly, what was flying? + +"Our boys need little teaching to learn to fly," he explained. "That +comes naturally. What they are learning is how to use their machines for +fighting. Science and training and practice come in there. A world-old +game is before you. It is only the medium that is new." + +Words of wisdom. A bit of aqueduct led us to Fréjus in the hope of +tasting the charm of a more ancient past than we had found in other +Riviera cities. We were not disappointed. The charm was there. But we +would not have found it, had we tried to dissociate it from the present, +had we ignored or deplored its setting. Nothing that lives assimilates +what is foreign to its nature: nothing that lives survives dissection. +We took Fréjus as Fréjus was, and not as we wanted it to be or thought it +must be. We took the aerodrome with the hippodrome, the coal merchant +with the Norman tower, the parrot with the gargoyle, the Hôtel de Ville +with the cathedral, and the mermaids with the mole. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +SAINT-RAPHAEL + +On the terrace of our little home at Théoule, a lover of the Riviera +read what I had written about Fréjus. + +"If you have any idea of making a book out of your Riviera articles," +she said positively, "do not think you can dismiss the Estérel and +Saint-Raphaël in so cavalier a fashion. That may be all right for +Lester Hornby and you and serve as a good introduction to a story on +Fréjus, but in your project of a book on Riviera towns--" + +There is no need to say more. I looked over to the hills of the +Estérel and felt sorry I had neglected them. I thought of past +experiences, and agreed that there was something more to write about +the French end of the Riviera. And then we put our heads together over +a time table, planned to go to Agay by train, and walk on the rest of +the way to Saint-Raphaël. If the weather was good, we should climb +Mont Vinaigre, and see the Estérel from its highest point. + +"I don't care whether it affords good subjects for Lester or not," +declared my boss. "I've done the trip, and I know it will be fun--and +remember what Horatio was told!" + +Humankind and human habitation had occupied the Artist and myself on +almost every day afield from, Théoule. Of course we had taken in the +scenery, sketched it and spoken about it, but only as a background or +accompaniment. From Cannes to Menton it is the human side of the +Riviera that gets you. Nature is a sort of musical accompaniment to +the song of human activity. Between Cannes and the Italian frontier, +where the railway does not skirt the coast, you have the tramway. It +is with you always, night and day, and makes itself heard at every +curve. (The road is all curves!) As a result of the tramway, or +perhaps as its cause, the Cannes-Menton stretch of the Riviera is +solidly built up. Where the towns do not run into each other, an +unbroken line of villas links them up. It is all the city--you cannot +get away from that. + +The road we follow to Fréjus was opened in 1903, a gift to the nation +from the initiative and enterprise of the Touring-Club de France. The +building of a tram line was fortunately forbidden. But with the +railway and rapidly-developing use of the automobile, the little +villages of the Estérel coast are being rapidly built up. Around the +cape from Théoule, Le Trayas will soon rival Saint-Raphaël as a center +for Estérel excursions. Then we have Anthéor, Agay, and Boulouris +before reaching the long and charming villa-covered approach to +Saint-Raphaël. + +But we do not need to worry yet about what is going to happen. The +blessed fact remains that the Estérel, between Théoule and +Saint-Raphaël, is not yet closely populated like the rest of the +Riviera. The tramway has not come. The railway frequently goes out of +sight, if not out of hearing, for a mile or two. You have nature all +by herself, with no houses, no human beings, no human inventions. The +interior of the Estérel is as refreshingly different from the +hinterland of the rest of the Riviera as most of the coast. There are +no cities and towns back on the hills, no railways and tramways, no +fine motor roads to make the pedestrian's progress a disagreeable and +almost continuous passage through clouds of dust. The Estérel is hills +and valleys, streams and forests and birds. You do not even have poles +and wires to remind you of the world you have left for the moment. + +The only way one comes to know this country is to have a villa on its +fringe, as we did, and get lost in it every time you try to explore it. +But such good fortune does not fall to everyone--nor the time--so it is +comforting to point out that much of interest in the Estérel can be +visited by motorists from the Corniche. Between La Napoule and Agay, +the Touring-Club de France has put sign-posts at every little path +leading from the Corniche back into the interior. Some paths, also, +where the road mounts on Cap Roux, lead down to grottoes on the water's +edge or out to cliffs. Each sign gives the attraction and the +distance. In our walks from Théoule we explored most of these, but +discovered