Wintering at Mentone

by William Chambers

The cold which is endured at times in a sitting-room may not be injurious to health, but it is exceedingly unpleasant, and greatly poisons the enjoyment of a wintering in the south. It may look like a heresy to speak with disrespect of wood fires. They answer well enough for a short time in the morning and evening; but are a poor expedient in days successively cold, wet, and boisterous. Movable grates with coal fires should therefore be supplied when wanted on occasions of this kind. It is perhaps too much to expect that hotel and pension keepers will voluntarily remedy the deficiency. They have a superstitious veneration for wood fires, and regard with traditional complacency the practice of supplying paniers de bois at 2·50—the more the merrier, so far as their feelings are concerned. Cold weather is to them the opening of a brisk trade in timber. French visitors who do not know much about coal, and perhaps have a hatred of it, submit without murmuring to these venerable usages. The English, as it may be supposed, have their growl, and look on the whole thing as a downright imposition. It will not surprise me, therefore, to hear that the 2·50 usage gets into disrepute. On calling to see some acquaintances at the Hôtel du Pavillon on what happened to be a cold day, I found a coal fire of proper proportions in the salon de lecture, which I accepted as a step in the right direction. As regards those who wish to hire ready-furnished residences, they have the remedy in their own hands. I would recommend them to procure a few movable small fire-grates. If they cannot be procured on the spot (regarding which Willoughby may be consulted), they may be had from Paris. There is a store for the supply of such things under the arcade in front of the Palais-Royal. Coal is imported into Mentone, and can be had in any quantity. It is not Wallsend, but it will do.

CHAPTER V.

In a few things the French are a little behind. They have established no uniform national time. The railways keep Paris time, which may be learned from a clock exhibited at every station; but provincial towns have all their own time, and that is somewhat distracting. At Nice, the hotel and post-office clocks shew both Paris and local time. At Mentone, time is in a chaotic condition. Some few years ago, according to a floating tradition, an English clergyman in the town who was punctilious about time, possessed a watch which was reckoned so great an authority that people thankfully set their pendules by it. Since this public-spirited individual quitted the place, time has become disorganised, and as no one can tell the hour precisely, you may happen to be too soon or too late at church or at any appointed place of meeting. No doubt a horologer who deals in jewellery and mosaics has a clock swinging in his window inviting the confidence of passengers, and over the entrance of the Eglise Evangélique there is a clock of respectable appearance, but I never put much faith in their indications.

The want of a good well-accredited town clock is only one of many wants in Mentone, of which something severe could be said. Let us, however, be gentle and considerate. It is easy saying ‘they’ should do this, and ‘they’ should do that, but where are ‘they’ to get the money to do all these fine things? Any one who has been at the helm of civic affairs knows that scarcely a day passes without the receipt of letters patriotically pointing out great public works which should be undertaken for the good of mankind, but never giving the slightest hint where the money is to come from to execute them. It is an unfortunate thing that everywhere money is in such urgent requisition, yet so it is. Mentone is in the position of needing a good deal, in which respect it resembles a man of small capital newly set up in business with great possibilities of prosperity. We have seen something of its history. It is an old, very old town, and should by this time have attained a decent maturity. But think of what it has come through—held down, starved, taxed, cudgelled, and brutalised by that ‘noble Genoese’ family which so long maintained sway over it; think of the difficulty it had to get rid of these rulers; how sore were its trials until it was taken in hand by the great and gallant nation with which its fate is now associated; and how short a time has elapsed since it found itself famous as a winter resort, with obligations imposed on it which it had no means adequately to discharge. A consequence of this unforeseen celebrity was that land suddenly rose to ten or twenty times its former value. Capitalists, local and cosmopolitan, made a rush to build villas, hotels, pensions, and houses with shops, without any concerted plan. With the old town clustering on a height like a bee-hive, nothing could be done. The new edifices spread themselves westwards, eastwards, anywhere—the only thing that kept them from falling into utter disorder being the obligation not to encroach on the great Corniche road, or on the cross-way called the Route de Turin.

