Riviera Towns Part 7

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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 Ma.r.s.eilles.

You have only to turn around and follow the coast beyond the Esterel 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 Carre 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 Carre, the donjon of Villeneuve-Loubet and the hill towns of Cagnes and Saint-Paul-du-Var, where we had pa.s.sed happy days, seem as near as Nice. Farther off on the slope of Mont Ferion 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 _reforme_. 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 Lerins 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 semaph.o.r.e 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 surpa.s.sed 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, Chateau de la Garoupe, is the property of an Englishman. As at Arcachon and Biarritz and Pau, as at Aix-les-Bains, Anglo-Saxon owners.h.i.+p of villas and German owners.h.i.+p of hotels and the prevalence of Teutons as shopkeepers and waiters prove the pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.s out. Tourists and residents, subjects of the Central Powers, were arrested and imprisoned on the Iles de Lerins, 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 pa.s.sed 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 astonis.h.i.+ngly detailed knowledge. Concerning the rest of the town he was as astonis.h.i.+ngly 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 etoile was the Golfe de la Napoule from the Pointe de l'Esquillon to the Cap de la Croisette. The Corniche de l'Esterel rounded the Esquillon and came down to sea level at Theoule through a forest of pines. It pa.s.sed 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 Esterel. 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 ma.s.s 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 Gra.s.se 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 Gra.s.se. In the sea lay the Iles de Lerins, Sainte-Marguerite almost touching the point of La Croisette.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 amus.e.m.e.nt, and buy food and drink. Theoule had neither stores nor cafes, 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 etoile we thanked G.o.d that we were out in the country, and we loved our walks on the Corniche road and back into the Esterel. 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 Ma.r.s.eilles 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 Theoule in the evening.

From our villa to La Napoule we were still in the Esterel. 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 fis.h.i.+ng village, not better known than any other hamlet along the coast. Here are the Chateau Vallombrosa (now the Hotel 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 fas.h.i.+onable watering place. Despite its marvelous growth, Nice has always maintained a life and industries apart from tourists and residents of the leisure cla.s.s. 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 n.o.bility. The square tower and the cl.u.s.ter 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 Allees de la Liberte, a huge rectangle with rows of old trees under which the flower market is held every morning.

At the Old Town end is the Hotel de Ville and at the east end the Casino. Running out seaward from beside the Casino is the Jetee 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 Reserve 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 fas.h.i.+on 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-Raphael, 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sures 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 _metier_. They are still making dishes and vases and statuettes, and there is still plenty of clay. Moreover, modern methods have not found a subst.i.tute 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 ma.s.se 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 salesmans.h.i.+p was not obtrusive.

The great industry of Cannes is fresh cut flowers. The flower market of a morning in the Allees de la Liberte 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, ca.s.sia, 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 Gra.s.se.

"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."