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 Grasse.
"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."
"But Mougins is different," insisted the _cocher_, "and the view is
different. Besides, the wine is unique. It is sparkling, and can be
taken at five o'clock with little cakes. There are roads you have not
seen, and pretty girls at work in the rose fields. We shall drive
slowly."
There had been much wandering during the past fortnight and we were
ready for a quiet afternoon at the Casino. But we allowed ourselves to
be persuaded. The Casino was always there, and we had never heard of
_vin mousseux_ on the Riviera. Baedeker, as if in duty bound to miss
nothing, records the existence of Mougins, three kilometers east of the
Cannes-Grasse road after you pass the ten-kilometer stone on the way to
Grasse--then gives the next town. Mougins is not starred, and nothing
around Mougins is starred. Was not that a reason for going there?
English royalty used to come to Cannes, and every season more middle
class Britishers woke up to the fact that it would be pleasant to write
home to one's friends from Cannes. Hôtels and villas increased
rapidly. When English royalty went elsewhere, Russian Grand Dukes and
Balkan princelings saved the day for the snobs. Consequently, the town
has spread annoyingly into the country. A row of hotels faces the sea,
and on side streets are less pretentious hotels, invariably advertised
as a minute's walk from the sea. A mile inland is another quarter of
fashionable hotels for those whom the splashing of the waves makes
nervous. Then the interminable suburbs of villas and _pensions_
commence.
When city people seek a change of climate, they do not always want a
change of environment. They are intent upon living the same life as at
home, upon following the same round of amusements. They cannot be
happy without their comforts and conveniences, and this means the
impossibility of getting away from streets and buildings and noises and
crowds. The class that has monopolized the Riviera has tried to
recreate Paris in the Midi. If one wants to find the country right on
the sea coast, one must get off the train before reaching Cannes.
Between Cannes and the Italian frontier, one does not have the sea
without the city. Only by going inland can one find the country
without missing the sight and feel of the sea. For everywhere the land
rises. The valleys rise. Roads keep mounting and curving to avoid
heavy grades, and foothills do not hide the Alps and the Mediterranean.
After escaping from Cannet, the outermost suburb, the road to Mougins
goes through a valley of oranges and roses. There are stone farmhouses
with thatched roofs and barns that give forth the smell of hay. There
are cows and chickens.
We were congratulating ourselves upon having given up the casino long
before we reached Mougins. We forgave the _cocher_ his exaggeration
about the workers in the rose fields. When one sees in paintings and
in the cinematograph pretty girls engaged in agricultural pursuits, it
is more than even money that they are models and actresses in disguise.
I am enthusiastic in my cult of the country, but I have never carried
it to the point of becoming ecstatic over country maidens. There must
be, of course, as many good-looking girls in the country as in the
city. But could a chorus of milkmaids to satisfy New York or Paris be
recruited outside New York or Paris?
When we reached the uncompromising stretch of road that led up to
Mougins, we took mercy upon the horses. The _cocher_ had not driven
them as slowly as he had promised. We walked a mile through olive
orchards, and were in the town before we realized it. Unlike other
hill cities of the Riviera that we had visited, Mougins has no castle
and no walls. Few traces remain of outside fortifications. All around
Mougins the land is cultivated. One does not realize the abruptness of
the hilltop, for the city rises from fields and vineyards and orchards.
Saint-Paul-du-Var and Villeneuve-Loubet remind one of the days when
self-defense was a constant preoccupation. Mougins long ago forgot
feudal quarrels, foreign invasions and raids of Saracens and Barbary
pirates. The peasants still live together on a hilltop, going forth in
the morning and coming back in the evening. But they have taken the
stone of their walls for fences, and of their towers for barns. They
have brought their tilled land up the hillside to the city.
