There is still one other class of houses offered for hire, furnished. These are Châlets, or cottages of moderate dimensions, situated amidst orange and olive groves on the sides of the hills, but to which access is obtained only by winding pathways fit for pedestrians, or for donkeys with panniers to bring all necessary provisions. Persons who have a fancy for ruralising amidst very charming scenery, could find nothing more suitable than a residence in these secluded spots. Water, I fear, will prove a difficulty, but that must be looked to.
When several members of a family have to be accommodated, I would recommend a hired dwelling of some sort, be it a villa, a floor, or a châlet, not only for the sake of economy, but for that degree of peace and comfort which is not obtainable even in the best-managed hotel or pension. In the furniture of houses let for hire, napery and plated articles for the table are included, and it may lessen anxiety to know that dinners ready cooked are sent out to order from certain hotels. A confectioner and pâtissier may be applied to for a like purpose. There is a keen competition in the profession of the blanchisseuse. For those residing in hired dwellings, the town is well provided with shops where all things necessary can be procured, which was not the case only a few years ago; and there is also a market daily for eggs, poultry, vegetables, and other articles.
The building and furnishing of houses for hire is evidently a great trade in Mentone. It is a method of employing capital which, being thought safe, appears to commend itself to French notions. Men of considerable wealth, who make little show, embark in it. Propriétaires owning villas of an elegant and costly kind, which from their fortune they would be entitled to reside in, may be heard of as living in an obscure and economic way in the town. Houses for hire of all kinds are for the most part let by commission-agents, who have lists for inspection. Strangers who propose to rent such dwellings, will find it to their advantage to seek the advice and assistance of Mr T. Willoughby, a well-known English grocer and wine-merchant settled in the town, who carries on a business as a house and estate agent, and looks personally after the condition of every dwelling with which he is concerned. To facilitate this species of business, he prints a list of houses and apartments for hire, with a plan of the town shewing where each is situated. He gives a copy of this useful pamphlet, which is printed in English, along with all requisite information, gratis. All English-speaking visitors know Willoughby, who may be considered to be a kind of commercial adviser-general, and ready on all occasions to help his countrymen.
The season is said to begin on the 25th October, and terminate on the 25th April, when the heat becomes inconvenient. I observed, however, that strangers have not fully arrived until the middle of December, and many depart at the beginning of March. Those who come first have of course the best choice of accommodation. According to a list published on the 1st of January 1870, there were 215 English, 41 Americans, 116 Germans, 13 Belgians, 12 Danes and Swedes, 98 French, 21 Dutch, 46 Russians and Poles, and 20 of other nations—total, 582. But as a very large number of the entries in the list were of husband and wife, or of families and suite, we cannot estimate the whole at fewer than twelve hundred adults, and it would be a moderate calculation to set down their aggregate expenditure during the season at less than £200,000.
There were few with whom I conversed who did not complain of the charges of the hotel-keepers: one lady was quite excited on the subject, speaking of the exactions for fuel, lights, and service as something shameful. High charges are certainly more the rule than the exception, and may in the fluctuations of fashion help to drive visitors elsewhere. Nice, however, and other resorts in this quarter, are as dear as Mentone. The hotel-keepers are not without a plausible excuse. They pay high rents; they have to maintain an expensive establishment; their harvest of visitors lasts only six months; two or three bad seasons in succession might finish them. There is truth in this apology, but I would counsel them not to rely too greatly upon it. They may with advantage take into consideration the possibility of lowering the sum-total of their weekly bills. Rivals have entered the field. The people of San Remo, as if awakening from a trance, are making a push for a share of the visitor traffic; and if they render their town attractive by establishing a good promenade along the sea-margin, and by carrying out sundry other improvements to meet the fancy of visitors, they may seriously affect the hotel-keepers as well as the propriétaires of every French winter-resort. It may be years, as I have said, before the railway is opened beyond Mentone (for Italy is in a sad state of impecuniosity, or, more correctly, is suffering from a bad administrative system, along with a want of credit), but there can be no doubt that the railway will be completed as far as San Remo some time or other; and when this event occurs, Cannes, Nice, and Mentone may look for a degree of competition in their staple dependence which at present they do not experience. They had better begin revising their tariff.
It will be understood from the foregoing explanations, that furnished lodgings, in the English sense of the term, do not exist at Mentone. There are no houses in which you can hire one or two apartments by the week, and be waited on by the servants of the keeper. That plan of living is not according to French usage. The tickets hung out of Appartement Meublé, signify a furnished suite of rooms without service, and where the dwellers are left to their own resources. Those who wish to be free of the trouble of independent housekeeping, go into a pension, which suits the gregariousness of the French character. Many English will feel this deficiency to be an inconvenience. It often passed through my mind, that lodging-houses on the English system would answer, and more particularly if that peculiar species of lodging-house which prevails at Brighton were introduced. There, the lodging-houses called ‘Mansions’—as, for example, the Belvidere Mansion—are ready to let apartments and supply food and service at so much a day, each lodger being served in his own apartment, if he pleases; or they will allow lodgers to purchase what they require for themselves. Nowhere, in all my ramblings, have I found any lodging-house system so thoroughly convenient and agreeable as this, and it would be a great recommendation to Mentone if it had something of the kind which we could point to.
I may offer another remark. Propriétaires at Mentone confine their building speculations too exclusively to detached and costly villas, and to tall houses in the main street. Visitors who wish to hire dwellings do not all incline to pay a high rent for a villa, or to live over shops and have windows looking into a dusty street, noisy with traffic. Many would prefer, if it could be got, a house in a connected row, in a sheltered and retired situation, with a southern exposure—such as may be obtained in one of the crescents at Bath, or the famed Lung’ Arno at Pisa. Instead of setting down villas in all sorts of odd spots, some facing this way and some that, and often one overshadowing and interrupting the view of another, how much better would it be for propriétaires to unite, if at all possible, in erecting a score of houses not too high, on the plan of a crescent, in some choice situation, and which houses, while commodious as dwellings, would be hailed as a tranquil and sunny refuge for invalids.
CHAPTER IV.
Something may now be specially said of the climate of Mentone, which as yet is its sole attraction. The charm of the place is its fine air, sunshine, and shelter during the winter months, and for these advantages some petty annoyances may be endured. What will not any one rationally disposed give for health, or a protraction of existence? A journey of several days, much expense, an absence of months from home and from valued friends, possibly professional inconvenience—what is all that when weighed in the balance against a means of extending one’s length of days, and making life a pleasure instead of a constant pain and anxiety! Change of air and scene is in itself a good thing, as is universally acknowledged; but doubly beneficial to the jaded and the enfeebled by functional derangement is the substitution of a mild and exhilarating for an inclement, humid, and depressing winter.