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.