Cannes

“ Away over the beautiful Promenade des Anglais we roll with all Nice glittering and gleaming a goodbye at us, while the sea joins in in a soothing monotone. Our route leads over the long Corniche road, "Autos de course" thunder by us at an appalling speed, would we plod on at a modest gait of forty-five miles per hour.
A moment's pause at Cannes to say goodbye to a friend, and we are en route once more. Cannes is beautiful, but agreeable only if one owns a villa and knows the people. Hotel life there is desolate. ”

“ CANNES.—Any one with a liking for titles, that is, English titles, which are the only ones worth having, is sure to be gratified at Cannes. For Cannes is like Bournemouth, select and expensive. At the Prince de Galles Hotel in Cannes the other day, when the register was brought to me to sign, I noticed that for five pages mine was the only name of a commoner. Earls were as thick as blackberries and there were Viscounts galore. This explains why so few, comparatively, are met with at the other Riviera resorts. ”

“ In the early morning the distant image of Cannes, the pink and cream of old fortifications, the purple Alp that bounded Italy, were cast across the water and lay quavering in the ripples and rings sent up by sea-plants through the clear shallows. Before eight a man came down to the beach in a blue bathrobe and with much preliminary application to his person of the chilly water, and much grunting and loud breathing, floundered a minute in the sea. ”

“ Most of the hotels have good libraries, and one can lounge away days in the palm-shaded garden, watching the sunshine dance and sparkle upon the rich blue sea. There is a restful feeling about Cannes, an aristocratic repose and seclusion not shared by any of the other resorts on the coast, except, perhaps, in a modified degree, by San Remo; and physicians say the air here is not so stimulating as at Nice and Mentone. Of course, it is not so stimulating as at Monte Carlo, either, but that is for a different reason! ”

“ Compared with Nice, Cannes enjoys certain advantages. It is less towny and commercial. It does not [183] savour of Monte Carlo. It possesses on the east the wooded height of La Californie, studded with hotels and villas, commanding one of the most beautiful evening views in Europe. When the sun goes down beyond the Estérel range, standing up in royal purple against an amber sky, it may well be thought that this is a scene of unsurpassable beauty. ”

“ At the beginning of the Promenade de la Croisette, only three miles from the Napoleon column, stands Puech's remarkable statue of Edward VII, who spoke French with a German accent, but who never concealed his preference for France over the land of his ancestors.
One charm of Cannes is the feeling one has of not being crowded. At Nice and along the eastern Riviera hotels and villas jostle each other. Around Cannes the gardens are more important than the buildings. Striking straight inland from the Casino past the railway station, the broad Boulevard Carnot gradually ascends to Le Cannet. ”

“ If there were blue skies now and then in a London February, what was February along the Riviera but the most exquisite springtime? And perhaps on all that favoured shore, Cannes has the richest firstfruits of the fertile year, for it is then that the mimosas are in their glory, and the hill of Californie is a yellow fairyland, an enchanted region, where all the trees drop golden rain.
Eve and her lover husband were at Cannes. Delicious as the place was at this season, and new as the shores of the Mediterranean were to Eve, she and her husband had not come there for their own pleasure. ”

“ Indeed, Cannes itself manufactures perfumes, and around are some gardens filled with a short or stunted species of acacia, growing to about the size of a large gooseberry bush, and bearing globular yellow flowers from which perfume is extracted. Beyond Grasse, the landward panorama is bounded on the north by distant mountain chains.
It is at all times difficult to realize a place from description, even with the aid of the pictorial art; but perhaps from this short delineation it may be perceived that there is a marked character about the site, locality, and features of Cannes. ”

“ The Riviera of 1865 was not the garish, flamboyant rendezvous of cosmopolitan finance, of ostentatious newly acquired wealth, and of highly decorative ladies which it has since become. Cannes, in particular, was a quiet little place of surpassing beauty, frequented by a few French and English people, most of whom were there on account of some delicate member of their families. We went there solely because my sister, Lady Mount Edgcumbe, had already been attacked by lung-disease, and to prolong her life it was absolutely necessary for her to winter in a warm climate. ”

