Rambles on the Riviera

by M. F. Mansfield

It is a wonderfully warm corner of the littoral, here in the immediate environs of Bandol, and palms, banana-trees, the eucalyptus, and many other subtropical shrubs and plants thrive exceedingly. There is nothing of the rigour of winter to blight this warm little corner; only the mistral—which is everywhere (Monaco perhaps excepted)—or its equally wicked brother, le vent d’est, ever makes disagreeable a visit to this warm-welcoming little coast town.

A clock-tower, or belfry, an old château,—the construction of Vauban,—and a jetty, which throws out its long tentacle-like arm to sea, make up the chief architectural monuments of the town.

Not so theatrical or stagy as Monte Carlo or even Hyères, or as overrun with “swallows” as Nice or Menton, Bandol has much that these places lack, and lacks a great deal that they have, but which one is glad to be without if he wants to hibernate amid new and unruffling surroundings.

Very good wines are made from the grapes which grow on the neighbouring hillsides; rich red wines, most of which are sold as Port to not too inquisitive buyers. The industry is not as flourishing as it once was, though the inhabitants—some two hundred or more—who used to be engaged in the coopering trade, still hope that, phœnix-like, it will rise again to prosperity. What the culture once was, and what picturesque elements it possessed, art-lovers, and others, may judge for themselves by the contemplation of the celebrated canvas by Joseph Vernet, now in the Louvre at Paris.

The fishermen of Bandol find the industry more profitable than do many others in the small towns to the eastward of Marseilles, and, accordingly, they are more prominent in the daily life which goes on in the markets and on the quays. Their catch runs the whole gamut of the poissons de Mediterranée, including a unique species called the St. Pierre, whose bones somewhat resemble the instruments of the Passion.

Three thousand cases of immortelles are gathered each year from the hillsides and shipped to all parts, the crop having a value of more than a hundred thousand francs.

Bandol is the centre of the manufacture of couronnes d’immortelles in France. The little yellow flowers literally clog the narrow streets of the town away from the waterside. The warm zone in which Bandol is situated is most favourable to the growth of the plant, which, according to the botanists, originally came from Crete and Malta. The natives of Bandol say that it originated with them, or at least with their pays.

A hot, dry soil is necessary to their growth, and they are at their best in June and July, when their golden yellow tufts literally cover the hillsides; that is, all that are not covered by narcissi. The flora of Bandol is most varied and abundant, but these two flowers predominate.

The culture of the immortelle is simple. In February or March the plants are set in the ground, from small roots, and the gathering commences in July of the second season, after which the poor, stripped stalks look anything but immortal. Each plant grows three or four score of stems, each stem bearing ten to twenty flowers.

Curiously enough there seems to be a diversity of opinion as to the colour that a crown of immortelles shall take. Not all of them are sent out in the golden colour nature gave them. Some are dyed purple and others black, and then, indeed, all their beauty has departed. The natives think so, too, but dealers in funeral supplies in Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles—who have about the worst artistic sense of any class of Frenchmen who ever lived—have got the idea that their clients like variety, and that bright yellow is too gay for a symbol of mourning.