THE VEGETABLE MARKET, NICE.

Dieppe, owing to its connection with England by the Newhaven steamers, is popular among English visitors, who can run over for a day or two with the minimum of trouble and expense. The broad sunny Plage, the casino to which one is free all day on payment of three francs, and the Établissement des Bains keep the place very full of life and gaiety throughout the season; but one does not expect to find there the people who may be seen at Étretat or Deauville. Possessing a busy and not unpicturesque port, an historic fifteenth-century château, and a beautiful Gothic church, it is surprising to find the sea-front so entirely suggestive of one of the newly developed resorts. To the north-east is Tréport, an interesting and picturesque little coast town, with the usual requirements for bathing and summer visitors. Along the top of the great bank of shingle are the dressing-sheds, with wooden steps at intervals leading down to the beach. Those who have any interest in history find the proximity of the famous old town of Eu a great attraction, but golf acts with such magnetic force over the average Anglo-Saxon that such considerations do not often weigh in the choice of a holiday resort. The French have only lately begun to know the joys and the profound dejections of golf; it is not yet a necessary adjunct to a seaside resort. Where there are golf-courses it is mainly British capital that brings them on to the sand-dunes. Le Touquet is very cosmopolitan, but it could hardly exist a month without its English patrons. It is one of those places which come into existence with the wave of the capitalist's wand. He says, in effect, "Let us make on this waste an ideal health resort, let us erect hotels, casinos, theatres, and to these add golf-courses, croquet lawns, lawn-tennis courts, and polo grounds; we will have rides through the forest and bathing facilities on this shore, and we will advertise until the whole world knows that we have made this place." And, having spoken, everything desired straightway comes to pass, so that one reads on a leaflet concerning this newly arrived resort such items as these:—

10 hotels. 2 golf-courses.
2 casinos.3 croquet lawns.
2 theatres.17 lawn-tennis courts.
10 miles of forest rides.3 miles of sandy beach.
A polo ground.Drag-hounds.

Paris Plage is the newly-built town, brought into existence through the needs and attractions of Le Touquet, Étaples being a little too far away to answer this purpose.

Farther north is Boulogne, with its own casino and promenade and its village resorts, such as Hardelot, close at hand. So numerous, indeed, are the bathing-places of this type that it would be tiresome to even attempt a list of them all, but they all have their own devotees—French, English, and American—and any little villa along the coast of Normandy or Picardy may during the hot months be the temporary home of men and women whose names are household words on either side of the Channel.

Brittany is farther away from Paris and from England, and its charms are only beginning to be appreciated. With the exception of Dinard, there is no place that is expensive or smart in any sense. Some of the villages on the long and deeply indented coast-line have at least one good hotel, and if one is content with what the sea will provide in the way of amusement, the happiest of holidays may be spent there. Bathing, sailing, fishing, sketching, walking, exploring quaint villages, and seeing the curious social customs that still live in this very Celtic corner of France, fill up endless days, and only those to whom none of these things appeal can be dull, provided the weather is tolerably fine.

Biarritz, down at the southern extremity of the French Atlantic coast, in the innermost corner of the Bay of Biscay, with its neighbour St. Jean de Luz, are far away from the two great groups of coast resorts. The first was popularised among both French and English on account of the frequent visits paid to it by King Edward VII. It was understood when Le Roi Edouard came to Biarritz that no one was to take any notice whatsoever of his presence. Cameras were promptly confiscated if any one attempted to snapshot the King or any of his friends, and it was in this way possible for the sovereign who loved to step down into the crowd, to forget the tedious functions of his office. After Sunday morning service he would stroll along the promenade with one or two friends in the most informal fashion, so that a chance British visitor who did not dream that he might at any moment rub shoulders with his sovereign would almost gasp with astonishment when he suddenly discovered that he had actually done so!