“ Cannes is lovely,—far lovelier than Nice in its natural scenery, but Cannes is cold to tourists, dull for those who have not the open sesame to its charmed social circle. The ordinary visitor will find Nice far more gay. Here, too, there is an exclusive villa and hotel set, but it does not dominate the situation as at Cannes. There is welcome and entertainment for everyone at Nice. On the Promenade des Anglais stroll men and women from all countries and all classes, and queer groups collect at "la potinière," the gossip rendezvous which ends the promenade. ”

“ Humankind and human habitation had occupied the Artist and myself on almost every day afield from, Théoule. Of course we had taken in the scenery, sketched it and spoken about it, but only as a background or accompaniment. From Cannes to Menton it is the human side of the Riviera that gets you. Nature is a sort of musical accompaniment to the song of human activity. Between Cannes and the Italian frontier, where the railway does not skirt the coast, you have the tramway. It is with you always, night and day, and makes itself heard at every curve. ”

“ Cannes is the one of the health resorts which has perhaps made the greatest progress within the last fifty years, having developed from the small fishing village which Lord Brougham found it in 1831, when he erected the first English villa, into a town of fine residences and splendid hotels extending for about four miles along the coast, and rising on the wooded hills, or nestling in the sheltered ravines which seam their flanks. ”

“ Nor is it only this air of cheerfulness and vivacity which makes Cannes so pleasant a spring resort for invalids; it possesses in addition an advantage of situation which its more sheltered rivals necessarily want. The high mountain walls that give their complete security from cold winds to Mentone or San Remo are simply prison walls to visitors who are too weak to face a steep ascent on foot or even on donkey-back, for drives are out of the question except along one or two monotonous roads. ”

“ If one does not make his entry into Cannes by road, direct from the Estérel, he will probably come by the way of Le Cannet. Le Cannet is itself a sumptuous suburb which in every way foretells the luxury which awaits one in the parent city by the seashore.
Three kilometres of palm and plantain bordered avenue, lined with villas and hotels, joins Le Cannet with Cannes. Not long ago the suburb was an humble, indifferent village, but the tide of popularity came that way, and it has become transformed. ”

“ We lay at Cannes, a neat village, charmingly situated on the beach of the Mediterranean, exactly opposite to the isles Marguerites, where state-prisoners are confined. As there are some good houses in this place, I would rather live here for the sake of the mild climate, than either at Antibes or Nice. Here you are not cooped up within walls, nor crowded with soldiers and people: but are already in the country, enjoy a fine air, and are well supplied with all sorts of fish. ”

“ Only a hundred years ago Arthur Young had trouble to get an old woman and a donkey to carry his portmanteau from Cannes to Antibes. I can myself remember Cannes in 1853, a small fishing village with a quiet beach, and Mentone, a walled town with mediaeval gates and a castle, a few humble villas and the old Posta to give supper to any passing traveller. It was one of the loveliest bits of Italy, and the road from Nizza to Genoa was one long procession for four days of glorious scenery, historic remnants, Italian colour, and picturesque ports. ”

“ To tell the truth, Cannes is far more delightful “out of season,” when its gay, idling population of strangers has disappeared, stolen away to the watering-places of the north, there to live the same deadly dull existence, made up of rounds of tea-drinking and croquet-playing, with perhaps an occasional ride in a char-à-banc. Probably the millionaire improves somewhat upon this régime, but there are countless thousands who live this very life in European watering-places—and think they are enjoying themselves. ”

“ This is the sun which warms her, these are the waves whose murmur lulls her to sleep, the air which quickens her. I cannot breath here!
My people, who enjoy being at Cannes, give way to my express wish: we are to leave again.
To-morrow will be our last day here. I am seated on the promenade. Where are the luxurious cars with their insolent footmen? Where are the dandies in white flannel, the fair pedestrians in toilettes fit for a queen? The patrons of the Riviera, this year, are those poor soldiers in faded uniforms. ”