that one must not have an objective for lunch. For there is +no connection between the number of kilometers and the time you must +take. A map and compass are wise precautions. Some paths are scarcely +marked at all, and when you have to slide down the side of a volcanic +hill into a ravine and try to guess where you are supposed to go next, +a woodsman's instinct is needed. The excursions are surer because more +frequented, but none the less charming, after you have rounded the cape +and crossed the little River Agay. + +Agay, the Agathon of Ptolemy, boasts of the only harbor on the Estérel. +On one side is the Pointe d'Anthéor and on the other Cap Dramont. +Right behind the harbor rises the Rastel d'Agay, a jagged mass of +copper rock a thousand feet high, climbing which is an excellent +preparation for and indication of what one may expect in Estérel +exploration. The way is not made easy for you as it is in the eastern +end of the Riviera. But unless you strike an exceptionally warm day +you have the will for pushing on afoot that is completely lacking at +Monte Carlo and Menton. + +The most ambitious and most interesting excursion into the Estérel that +can be made in a day's walk is to go to Saint-Raphaël from Agay by way +of Mont Vinaigre. You must make an early start and be ready to put in +from five to six hours if you want to eat your lunch on the highest +peak of the Estérel. It took us from seven o'clock to noon, and we +kept going steadily. Crossing the railway, we struck out to the right +of the Agay through forests of pine and cork to Le Gratadis, then along +the Ravin du Pertus, pushing through the underbrush in blossom and +skirting the many walls of rock that served to indicate where the path +was not. It would have been easier to have made the round trip from +Saint-Raphaël. But we should not have the full realization of the wild +beauty of the Estérel nor that joyful feeling of reaching _astra per +aspera_. The way down to Saint-Raphaël, after descending to Le Malpey, +less than an hour from the summit, is by a carriage road. + +We wished we could have seen the stars from Mont Vinaigre. There was a +belvedere, and if we had only brought our blankets! But however warm +the day, the nights are cool, especially two thousand feet up. Only +those who have slept out at night in Mediterranean countries know how +cold it can get. The top of Mont Vinaigre, almost in the center of the +Estérel, affords a view of the ensemble of volcanic hills crowded +together by themselves that makes you realize why it is so easy to get +lost in the valleys between them. The forests are thick and the +ravines go every which way. Inland the Estérel is separated from the +foothills of the Maritime Alps by the valleys of the Riou Blanc and +Siagne through which runs the main road to Grasse, with a branch down +the Siagne to Mandelieu. On the northern slope of the mountain is the +road from Fréjus to Cannes, which leaves the Estérel at Mandelieu. It +is one of the oldest roads in France. Several Roman milestones have +recently been unearthed here. In these hills the Romans found coal and +copper, and from the quarries along the coast at Boulouris and on Cap +Dramont the quarries of blue porphyry are still worked. + +In mining possibilities the whole region is as rich as it was twenty +centuries ago; but, as in many other parts of France, little has been +done to take advantage of them. Some years ago an American friend of +mine, motoring with his wife from Fréjus to Cannes, discovered coal +fields, formed a company, and is now drawing a revenue from hills whose +former owners knew them only as preserves for shooting wild boar and +other wild game. Within her own boundaries France has coal enough for +all her needs if only she would mine it. But the French love to put +their money into safe bonds of their own and foreign governments. The +woolen stocking does not give up its hoarded coins for such enterprises +as mines and domestic industries. Daughter's _dot_ must be in a form +acceptable to the prospective bridegroom's family. And then the French +do not breed the new generation sufficiently large to furnish laborers +for developing the natural resources of the country. They are hostile +to immigration. When the war came Asia and Africa were called upon to +man munition plants. + +After the lesson of the war the French have tried to make their own +country give up more of its wealth. However, though they are now more +skeptical than ever of investing abroad, they still pursue an +aggressive foreign policy to open up and protect fields of capital far +from home. On the edge of the Estérel, a dozen miles away, at Fréjus, +Saint-Raphaël and Cannes, the people have lost much money in Russian +and Turkish bonds, Brazilian railways and coffee plantations. Their +sons go to Algeria and Morocco to seek a fortune. Is this why only the +coming of tourists and residents from a less hospitable clime has +wrought any change in the country during the nineteenth century? From +the standpoint of natural production the Riviera is relatively less +important, less self-supporting than before the railway