Riviera Towns Part 1

Riviera Towns.

by Herbert Adams Gibbons.

CHAPTER I

GRa.s.sE

For several months I had been seeing Gra.s.se 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 Theoule, Gra.s.se 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 Theoule, 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.

Raphael, the ends of the Riviera, had been visited. Gra.s.se, two hours away, remained unexplored.

I owe to the Artist the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Gra.s.se. One day a telegram from Bordeaux stated that he had just landed, and was taking the train for Theoule. 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?"

"Gra.s.se, 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'Esterel 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 gra.s.s 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 suns.h.i.+ne.

As we rode inland toward Gra.s.se, 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 Gra.s.se rose-bushes are sparing of leaves.

Carefully cultivated for the purpose of bearing to the maximum, every shoot holds cl.u.s.ters 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 b.u.t.tercups ran through the gra.s.s. 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 Gra.s.se 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 pa.s.sed 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 Theoule 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 pa.s.sed 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. Gra.s.se 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 pa.s.s 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 Gra.s.se. For I was greeted cordially, and given immediately a guide, who a.s.sured 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 a.s.sociated 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 _recherche_ 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 gla.s.s 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-liege_ 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-liege_, even though they a.s.sure 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 Gra.s.se'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 Gra.s.se 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-chaussee_ 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 pa.s.sage of horse-drawn vehicles, so there were none. The Rue Droite is the princ.i.p.al shopping-street of Gra.s.se. But shoppers cannot loiter indefinitely before windows. All pedestrians must be agile. When you hear the _Hue!_ 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 s.h.i.+ning 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. Gra.s.se has progressed beyond the _gare-a-l'eau_ stage of munic.i.p.al 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 Gra.s.se. 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 pa.s.sage.

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 Cafe 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 Gra.s.se 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 G.o.d 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: GRa.s.sE-ST. CeZAIRE. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A grandfather omnibus, which dated from the Second Empire."]

"There is no place for another pa.s.senger. 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 Gra.s.se-St. Cezaire 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 pa.s.sed, 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 gla.s.s of steaming coffee with a _pet.i.t 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 Gra.s.se of my ill.u.s.trious artist friend, coincident with the St. Cezaire 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. Cezaire.

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 gla.s.ses 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 Gra.s.se. 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 Gra.s.se 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.