“ A Briton willingly follows where a lord leads, and Cannes became the centre of English fashion, a position it holds to-day in spite of many attractive rivals, and the defection of Victoria who comes now to Cimiez, back of Nice, being unwilling to visit Cannes since the sudden death there of the Duke of Albany. A statue of Lord Brougham, the “discoverer” of the littoral, has been erected in the sunny little square at Cannes, and the English have in many other ways, stamped the city for their own.
No other race carry their individuality with them as they do. ”

“ He sat on the right hand of his hostess, and the exquisitely pretty woman on his other side bore with the practised equanimity of a Frenchwoman the jokes that were more coarse than humorous, the compliments, familiarities and methods to which many winters at Cannes had used her. For Cannes is almost a preserve of the Grand Duke, and he is suffered there, if not gladly, at least with toleration. ”

“ Eventually it was heard of by the physicians, and they ceased to recommend their patients to go to Montpellier, but rather to try Cannes. When Lord Brougham settled there, it was but a fishing village; in thirty years it was transformed; and from Cannes stretches a veritable [3] rosary of winter resorts to Hyères on one side to Alassio on the other; as white grains threaded on the line from Marseilles to Genoa. As this chain of villas, hotels, casinos, and shops has sprung up so recently, the whole looks extremely modern, and devoid of historic interest. ”

“ From that time the Riviera, east and west of Cannes, has steadily increased in popularity and in transplanted institutions. The chief of these is perhaps the tea-tippling craze which has struck the Riviera with full force. It’s not as exhilarating an amusement as automobiling, which runs it a close second here, but a “tea-fight” at a Riviera hôtel de luxe has at least something more than the excitement of a game of golf or croquet, which also flourish on the sand-dunes under the pines, from St. Tropez to Menton, and even over into Italy. ”

“ And I thought that from Cannes, where one poses, to Monaco, where one gambles, people come to this spot of the earth for hardly any other purpose than to get embroiled or to throw away money on chance games, displaying under this delicious sky and in this garden of roses and oranges all base vanities and foolish pretensions and vile lusts, showing up the human mind such as it is, servile, ignorant, arrogant and full of cupidity. ”

“ We took the so-called train de luxe, which proved terrible for shakiness. We arrived at Cannes on the morning of our twenty-sixth wedding-day, and after weary searching for lodgings, were glad to find comfortable rooms at the Hôtel Windsor. The Riviera was beautiful with the bluest skies and sea, sunshine, crisp breeze, and flowers; the greenest vegetation, always excepting the hideous eucalyptus, everywhere clad in rags and tatters like the savages in their native land. The settlement contains, in round numbers, six hundred and fifty villas, large and small. ”

“ The golden fruit were shed, and the leaves were bleached and pendant.
If Cannes has gone up in the world, her neighbours have gone down. About four miles from Cannes, in the Plain of the Siagne, is an outcrop of the Estérel red [185] sandstone, crowned by magnificent pines, cypresses, cork trees and ilexes, that embower a chapel of S. Cassien and a farm. Here, till recently, lived a hermit. These gentry are becoming scarce. ”

“ As for me, I eat nothing at all. At the same time, a friend who came down from Paris expressly to see me considers my food excellent. We have nothing but some queer-looking fish, mutton, and woodcock. You may believe that Cannes is becoming too civilised, entirely too much so. They are now engaged in destroying one of my favourite walks, the rocks near Napoule, to build the railroad in that direction. When it is completed we can take advantage of it, as we did that of Bellevue; but Cannes will then become infested with the Marseillais, and all its picturesqueness will be lost. ”

“ Nice is so surrounded by beautiful walks and drives, that one fails in the attempt to describe the half of them. View after view breaks on the admiring gaze, till you cease to exclaim at the varying loveliness, and content yourself by drinking in the grandeur and beauty of nature in silent admiration.
It is colder and more bracing here than at Cannes, but on the whole the climate is more equable, there [46] being no such sudden fall in the temperature after sunset; it is, however, I fear, less suited for invalids of a consumptive nature than other parts of the Riviera. ”