On the main street, we had the impression that the medieval character
of Mougins was lost by rebuilding. Ailanthus trees and whitewashed
walls and red-tiled roofs greeted us. The church and the market-place
were of the Third Republic. Sleepy cafés displayed enameled tin
advertisements of Paris drinks. The signs in front of the notions shop
declared the merits of rival Paris newspapers. But when we were
hunting out a vantage point from which to get the view of Cannes and
the Mediterranean, the Artist saw much to tempt his pencil. Back from
the main street, old Mougins survived, none the less charming from the
constant contrasts of old and new.
The arch of a city gate, perfectly preserved on one side, lost itself
in a modern building across the street. A woman, leaning out of a
window, wanted to know what the Artist was doing. I explained our
interest in the arch. Had there been a gate in her grandmother's time?
Why, when so much of a former age had disappeared, did this half-arch
remain? The woman was puzzled. It was incomprehensible that anyone
should be interested in the arch, which had always been there. I
thought I would try her on other subjects.
"Did many travelers come to Mougins from America?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. And you are an American, aren't you?"
Obviously America was a more interesting subject than archaeology.
While the Artist was finishing his sketch she chatted pleasantly with
me. Yes, she had often talked with American visitors. She revealed,
however, the French provincial's customary ignorance of our life and
asked the usual questions about our wealth and our skyscrapers. I am
not altogether sure that I set her right about her fabulous
misconception when the Artist's drawing was completed.
Mougins lives in medieval fashion, if not wholly in medieval houses.
Dependent upon occasional water from the heavens for carrying sewage
down the hillside, Mougins has no use for gutters and drains. Rubbish
is thrown from windows, and tramped down into last year's layer of
pavement. Goats enjoy the rich pasturage of old boots and cans and
papers and rags and vegetables that had lived beyond their day.
Although, as we walked through the alleys, we saw no one, heard no one,
the houses were inhabited: for much of the garbage was painfully
recent, and clothes flapped on lines from window to window over our
heads. The Artist suggested that the townspeople might be taking a
siesta. But it was late in the afternoon for that. Then we remembered
that Mougins was an agricultural community, and that the work of the
town was in the fields. This explained also why we saw no shops and no
evidences of trade. Olives, flowers, wine, fruit and vegetables are
taken to the markets of Cannes and Grasse, and the people of Mougins
buy what they need where they sell. Mougins has only bakeries and
cafés. Bread and alcohol alone are indispensable where people dwell
together.
We circled the city, and came out on the promenade across which we had
entered Mougins. Every French town has an illustrious son, for whom a
street is named, on whose birthplace a tablet is put, and to whom a
monument is raised. Our tour had taken us through the Rue du
Commandant Lamy. We had read the inscription on his home, and were now
before his monument, a bust on a slender pedestal, with the glorious
sweep of La Napoule for a background. The peasants of Mougins, as they
go out to and return from the labor of vineyard, orchard and field,
pass by the Lamy memorial. Even when they are of one's own blood, is
there inspiration in the daily reminder of heroes? How many from
Mougins have followed Lamy's example? I have often wondered whether
monuments mean anything except to tourists.
As I had recently been writing upon French colonial history, Lamy's
daring and fruitful journeys in Central Africa were fresh in my mind,
and I remembered his tragic death in the Wadai fifteen years ago. An
old man had just come up the hill, and was dragging weary legs encased
in clay-stained trousers across the promenade. A conical basket of
lettuce heads was on his back, and he used the handle of his hoe as a
cane.
"Did you know Lamy?" I inquired.
"Lamy was a boy in this town when I was a grown man going to my work.
I used to pass him playing on this very spot," he answered.
As we walked along toward the main street, we asked whether there were
others from Mougins who, like Lamy, had played a part in the history of
France abroad. No, the people of Mougins liked to stay at home.
Fortunately for the prosperity of the country, the young men returned
after their military service, and the attractions and opportunities of
city life rarely took them and held them farther away than Cannes and
Grasse. The Artist had his eye on the lettuce basket and the hoe, and
I wanted to hear more of life in Mougins. We asked the old man to
share a bottle with us.