came. + +By the forester's house of Le Malpey, after an hour's descent, we +strike the carriage road. An hour and a half brings us to Valescure, +an English colony built in pine woods. Another half hour and we are at +Saint-Raphaël. + +The next morning we discovered that Saint-Raphaël had its Old Town, +which escaped us on our trip to Fréjus. Only the new name of the main +street--Rue Gambetta--indicated that we were in France of the Third +Republic. But, as in Grasse, we felt that we were really in France of +all the centuries. There was none of that unmistakably Italian +atmosphere that still makes itself felt in Nice, once you wander into +quarters east of the Place Masséna. The thick walls of the old +church--far too massive for its size--bear witness to the period when +Mediterranean coast town church was sanctuary more than in name. To +the church the people fled when the Saracen pirates came, and while the +priests prayed they acted on the adage that God helps those who help +themselves, pouring molten lead from the roof and shooting arbalests +through _meurtrières_ that can still be distinguished despite bricks +and plaster. This is the Saint-Raphaël that Napoleon knew when he +returned from Egypt and, fifteen years later, sailed for his first +exile at Elba. + +But we found much that was attractive in the new Saint-Raphaël, which +is as French as the old. The English keep themselves mostly at +Valescure. Tourists come on _chars-à-bancs_ for lunch, and hurry back +to Nice. Saint-Raphaël has developed as a French watering place. It +does not have the protection of the high wall of the Maritime Alps. +When the mistral, bane of the Midi, is not blowing, however, you wonder +whether the native-born have not picked out for a seashore resort a +more delightful bit of the Riviera coast than foreigners. A Frenchman +once told me that Saint-Raphaël was the logical Riviera town for the +French simply because the night train from Paris landed a traveler +there in time for noon lunch. + +"This fact alone," he declared to me, "would induce me to choose +Saint-Raphaël in preference to Cannes and Nice. You know that when +twelve o'clock has struck the day is ruined for a Frenchman if he is +not reasonably sure of being able to sit down pretty soon to a good hot +meal. The P.-L.-M. put Cannes and Nice just a little bit beyond our +limit." + +As you emerge from the Old Town, at the harbor, you pass by a large +modern church in Byzantine style, whose portal shows to excellent +advantage six porphyry columns from the nearby Boulouris quarries. +Along the sea is the Boulevard Felix-Martin, which runs into the +Corniche de l'Estérel. For several miles you feel that there is +nothing to detract from the spell of the sea. Elsewhere on the Riviera +you have promenades embellished by great buildings and monuments and +forts and exotic trees. You have coves and capes and villa-clad hills +with the Alpine background. You climb cliffs and see the Mediterranean +at bends, through trees and across luxurious gardens. Panorama after +panorama with distractions galore react on you like a picture gallery. +But at Saint-Raphaël the sea dominates. The Mediterranean alone holds +you. + +This is why you cannot endorse the bald statement flung at you by the +famous sundial of the Rue de France at Nice: + + "Io vado e vengo ogni giorno, + Ma tu andrai senza ritorno." + + +It may be true enough of Nice that you will not go back. One has the +confusion of human activities everywhere and tires of it everywhere. +But just the sea alone is always new. Of course in the end the +immortal sun has the better of you. But as long as life does last the +effort will be made to get back to the Boulevard Felix-Martin at +Saint-Raphaël. For there, better than anywhere else on the Riviera, +one can look at the sea. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THÉOULE + +From Cannes to Menton the Riviera is cursed with electric tram lines. +We were led beyond Cannes to the Corniche de l'Estérel by the absence +of a tram line. We could not get away from the railway, however, +without abandoning the coast. Is there any place desirable for living +purposes in which the railway does not obtrude? When choosing a +country residence, men with families, unless they have several motors +and several chauffeurs, must stick close to the railway. Monsieur +l'Adjoint was showing us the salon of his villa when a whistle +announced the Vintimille express. He hastened to anticipate the train +by reassuring us that there was a deep cut back of the villa and that +the road-bed veered away from us just at the corner of the garden. It +was in the neighboring villa that trains were really heard. We were to +believe him--at that moment chandeliers and windows and two vases of +dried grasses on the mantelpiece danced a passing greeting to the +train. Monsieur l'Adjoint thought that he had failed to carry the day. +But we live on a Paris boulevard, and know that noises are comparative. +Vintimille expresses were not going to pass all the time. + +We were glad that the railway had not deterred us. It was good to be +right above the water. Some