The town of Grasse is perhaps more celebrated than any other for its
connection with the perfume industry in a province which is itself
well known to be its home.
This, the department of the Alpes Maritimes, forms the southeastern
corner of France. Its most prominent geographical features are an
elevated mountain range, a portion of the Alps, and a long seaboard
washed by the Mediterranean--whence the name Alpes Maritimes.
The calcareous hills round Grasse and to the north of Nice are more or
less bare, though they were at one time well wooded; the reafforesting
of these parts has, however, made of late great progress. Nearer the
sea vegetation is less rare, and there many a promontory excites the
just admiration of the visitor by its growth of olives, orange and
lemon trees, and odoriferous shrubs. Who that has ever sojourned in
this province can wonder that Goethe's Mignon should have ardently
desired a return to these sunny regions?
Visitors on these shores on the first day of this year found Goethe's
lines more poetical than true--
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of laurel, and myrtle, and rose;
for they gathered round their fires and coughed and groaned in chorus,
and entertained each other with accounts of their ailments. But this
was exceptional, and the climate of the Alpes Maritimes is on the
whole as near perfection as anything earthly can be. This, however, is
not due to its latitude, but rather to its happy protection from the
north by its Alps and to its being bathed on the south by the warm
Mediterranean and the soft breezes of an eastern wind (which evidently
there bears a different reputation to that which it does with us). The
mistral, or cold breeze from the hills, is indeed the only climatic
enemy, if we except an occasional earthquake.
The town of Grasse itself is situated in the southern portion of the
department, and enjoys its fair share of the advantages this situation
affords. It is about ten miles from Cannes (Lord Brougham's creation),
and, as the crow flies, twenty-five miles from Nice, though about
forty miles by rail, for the line runs down to Cannes and thence along
the shore to Nice.
Built on the side of a hill some 1,000 feet above the level of the
sea, the town commands magnificent views over the surrounding country,
especially in the direction of the sea, which is gloriously visible.
An abundant stream, the Foux, issuing from the rocks just above the
town, is the all productive genius of the place; it feeds a hundred
fountains and as many factories, and then gives life to the
neighboring fields and gardens.
The population of Grasse is about 12,000, and the flora of its
environs represents almost all the botany of Europe. Among the
splendid pasture lands, 7,000 feet above the sea, are fields of
lavender, thyme, etc. From 7,000 to 6,000 feet there are forests of
pine and other gymnosperms. From 6,000 to 4,000 feet firs and the
beech are the most prominent trees. Between 4,000 and 2,000 feet we
find our familiar friends the oak, the chestnut, cereals, maize,
potatoes. Below this is the Mediterranean region. Here orange, lemon,
fig, and olive trees, the vine, mulberry, etc., flourish in the open
as well as any number of exotics, palms, aloes, cactuses, castor oil
plants, etc. It is in this region that nature with lavish hand bestows
her flowers, which, unlike their compeers in other lands, are not born
to waste their fragrance on the desert air or to die "like the bubble
on the fountain," but rather (to paraphrase George Eliot's lofty
words) to die, and live again in fats and oils, made nobler by their
presence.
The following are the plants put under contribution by the perfume
factories of the district, viz., the orange tree, bitter and sweet,
the lemon, eucalyptus, myrtle, bay laurel, cherry laurel, elder; the
labiates; lavender, spike, thyme, etc.; the umbelliferous fennel and
parsley, the composite wormwood and tarragon, and, more delicate than
these, the rose, geranium, cassie, jasmin, jonquil, mignonette, and
violet.