Read Ebook: Riviera Towns by Gibbons Herbert Adams Hornby Lester G Lester George Illustrator

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Ebook has 284 lines and 44660 words, and 6 pages

CHAPTER

"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

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 Th?oule, 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 Th?oule, 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. Rapha?l, 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 Th?oule. 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?"

"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'Est?rel 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.

We got out at the promenade, where a marvelous view of the Mediterranean from Antibes to Th?oule 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?

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 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.

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.

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. C?ZAIRE. 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.

"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. C?zaire 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.

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. C?zaire 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. C?zaire.

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.

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!"

CAGNES

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.

"Do any fat men live up here?" I asked.

"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 Cur?'s pardon! In those days of hot youth the church, you know, did not mean--"

"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'Abb?, 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.

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