Though the affluence of foreign people at Nice is, this year, greatly reduced, the population of the town is perhaps higher than when the season is in full swing.
Nice has, this year, an unusual class of guests, people who, up to a few months ago, used to think of Nice as a sort of earthly paradise reserved to the plutocracy of the new and old world, and who would never have seen the Côte d'Azur if the war had not chased them from their homes in the east of France and in Belgium.
Nice has, at the present moment, five or six thousand refugees, and more are expected. I saw groups of them walking along the long dusty road that runs at the side of the Paillon, the little torrent which, in winter, looks quite a respectable river.
Here is nothing of the Nice that English people know; no hotels, no palm trees, no flower-beds, no smart shops.
The town in its eastern part has preserved its look of sixty years ago, the only new constructions being two huge hive-like barracks. It is probably uglier and dirtier than the commercial quarter of Marseilles itself.
The refugees have chosen as their favourite promenade this dingy quarter. Here they meet the soldiers who are coming back or are going to their country, here the Corporation of Nice distributes twice a day free soup to the poor.
The refugees are not often seen in the smart part of the town. The Promenade des Anglais, the Jetée, and the Place Massena are a background too much in contrast with their ragged clothes. They don't care to walk near the well-dressed people lounging in basket-chairs along the promenade.
Most of the refugees have taken with them all they could manage to carry, and it is touching to see how, amongst all their troubles, seldom have they forgotten the little mongrel dog, faithful companion in the happy days before the war.
I was contemplating the refugees, and walking down the irregular pavement of a Genoese-looking street, when a strange sight met my eyes.
Behind a brick wall an extraordinary structure of long wooden bars, osiers, canes, wire-work, and such-like material, emerged and reached a height of perhaps twenty feet.