MONT ST. MICHEL AT HIGH TIDE.
The promontory of Monaco is entirely precipitous, but gardens on its outward side give shady walks and charming peeps of the distant coast. One side of the bay of Monaco is formed by the curving northern face of the tabular projection, and facing it are the creamy-white terraces of Monte Carlo, rising up to the blocks of equally brilliant red-roofed buildings terminating in the world-famed Casino, which stands at the apex of a small projection of the rocky shelf. The architecture of the Casino is of the commonplace "exhibition" type, and the gardens surrounding it support the parallel. Only the determination of man could have made the precipitous slopes of the mountainous sea-front produce lawns and flowers and shady trees, for the heat of summer would destroy all but the hardiest forms of vegetation, unless artificial aids were employed. The colour of Monte Carlo is intensely brilliant on account of the immense reflecting surface of pinkish limestone rock that towers up some 1300 feet from the sea, and makes the place quite unique among watering-places. Strictly speaking one hardly has any right to include it in a description of French watering-places, for Monaco is an independent principality, and its area includes Monte Carlo and the intervening township of Condamine, which is packed in between the gaming metropolis and the col that separates Monaco's peninsula from the mainland.
Until 1856 the principality had no gambling halls, and it was not until 1858 that the Prince of Monaco laid the foundation stone of the existing Casino, the gaming-tables having been first set up within the walls of the old town. In a few years the annual income from the Casino ran up to £1,000,000, a sum of £50,000 being the Prince's share. So by playing down to the widespread instinct for gambling, one of the most unprofitable patches of coast has become in proportion to its area the most revenue-producing in the whole world. It is a melancholy reflection that one of the most perfect spots on the Mediterranean for enjoying all the warmth of the winter sun should be so fatally contaminated by a cosmopolitan crowd of ne'er-do-weels of every grade of society. One sees all the world at Monte Carlo, for no one who passes along the Riviera can quite resist the desire to have a peep at a place of such notoriety. And so many come to Monte Carlo for this selfsame purpose that the real habitués, the professionals and the "last-hopers," are rather lost sight of in the crowd of quite irreproachable people who half fill the concert-hall, and drift through the gaming-rooms throwing a few five-franc pieces on to the roulette tables "just to see what happens," or to experience the very edge of the strange fascination which leads men and women to fling away a competency in a fevered desire for wealth.
The two superimposed roads between Nice and Mentone known as the Upper and the Lower Corniche, are both laboriously engineered highways, possessing almost unrivalled charms. On the lower road there used to be a most serious disadvantage to the enjoyment of the scenery in the choking clouds of dust raised by every passing vehicle. Motor-cars used to throw up such a smother of dust that it did not settle for some minutes, and in the interval fresh clouds would be produced. Tar has at last been brought to rescue the charms of the Lower Corniche from being completely destroyed. Trams grind and scream as they follow the constant curves of the road, and their presence robs it of any sense of repose. It is therefore more possible to enjoy the changing panorama of bay, cliff, and promontory, of brilliantly coloured waves in shadow and in sunshine from a seat in a car than on foot. An automobile, unless driven very slowly, is tiresome and tantalizing in such scenery. One can only compare the sensation of being flung through beautiful surroundings of this character at 30 miles an hour to being obliged to go through the galleries of the Louvre at a trot.
On the Upper Corniche the traffic is light, there are no trams, and dust is scarcely noticeable. The scenery is altogether on a greater scale. At certain spots one commands nearly the whole of the French Riviera at once. The sea is far below, and its nearer shores are almost invariably hidden. Whoever passes one on this lofty highway is fairly sure to have come there for pleasure, business taking few along the high "cornice." Energetic folk from all the resorts within reach are to be found climbing up the steep zig-zag pathways to this splendid vantage-ground. Frenchmen in clothes suited for le sport or perhaps wearing the dark city type of jacket suit which so many adhere to even when holiday-making, Germans thoughtfully carrying their red Baedekers with them, and Englishmen of the retired military officer or I.S.O. type are all to be found enjoying or "doing" the Upper Corniche in the various manners of their widely differing temperaments. At La Turbie, where the remains of the huge monument to Caesar Augustus, the conquering emperor, still bulk prominently in the midst of the village, there is a funicular railway connecting the upper and lower roads, bringing the splendid air and scenery of the heights within reach of the infirm or the merely slack types of visitors.
The long winding descent from La Turbie to Mentone brings the two roads together opposite Cap Martin, a promontory densely grown with old and gnarled olives and masses of dark pines that come down to the water's edge. From beneath their shade one can look across the blue waves breaking into white along the curving shore to Mentone's villas and hotels overtopped by its old town on a spur of the mountain slopes that rise sharply just behind. Although built at the mouth of two torrents, Mentone is sheltered by an imposing amphitheatre of lofty mountains, which very effectually screen it from the treacherous mistral, and it is this fact which has made it the most popular place for invalids on the whole of la Côte d'Azur. It is fortunate in having been spared the inflictions of overpowering perspectives of the Nice or Brighton order, and one can sit close to the shore under the shade of great eucalyptus trees free from the glare and the traffic of a big sea-front roadway of the stereotyped British pattern.
The eastern extension of Mentone, known as Garavan, is within a few minutes' walk of the Italian frontier, where the sea-coast resorts become more brightly coloured and have more architectural interest in their old quarters, the Ligurian type of compactly built walled town being scarcely recognisable in what remains of old Mentone.
Not only is the Riviera a land of winter sunshine, it is also one of the most sweetly-scented coasts in the world. The delicious fragrance of the lemon and the orange, when those trees are in blossom, is often Nature's final lavish filling up of the cup of enjoyment to overflowing. And in the spring, when the northern sea-coast resorts are shivering before the icy winds that sweep down the Channel, this favoured coast has nasturtiums and other flowers that England does not see until late in summer, in their fullest blossom. France is indeed fortunate in its Mediterranean shore, of which Plato must have been thinking when he wrote: