Mentone

“ The next morning when we opened our windows there entered the Mediterranean Sea. It is the bluest water in the world; not a clear cold blue like that of the Swiss lakes, but a soft warm tint like that of June sky, shading off on the horizon, not into darker blue or gray, but into the white of opal and mother-of-pearl. With the sea came in also the sunshine. The sunshine of Mentone is its glory, its riches, its especial endowment. Day follows day, month follows month, without a cloud; the air is pure and dry, fog is unknown. "The sun never stops shining;" ”

“ Mentone was of recent growth--the old settlement, Mentone of Symonds, proclaims its existence only by a ceaseless and infernal clanging of bells, rivalling Malta--no history, no character, no tradition--a mushroom town inhabited by shopkeepers and hôteliers who are there for the sole purpose of plucking foreigners: how should a youngster's imagination be nurtured in this atmosphere of savourless modernism? Then I asked myself: who comes to these regions, now that invalids have learnt the drawbacks of their climate? ”

“ We breathe more freely when he is past—this terrible man of office. But nothing afraid, three women of Mentone are close upon his heels, perhaps in gaping admiration. Two of them bear on their heads each a large basket of dirty clothes they are taking to some dirty pool to wash. The third leads a child, and wears a broad Mentone flat hat, 16 inches wide at the very least. All are sturdy, and their carriage is erect. ”

“ He had not left Mentone at once.
‘Come down,’ he repeated persuasively, and yet commandingly.
I could feel my heart beating against the marble parapet of the balcony. I seemed to be caught, to be trapped. I could not argue with him in that position. I could not leave him shouting in the garden. So I nodded to pacify him, and disappeared quickly from the balcony, almost scurrying away. ”

“ No doubt there are a good many invalids at Mentone, and some of them have all the appearance of being so, but they do not predominate by any means. Many of them keep their rooms, and those who go out seldom go beyond the promenade, except for a drive. It is indeed painful sometimes to see some delicate invalids who are hopelessly beyond recovery, and particularly young men, thin, gaunt, and white, well wrapped up, even on sunny days; but they are never so numerous as to make Mentone a painful residence. The English people, as a rule, are wiser than the Continental. ”

“ Clary; "it is to me like paradise—always silvery and fair. No matter where you go, there it is; whether you look from Cap Martin or St. Agnese, from Ciotti or Roccabruna, you can always see Bordighera shining in the sunlight. Even when there is a mist, so that Mentone itself is veiled and Ventimiglia lost, Bordighera can be seen gleaming whitely through. And finally you end by not wanting to go there; you dread spoiling the vision by a less fair reality, and you go away, leaving it unvisited, but carrying with you the remembrance of its shining and its feathery palms." ”

“ ON THE WAY TO L' ANNUNZIATA
"Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, "Adam and Eve were banished from the garden of Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand just before passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from the last tree beside the angel. The two then wandered through the world together, wandered far and wide, and at last, following the shores of the Mediterranean, they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve planted her treasured fruit. 'Go, little seed,' she said; 'grow and prosper. ”

“ To them those human mysteries, the keeper of the pension, the petty trader and the laundress are as an open book. They fill the frivolous bachelor with reverential alarm, but their acquaintance with the rate of exchange, the price of butter and the cheap shop is supreme in its intricacy. These “aunts” are to be found in larger numbers in Mentone than in any other resort of the English in France.
The old town of Mentone is small and circumscribed. It stands in the centre of the place as a low hillock or promontory. ”

“ We were on the road to Genoa with the first gray of the dawn: the surgeon, a French officer, and myself, three passengers of a courier barouche. We were climbing up mountains and sliding down with locked wheels for several hours, by a road edging on precipices, and overhung by tremendous rocks, and, descending at last to the sea-level, we entered Mentone, a town of the little principality of Monaco. ”

“ It was the very uncertainty that pleased him; men love the women of whom they are not quite certain, all the more. From Nice they wandered to Mentone, but the proximity of the Monte Carlo tables had no charm for Anthony Pennell. He was not a speculative man: his brain was filled with better things, and he only visited such places for the sake of reproduction. Although the autumn was now far advanced, the air of Mentone was too enervating to suit either of them, and Pennell proposed that they should move on to Italy. ”