people do not like the glare of sun +reflected from the sea. But they are late risers. Parents of small +children are accustomed to waking with the sun. On the first morning +in the Villa Étoile the baby chuckled early. Sun spots were dancing on +the ceiling, and she was watching them. The breakfast on the terrace +was no hurried swallowing of a cup of coffee with eyes fixed upon a +newspaper propped against a sugar bowl. The agreement of the day +before had been tripartite. The proprietor was easily satisfied with +bank notes. But the wife had not consented to leave the freedom of the +hotel until it had been solemnly agreed that newspapers were to be +refused entrance into the Villa Étoile, and that watches were not to be +drawn out (even furtively) from waistcoat pockets. + +Unless agreements are fortified by favorable circumstances and +constantly recurring interest, they are seldom lived up to. When +promises are difficult to keep, where are the men of their word? Doing +what one does not want to do is a sad business. That is why Puritanism +is associated with gloom. On the terrace of the Villa Étoile no man +could want to look at a newspaper or a watch. Across the Gulf of La +Napoule lies Cannes. Beyond Cannes is the Cap d'Antibes. Mountains, +covered with snow and coming down to the sea in successive chains, form +the eastern horizon. Inland, Grasse is nestled close under them. +Seaward, the Iles de Lérins seem to float upon the water. For on +Sainte-Marguerite the line of demarcation between Mediterranean blue +and forest green is sharp, and Saint-Honorat, dominated by the soft +gray of the castle and abbey, is like a reflected cloud. Between +Théoule and Cannes the railway crosses the viaduct of the Siagne. +Through the arches one can see the golf course on which an English +statesman thought out the later phases of British Imperialism. To the +west, the Gulf of La Napoule ends in the pine-covered promontory of the +Esquillon. Except for a very small beach in front of the Théoule +hotel, the coast is rocky. From February to May our terrace outlook +competed successfully with duties elsewhere. + +Young and old in Théoule have to make a daily effort to enjoy +educational and religious privileges. We wondered at first why the +school and church were placed on the promontory, a good mile and a half +from the town. But later we came to realize that this was a salutary +measure. The climate is insidious. A daily antidote against laziness +is needed. I was glad that I volunteered to take the children to +school at eight and two, and go after them at eleven and four, and that +they held me to it. In order to reach a passable route on the steep +wall of rock and pine, the road built by the Touring-Club de France +makes a bend of two kilometers in the valley behind Théoule. By taking +a footpath from the hotel, the pedestrian eliminates the bend in five +minutes. In spite of curves, the road is continuously steep and keeps +a heavy grade until it reaches the Pointe de l'Esquillon. + +I never tired of the four times a day. Between the Villa Étoile and +the town was the castle, built on the water's edge. After Louis XIV it +became a soap factory, and was restored to its ancient dignity only +recently. I ought not to say "dignity," for the restorer was a baron +of industry, and his improvements are distressing. The entrance to the +park created on the inner side of the road opposite the château is the +result of landscape dentistry. The creator did not find that the +natural rock lent itself to his fancies, and filled in the hollows with +stones of volcanic origin. On the side of the hill, fountains and +pools and a truly massive flight of steps have been made. Scrawny firs +are trying to grow where they ought not to. Quasi-natural urns +overflow with captive flowers, geraniums and nasturtiums predominating. +Ferns hang as gracefully as shirtings displayed in a department store +window. Stone lions defy, and terra cotta stags run away from, +porcelain dogs. There are bowers and benches of imitation petrified +wood. + +American money may be responsible for the château garden, but the +villas of Théoule are all French. Modern French artistic genius runs +to painting and clothes. There is none left for building or +house-furnishing. French taste, as expressed in homes, inside and +outside, is as bad as Prussian. We may admire mildly the monotonous +symmetry of post-Haussmann Paris. When we get to the suburbs and to +the provincial towns and to summer and winter resorts, we have to +confess that architecture is a lost art in France. In America, +especially in our cities, we have regrettable traces of +mid-Victorianism, and we have to contend with Irish politicians and +German contractors. In the suburbs, and in the country, however, where +Americans build their own homes, we have become accustomed to ideas of +beauty that make the results of the last sixty years of European growth +painful to us. Our taste in line, color, decoration, and interior +furnishing is at hopeless variance with that of twentieth-century +Europe. We admire and we buy in Europe that which our European +ancestors