This severity rather surprised me, considering how easily one can get into France from England, Switzerland, or Italy.
The explanation was given me by a lieutenant, who said that, during the last few months, German spies had been pouring into France continuously, either by means of the passports of neutral nations, or by landing in the seaside towns near the frontier from a small boat. This accounts also for the fact that sailing or boating has been forbidden, except in special cases, and for fishing purposes.
The war has affected the Riviera in one curious way. Certain articles have become quite cheap, others more expensive than usual, owing to the fact that the goods service with Paris is infrequent and too slow for perishable stuff, and that Italy, since the war broke out, has stopped any exportation of foodstuffs.
Eggs, cheese, and butter are getting dearer, while flowers, oranges, &c., which generally are exported to Austria, Russia, and England, are now obtainable at extremely low prices.
This last Christmastide the Riviera suffered a famine of Christmas-trees. The young pines used for this purpose generally arrive in large quantities during the week preceding Christmas and come from Col di Tenda, on the other side of the frontier.
But wood is amongst the things the exportation of which from Italy has been stopped, and as it was too late to get pines from somewhere else, the children, for the most part, had to be content with curious substitutes; while the Senegalais in Mentone had their first, and let us hope last, Christmas-tree made with a huge laurel.
Life is altogether considerably cheaper than usual in Monte Carlo, at least for the winter visitors. Most of the hotels have reduced their tariffs, and I could name more than one very first-class house which, probably for the first time in their existence, have quoted en pension terms.
Summer is naturally the quiet season on the Riviera, and it is then that Monte Carlo proceeds with her yearly toilet, undergoes transformations and improvements. Quite a number of embellishments had just been started when the war broke out, and at the moment these constructions remain unfinished, waiting for quieter times.
For instance, the familiar square in front of the Casino, and the Hotel de Paris, with its lawns and flower-beds, has become an enormous hole, an excavation which looks like a quarry. In a day still distant it will become an underground garage in which the cars of the visitors of the Casino can wait instead of crowding all along the Avenue des Palmiers.
The work, which was begun last summer and should have been finished by December, was interrupted by the war. The Casino is open, with Louis Ganne, of "Marche Lorraine" fame, Caruso, and all the other great artists. None of the usual Russian and American customers are seen in the salles-de-jeu.