The _cocher_ was waiting in front of a café, and corroborated the
statement on a huge painted sign, that here was to be found the true
_vin mousseux_ of Mougins. It was evident that we were not the first
tourists to come from Cannes. The _cocher_ was a friend of the
proprietress, who made us welcome in the way tourists are greeted.
Little cakes and a dusty bottle were produced promptly, and in the
stream of words that greeted us we could gather that this was a
red-letter occasion for us, and that it was possible to have the _vin
mousseux_ of Mougins shipped to Paris by the dozen or the hundred.
This annoyed us and dampened our ardor for the treat. The Artist and I
share a foolish feeling of wanting to be pioneers. We like to believe
that our travels take us out of the beaten path, and that we are
constantly discovering delectable places. After us the tourists--but
not before!
The corkscrew of the proprietress, however, consoled us. A corkscrew
through whose handle the beaded pressure of gas escapes before the cork
is drawn may be common enough. But the fact remains that neither of us
had seen one. We expressed our delight and wonder, and the Artist
naïvely told the proprietress, before he tasted the wine, that he felt
rewarded for the trip to Mougins just for the discovery of the
corkscrew. After the first sip, I added that now we knew why we had
walked up the long hill. The proprietress and the _cocher_ beamed.
Our enthusiasm meant money to them. The old man twisted his mouth
contemptuously.
"Tell me, then," he said, "what was your thought of me when you saw me
coming up the hill to the promenade with my burden of lettuce heads?
And when I told you that I had seen Lamy playing as a boy on the spot
where his statue stands? Sorry for me, were you not? Lamy had the
good sense, you think, to quit Mougins, and go out to glory. I and the
rest of Mougins, you think, have stayed here because we do not know any
better. It is all in the point of view. One of you is enthusiastic
over a patent corkscrew, and the other over the wine. You tourists
from the city cannot understand us. It is because you carry your
limitations with you. You think you lead a large, broad, varied life.
You do not. Finding the greatest interest of Mougins in a patent
corkscrew and sparkling wine betrays you."
"_Ces messieurs_ have a passion for the country and for towns away from
the railroad," remonstrated the _cocher_. "This afternoon I tempted
them from the Casino at Cannes. They are a thousand times enthusiastic
about Mougins, your homes, your streets, your views, and all they have
seen in the valley coming here. If they had limitations, would they
have wanted to come? It is senseless to think that they make the
effort, that they spend the money, just to be pleased with what they
see from their own world or what reminds them of their own world. I
spend my life with tourists, and they always appreciate, I have never
known them to fail to thank me for having brought them to Mougins."
Our critic--and, indeed, our judge--turned on the _cocher_.
"Tell me," he said sharply, raising his voice witheringly, "would you
risk bringing tourists to Mougins if there were not this café and the
_vin mousseux_?"
The _cocher_ puffed his cigar vigorously. The Artist, highly
delighted, broke an almost invariable rule to prove that the greatest
interest of Mougins was not the corkscrew. He opened his sketch-book.
While the old man was fingering the sketches, I ordered another bottle.
Our guest had been the vanguard of the homeward procession. All
Mougins was now passing before us.
"Now you see," continued our mentor, "what it is to live. A score of
men who knew Lamy have passed before you. They did not go to Africa to
hunt negroes and to put our flag on the map at the same time as the
names of unknown towns. They are here, and will eat a good dinner
tonight. Lamy is dead. Now I do not say that we are heroes, and that
our point of view is heroic. But I do say that we are not to be
pitied. And I say, moreover, that we do as much for France as Lamy
did. If we had all gone to Africa, there might be more names on the
map, but there would be less food in the markets of Grasse and Cannes."
"Oh, for the ghost of Gray," commented the Artist "He would be face to
face with the 'unseen flower'--but not blushing!"
"A case of _auream quisquis mediocritatem diligit_," I answered.
We were getting classical as well as philosophical, and it was time to
go. To whom was the mediocrity?