created. Our admiration--and our buying--is confined +strictly to Europe of the past. Present-day Europe displays German +_Schmuck_ from one end to the other, and France is no exception. + +On the walk to school you soon get beyond the château and the villas. +But even on the promontory there is more than the dodging of +automobiles to remind one that this is the twentieth century. The +Corniche de l'Estérel has been singled out by the moving-picture men +for playing out-of-door scenarios. When the sun is shining, a day +rarely passes without film-making. The man with a camera has the +rising road and bends around which the action can enter into the scene, +the forest up and the forest down, the Mediterranean and mountain and +island and Cannes backgrounds. Automobile hold-ups with pistols +barking, the man and the maid in the woods and on the terrace, the +villain assaulting and the hero rescuing the defenseless woman, the +heroine jumping from a rock into the sea, and clinging to an upturned +boat--these are commonplace events on the Corniche de l'Estérel. + +The world of cinemas and motors does not rise early. On the morning +walk, children and squirrels and birds were all one met. Children go +slowly, and squirrels and birds belong to nature. There was always +time to breathe in the forest and the sea and to look across to the +mountains. When _cartables_ and _goûters_ were handed over at the +school gate, parental responsibility ceased for three hours. One had +the choice of going on around the point towards Trayas or down to the +sea. + +The people of Théoule say that Corsica, sixty miles away, can be seen +from the Esquillon. All one has to do is to keep going day after day +until "atmospheric conditions are favorable." The Touring-Club de +France has built a Belvedere at the extremity of the Esquillon. Arrows +on a dial indicate the direction of important places from Leghorn to +Marseilles. The Apennines behind Florence, as well as Corsica, are +marked as within the range of visibility. The Apennines had not been +seen for years, but Corsica was liable to appear at any time. The +first day the Artist went with me to the Esquillon, an Oldest +Inhabitant said that we had a Corsica day. A milkwoman _en route_ +reported Corsica in sight, and told us to hurry. Towards nine o'clock +the sun raises a mist from the sea, she explained. In the belvedere we +found a girl without a guide book who had evidently come over from +Trayas. She was crouched down to dial level, and her eyes were +following the Corsica arrow. She did not look up or move when we +entered. Minutes passed. There was no offer to give us a chance. We +coughed and shuffled, and the Artist sang "The Little Gray Home in the +West." I informed the Artist--in French--that a specialist had once +remarked upon my hyperopic powers, and that if Corsica were really in +sight I could not fail to see it. + +Not until she had to shake the cramp out of her back did the girl +straighten up. + +"Corsica is invisible today," she announced. + +"Yes," I answered sadly. "Ten minutes ago the mist began to come up. +You know, sun upon the water--" + +A look in her eyes made me hesitate. "And all that sort of thing," I +ended lamely. + +"Nonsense," she said briskly. She surveyed the Artist from mustache to +cane point and turned back to me. "You, at least," she declared, "are +American, but of the unpractical sort. And you are as unresourceful as +you are ungallant, Monsieur. How do I know? Well, you were +complaining about my monopolizing the dial. There is a map on the +tiles under your feet, and a compass dangles uselessly from your +watch-chain. I wonder, too, if you _are_ hyperopic. You know which is +the Carlton Hôtel over there in Cannes. Tell me how many windows there +are across a floor." + +The atmosphere was wonderfully clear, and the Carlton stood out +plainly. But I failed the test. + +The girl laughed. I did not mind that. When the Artist started in, I +turned on him savagely. + +"Well, you count the Carlton windows," I said. + +"No specialist ever told me I was hyperopic," he came back. + +I had to save the day by answering that I was glad to be myopic just +now. Who wanted to see Corsica any longer? The girl knew interesting +upper paths on the western side of the promontory. She had as much +time as we, or rather, I must say regretfully, she and the Artist had +more time than I. For eleven o'clock came quickly, and I hurried off +to fulfill my parental duty. The Artist told me afterwards that there +was a fine _cuisine_ at the Trayas restaurant. + +I did think of my compass one day: for I had sore need of it. But, as +generally happens in such cases, I was not wearing it. Between Théoule +and La Napoule, the nearest town on the way to Cannes, a tempting +forest road leads back into the valley. A sign states that a curious +view of a mountain peak, named after Marcus Aurelius, could be had by +following the road for half a dozen kilometers. It was one of the +things tourists did when they were visiting the Corniche for a day. +Consequently, when one was staying on the Corniche, it was always an +excursion of the