ST. MALO FROM ST. SERVAN.
The English were the discoverers of the French Riviera from the health-resort standpoint. They wrote books describing fine air and the attractions of this wonderful coast, and the social distinction of some of the writers assured an attentive audience. Lady Blessington penned an account of her journey along the Riviera in 1823, which reveals a condition of things as far removed from the luxury of to-day as are the shores of Patagonia. To journey from Nice to Florence was then more or less an adventure. "The usual route by land," she writes, "is over the Col di Tenda, and via Turin, but this being impracticable owing to the snow, and as we had a strong objection to a voyage in a felucca, we determined to proceed to Genoa by the route of the Cornice, which admits of but two modes of conveyance, a chaise à porteurs, or on horseback, or rather on muleback." The Lady Blessingtons of to-day travel on an excellently engineered and, for the most part, a dust-free road, in the luxurious ease provided by the builders of the modern motor-car de luxe. The six-cylindered engine purrs so softly that the sound of the waves on the rocks beneath the road is not lost, and even the faint smell of petrol is overcome by the exquisite productions of Roget et Cie.
Hyères stands quite apart from the long chain of fashionable resorts. It is a picturesque old town separated from the sea by two or three miles of salt marshes, and only ranks as a watering-place on account of the proximity of Costebelle, where modern hotels perched picturesquely on the wooded hills known as the Montagnes des Oiseaux look across the Iles d'Or to the beautiful Maure Mountains. The villages perched on the face of the cliffs, and those standing on the intervals of alluvial shore along the coast of Les Maures, are typical of the whole Riviera before the leisured and wealthy classes of the western nations began to make their annual incursions. East of the valley at whose mouth stands Fréjus, dozing in the midst of its eye-filling evidences of importance in Roman times, is St. Raphaël, with its hotel quarter known as Valescure, high among the pines on the first slopes of the densely wooded Estérel Mountains. Healthfulness is still the main attraction here; but those who do not thirst for distracting gaiety love the sweet-smelling solitudes and the bays where the porphyry rocks, purple-red as the name implies, are overhung by masses of dark pines, and bathed by waters that reflect sky, trees, and rocks in a wonderful confusion of strong colour, reminiscent of bays on the south Cornish coast. Hotels have appeared near the larger villages on the littoral of the Estérels, but Nature is still free down to the splashing waves, and it is only when Cannes is reached that one is in the real Riviera atmosphere.
MONTE CARLO AND MONACO FROM THE EAST.
The first view of the sweeping coast-line between Cannes and the confines of Italy that suddenly unfolds itself as one goes eastwards on the coast road is one of surpassing loveliness, provided that the weather lives up to its honestly-earned reputation. A great sweep of sea of an exquisite, a tender, a most lovely blue fills half the scene. It is perhaps shaded here and there by clouds, and their shadows turn the blue to amethyst. There is a fringe of white along the low sandy shores of the Gulf of La Napoule. Farther off the coast becomes steep and clothed with a mantle of dark green foliage, speckled along its lower margin with creamy-white villas, while higher, the horizon is serrated with snow-capped peaks. As the coast recedes it becomes more lofty, the mountains coming to bathe their feet in the blue sea. There are islands and promontories faintly visible in the soft opalescent haze. Such is the first impression one obtains of a fairyland coast-line, which owing to various circumstances had to be discovered to the French people by foreigners. With their inherited instinct towards roving the British have not even been able to keep to their own land when merely taking a little seaside holiday.
It might be said of the French that, apart from their dozen or more seaports, they were until recently in a state of comparative ignorance as to the nature of the wonderful coast-line of their country. It was only recently that any considerable proportion of the great French middle-class population acquired the habit of taking an annual holiday by the sea. The expense of such a migration is a big item in a small budget, and when undertaken it is the need for economy which makes the housekeeper prefer to take a house wherein she can provide for her own ménage, and avoid giving a landlady a living at her expense.
At first the seaside visits were of a very adventurous character, and little wooden châlets of a very temporary character were run up. They were placed in a most haphazard fashion where land was available. Gardens were not cultivated; and even when quite a number of these meretricious little seaside homes had gathered together at one spot, there was no attempt to produce the features regarded by the English as essentials. Instead of the pier with its concert-room raised above the waves on barnacle-swollen iron pillars, the French build a casino. In it all forms of evening amusement are concentrated, and all the holiday life is to be found there after sunset. The esplanade, that most tiresome feature of all English seaside resorts, is only built when the place has become so matured that it begins to yearn for smartness. Possibly foreigners are the main cause of the promenade. On the Riviera, where it has been the aim of the municipalities and the hotel proprietors to study the habits of les Anglais, the esplanade is to be found at every resort, and it is probably only the overwhelming expense due to the precipitous nature of a very considerable proportion of the coast that has saved the Riviera from becoming one continuous promenade from Cannes to Mentone. Even if this were ever accomplished the irregularities of the coast are so pronounced that there would be few opportunities for those who abominate the sea-front of the Brighton type to complain. At Cannes the isolated mass of rock crowned by the picturesque "old town" effectually cuts the frontage to the sea in two, and at Nice the tabular rock in whose shadow ancient Nice grew, forms an abrupt termination to the eastward end of the parade, the central portion of which is called the Promenade des Anglais, and there is situated a jetty to satisfy the tastes of the same patrons of "Paris by the Sea." Villefranche does not give any opportunity for producing sterile perspectives on account of the deep and narrow bay formed by the Cap du Mont Boron and the St. Jean peninsula. Beaulieu is little more than a fortuitous concourse of villas and hotels, and the only level ground is that occupied by the Corniche road.