In the scramble for sites, all kinds of mean selfishness came vivaciously into play. Enormous prices were sought for the merest scraps of ground. The rules of inheritance also stood in the way. In and about Mentone it is not uncommon for several members of a family to own a house, a garden, or even a single olive-tree. An inheritance may consist of but one or two branches. Petty and complicated heritages of this kind are not easily dealt with. At any offer to purchase, the proverbial pretium affectionis undergoes a marvellous development. Attempts to effect improvements on a sweeping scale are everywhere difficult without the potent statutory spell of ‘compulsory powers;’ here, from the divisional heritage system, they are scarcely practicable unless central despotic rule interposes. From one cause or another, the opportunity to lay out the newer part of Mentone on a symmetrical plan was lost. The most genial as well as most beautiful spot in the Riviera was architecturally spoiled. There was no attempt to construct buildings in harmony with the surrounding scenery—a too common fault everywhere, but especially to be lamented where Nature has been so prodigal of beauty. The most conspicuous instance of bad taste has been the setting down of a square box-like villa, painted a glowing buff colour, on the top of the pyramidal hill which lies between the valley of the Borigo and Carei. Go where you will, this eyesore stares you in the face—an offensive blotch in the midst of a glorious amphitheatre of gray picturesque mountains. Will the proprietor not take pity on strangers, and at least tone down the colour of his box? For a tint, he has only to look behind at the old château which crowns the heights of Ste Agnes.

It will take a week to see Nice. You may walk all over Mentone in a forenoon, and two or three days will make you fully acquainted with it. The long main street, named at one end the Rue Victor Emmanuel, and at the other the Rue St Michel, offers nothing to attract. In winter, the plane-trees, which line the roadway for a certain distance, are bare. On our arrival at the beginning of November, the leaves were falling, and encumbered the thoroughfare, until they were cleared away to be used for litter to horses and cattle. Some of the houses in the street are of a huge size; those on the south side throwing those of the north partially into the shade. The newer parts of the street are provided with side pavements; in the older parts towards the east, the buildings stand close to the roadway. Foot-passengers have accordingly to take their chance of being interrupted by carriages, but no other inconvenience is experienced, because here the street is laid from side to side with flat paving-stones, as at Genoa, Naples, and some other Italian cities. In the eastern or older division, the chief shops and other places of business, also public offices, are situated. Few of the shops make much display, and there is little regularity in their appearance; some with large, others with small windows. It would be unreasonable to expect in so small a town the variety of Nice. Yet there are evidences of progress. Those who visited Mentone seven years ago, could have purchased few of the delicacies which are in constant request by the English. Now, all that is changed. Wines, biscuits, pickles, sauces, preserved meats, and other odds and ends, are now supplied as profusely as at home. There are tailleurs and tailleuses ready for any equipment. You might be furnished with a Highland kilt if you wanted it. The town has a carnival in a small way. Previous to the beginning of Lent, when balls are in the ascendant, there is a glow of ladies’ dresses spangled with gold, fancy costumes, masks, feathers, frippery, and artificial flowers in the shop-window of the Amarantes, whose well-known establishment comprehends a store of knick-knacks, where there is no difficulty in getting rid of money. Speaking of money, there are two banking-offices in the street, ready at a moment’s notice to cash your Bank of England or circular notes, at the Paris rate of exchange.

I should infer there is no police regulation to restrain shop-keepers from placing goods outside their doors. The side-paths, though often of scant width, are in sundry places occupied by stalls for the exhibition of miscellaneous articles—calicoes, fish, poultry, meal, flour, fruit, and vegetables, with glass cases of combs and cutlery. To all appearance, any one may set down a stall anywhere, commence to sell articles by auction, or draw a crowd about him as a tooth-extractor, or curer of corns. All goes on in public. The pedicurist, a well-dressed gentlemanly looking personage, takes his stand behind a table and chair. He lays out his instruments. Harangues the masses as to what he has done, and what he can do for them. He has cured the most inveterate corns in all the courts of Europe. He shews a string of eight gold medals given to him in gratitude by emperors, kings, queens, and princesses. He has been sent for to Moscow. He has cured corns in the Kremlin. He points exultingly to a large picture hung on a pole behind him, representing the members of a royal family, each with a bare foot on a richly embroidered cushion preparatory to be operated on, and all of whom he cured one after the other, not a vestige of corn remaining. And he is prepared this instant to cure the worst possible corn of any monsieur or mademoiselle present, sans souffrance—insists greatly on that—oui, messieurs, sans souffrance; certainement sans souffrance, for the insignificant charge of cinquante centimes! One can scarcely fail to be diverted with the volubility, the audacity, and the antics of these wandering charlatans, who remind us of characters inimitably touched off in the brilliant comedies of Molière.

Promenade du Midi, looking north-eastwards.