A Book of the Riviera

by S. Baring-Gould

Configuration of the land—Favoured situation of Mentone: suitable for mid-winter—Old and new Mentone—Oranges and lemons—History of Mentone—Roquebrune—Passion Mystery—Castellan—Depredations of corsairs—Open-air ball—Dr. Bennet—The torrent of S. Louis—The Barma Grande—Prehistoric men.

THE traveller by rail from Nice to Mentone is hardly able to appreciate the configuration of the land, and to understand what are the special advantages enjoyed by Mentone over Nice and Cannes.

Let us take a sickle to represent the mountain system from the Swiss Alps to the Abruzzi. If the sickle be held with the point upward and the cutting edge turned away from one, then the great curve of the inner edge represents the vast basin of the Po and its tributaries. At Mont Blanc the Alpine sweep turns south and runs to Monte Viso, forming the Dauphiné Alps. From Monte Viso the ridge curves to the east till it meets the shank above Genoa, and the handle of the sickle is the range of the Apennines.

From Nice one can see the snowy peaks. Les Cimes du Diable are visible, but away to the north-east, for the chain is on the curve there. Above the Riviera di Ponente the chain draws very near to the sea, but throws out spurs and allows of a ledge resting against it, intervening between it and the Mediterranean. Now in leaving Nice by the Corniche Road we can see this formation, we learn how the Alps describe a great arc; but this is lost to us in the train, hugging the sea-shore and diving in and out of tunnels.

It is only by the Corniche Road, when we have reached La Turbie, that we discern how specially privileged are Mentone and the Italian Riviera. We see before us an amphitheatre, with mountain stages, and the blue sea for arena. The mountains run up to 3,000 and 4,000 feet, and wall about the fertile bottom, the seats about the sea, sheltering them from every blast. The higher mountains of grey limestone are bare, but below all is rich with luxuriant vegetation.

“The entire bay and the town of Mentone, with its background of swelling, olive-clad hills closed in by the amphitheatre of mountains, are thus thoroughly protected from the north-west, north, and north-east winds. To thoroughly understand and appreciate the district and its singularly protected character, a boat should be taken, and the panorama viewed a mile or two from the shore. The extreme beauty of the coast will amply repay the trouble. Thus seen, all the details are blended into one harmonious whole; the two bays becoming one, and the little town scarcely dividing them. The grandeur of the semicircular range of mountains, generally steeped in glorious sunshine, also comes out in broad outline. These mountains positively appear to all but encircle the Mentonian amphitheatre in their arms, to thus separate it and its inhabitants from the world at large, and to present it to the blue Mediterranean waves and to the warm southern sunshine.

“Behind the mountains which thus form the background of the Mentonian valleys, are still higher mountains, rising in successive ranges to an altitude of from 5,000 to 9,000 feet. The higher ranges constitute the high Alps of Savoy and Dauphiné. The presence of this second and higher mountain range greatly increases the protection afforded to the coast-line by the lower one, and partly explains its immunity from the winter cold of continental Europe.

“Thus the Mentone amphitheatre, being only open to the south, south-east, and south-west, the Mistral, as a north-west wind, is not at all felt, and but slightly as a deflected south-west wind. All the northerly winds pass over the higher mountains and fall into the sea at some distance—several miles from the shore. When they reign there is a calm, not only in the bay at Mentone, but for some distance out at sea; whilst at a few miles from the shore it may be crested and furious.”[17]

But this protected and warm nook can be enjoyed only during the months in the depth of winter. When the sun begins to gather warmth, the heat becomes oppressive, the lungs gasp for air, and one feels desirous to be invested with sufficient faith to be able to move the mountains some miles back. There are two Mentones, the very dashing, frivolous, up-to-date modern town, with expensive tastes; bound for life to the elderly Mentone, grave, a little dilapidated, and intent only on business. But young and gay Mentone is stealing an arm round the old partner and laying hold of the even more sheltered and balmy bay beyond, now dotted with villas, and punctuated with hotels.

Mentone is pre-eminently the district of lemons and oranges, grown here for the fruit, and not, as at Grasse, for the flower. Lemons at Mentone are more numerous than oranges. They are not so beautiful, as the fruit has not the golden hue of the orange—it is green or pale sulphur yellow. The fruit of the orange tree will bear 7° Fahr. below freezing point without being seriously affected, but the lemon tree is much more sensitive, and is killed by 8°; it may also perish by over-much moisture in the atmosphere. When a sharp frost sets in, the owners of a plantation of oranges or lemons are in dire alarm, and light fires in the groves, strewing green leaves and grass over the flames to produce smoke, which to a considerable extent prevents radiation, and the temperature falling too low.