morrow. During the Artist's first week, we were +walking over to Mandelieu to take the tram to Cannes one morning, and +suddenly decided that the last thing in the world for sensible folks to +do was to go to Cannes on a day when the country was calling +insistently. We turned in at the sign. After we had seen the view, we +thought that it would be possible to take a short cut back to Théoule. +The wall of the valley that shut us off from the sea must certainly be +the big hill just behind the Villa Étoile. If, instead of retracing +our steps towards La Napoule, we kept ahead, and remembered to take the +left at every cross path, we would come out at the place where the +Corniche road made its big bend before mounting to the promontory. It +was all so simple that it could not be otherwise. We were sure of the +direction, and fairly sure of the distance, since we had left the motor +road between Théoule and La Napoule. + +There was an hour and a half before lunch. A lumber road followed the +brook, and the brook skirted the hill beyond which was Théoule and the +Villa Étoile. It was a day to swear by, and April flowers were in full +bloom. It was delightful until we had to confess that the hill showed +no signs of coming down to a valley on the left. Finally, at a point +where a path went up abruptly from the stream, we decided that it would +be best to cut over the summit of the hill and not wait until the +Corniche road appeared before us. In this way we would avoid the walk +back from the hotel to our villa, and come out in our own garden. But +on the Riviera nature has shown no care in placing her hills where they +ought to be and in symmetrizing and limiting them. They go on +indefinitely. So did we, until we came to feel that we would be like +the soldiers of Xenophon once we spied the sea. But the cry "Thalassa" +was denied us. Eventually we turned back, and tried keeping the hill +on the right. This was as perplexing as keeping it on the left had +been. A pair of famished explorers, hungry enough to eat canned +tuna-fish and crackers with relish, reached a little town inland from +Mandelieu about seven o'clock that night with no clear knowledge of +from where or how they had come. + +Between the town of Théoule and the belvedere of the Esquillon, down +along the water's edge, one never tires of exploring the caves. Paths +lead through the pines and around the cliffs. The Artist was attracted +to the caves by the hope of finding vantage points from which to sketch +Grasse and Cannes and Antibes and the Alps and the castle on +Saint-Honorat. But he soon came to love the copper rocks, which pine +needles had dyed, and deserted black and white for colors. When the +climate got him, he was not loath to join in my hunt for octopi. The +inhabitants tell thrilling stories of the monsters that lurk under the +rocks at the Pointe de l'Esquillon and forage right up to the town. +One is warned to be on his guard against long tentacles reaching out +swiftly and silently. One is told that slipping might mean more than a +ducking. Owners of villas on the rocks make light of octopi stories, +and as local boomers are trying to make Théoule a summer resort, it is +explained that the octopi never come near the beach. Even if they did, +they would not be dangerous there. How could they get a hold on the +sand with some tentacles while others were grabbing you? + +I have never wanted to see anything quite so badly as I wanted to see +an octopus at Théoule. Octopus hunting surpasses gathering four-leaf +clovers and fishing as an occupation in which hope eternal plays the +principle role. I gradually abandoned other pursuits, and sat smoking +on rocks by the half day, excusing indolence on the ground of the +thrilling story I was going to get. I learned over again painfully the +boyhood way of drinking from a brook, and lay face downward on island +stones. With the enthusiastic help of my children, I made a dummy +stuffed with pine cones, and let him float at the end of a rope. Never +a tentacle, let alone octopus, appeared. I had to rest content with +Victor Hugo's stirring picture in "The Toilers of the Sea." + +A plotting wife encouraged the octopus hunts by taking part in them, +and expressing frequently her belief in the imminent appearance of the +octopi. She declared that sooner or later my reward would come. She +threw off the mask on the first day of May, when she thought it was +time to return to work. She announced to the Artist and me that the +octopi had gone over to the African coast to keep cool until next +winter, and that we had better all go to Paris to do the same. We were +ready. Théoule was still lovely, and the terrace breakfasts had lost +none of their charm. But one does not linger indefinitely on the +Riviera unless _dolce far niente_ has become the principal thing in +life. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RIVIERA TOWNS*** + + +******* This file should be named 21996-8.txt or 21996-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/9/9/21996 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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