“ And presently from the rock, the niche, and the plateau they came slowly in, Janet flushed, and Inness very pale, Baker like a thunder-cloud, Miss Elaine smiling and conscious, Verney annoyed, Lloyd just as usual, and Margaret with a younger look in her face than I had seen there for months. In the little rock amphitheatre below we found the villagers merrily dancing; and some strangers like ourselves, who had come out from Mentone later, were amusing themselves by dancing also. ”

“ In America, Time is not old or slow; he has given up his hour-glass, and travels by express. Each month of ours equals one of your years, each year a century. Therefore have we all a singularly mature air—as exemplified in myself. But to return. Upon this spot, then, my friends, there was once—carnage! The only positive and historical carnage in the neighborhood of Mentone. Therefore all warlike spirits should come to Gorbio, and breathe the inspiring air. ”

“ A recently-published guide-book to the south of France says, with regard to Mentone:—’A kind of gloom pervades Menton. The strip of ground on which it stands is narrow, and so are the streets.’ ‘The valleys are narrow and sombre. The roads up the mountains are steep, badly paved, and are generally traversed on donkeys, which go slowly and require so much chastisement that an ordinary walker will find it less fatiguing to dispense with them.’ It also sets down the population at 12,000, and that of Cannes, by far the larger town, at 7000. ”

“ And they were not all delicious xebecs, either; there were some good-sized sea-going vessels among them, brig-rigged in front with the seven or eight small square sails they string up one above the other, and a towel out to windward."
"The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret; "they never come from the point they seem to come from. If they blow full in your face from the east, make up your mind that they come directly from the west. ”

“ Clary. "Those who confine themselves to sitting in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Promenade du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty than a man born blind has of a painting. Descriptions are nothing; one must see. I think the mountain excursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone; if you do not know them, you are no true Israelite."
Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate little sprays and blossoms here and there and silently giving them to Janet. ”

“ The wind was contrary, and we had to row all night, and in the morning the sea was so rough that we had to put in at Mentone. My two sweethearts were very sick, as also my brother and Possano, but I was perfectly well. I took the two invalids to the inn, and allowed my brother and Possano to land and refresh themselves. The innkeeper told me that the Prince and Princess of Monaco were at Mentone, so I resolved to pay them a visit. It was thirteen years since I had seen the prince at Paris, where I had amused him and his mistress Caroline at supper. ”

“ There can be few who will not admit that the modern town of Mentone is commonplace and rather characterless, but, at the same time, it must be insisted that a large proportion of the Mentone villas are—from every point of view—charming and free from the charge of being vulgar. ”

“ Mentone is not a place to attract fashionable and gay visitors, they have no public gardens, no places of amusement, most visitors are supposed to be invalids. They have a promenade by the sea and a pavilion, but you never see many people about. I think they must all go to Monte Carlo or Nice when they want to see a little life. Mentone is hemmed in and sheltered from the north and east by the French Alps (Alps Maratimes) ; they form a bold back ground with bristling spurs, and valleys, and ravines down to the shores of the Mediterranean. ”

“ Mentone has two bays, the East, where we are, and the West, the two being separated by the port and the 'old town.' Behind us, on the north, extends the double chain of mountains, the first rising almost directly from the sea, the second and higher chain behind, so that the two together form a screen, which completely protects this coast. ”

“ Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a pæan moment" for us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in remembrance.
One bright day not long after this we went to Mentone's sister city, Roccabruna, a little town looking as if it were hooked on to the side of the mountain. As we passed through the "old town" on our donkeys we met a wedding-party, walking homeward from the church, in the middle of the street. The robust bride, calm and majestic, moved at the head of the procession with her father, her white muslin gown sweeping the pavement behind her. ”

“ At Mentone we heard that in one week, while we were there, two young men, visitors, had committed suicide; but such occurrences do not reach the newspapers.
It was pleasant to leave this gay though sad scene of a vicious institution to stroll into the tasteful little shops [217] permitted outside, in which enticing fine-art wares in choice variety are displayed, or wander about the gardens and terraces, sitting in the sunshine under shelter of the trees from the air, which is often cold at Monte Carlo when mild at Mentone, and looking at the lovely scenes around. ”

“ Mentone (8) , town and seaport in France, on the Mediterranean, 11⁄2 m. from the Italian border; was under the princes of Monaco till 1848, when it subjected itself to Sardinia, which afterwards handed it over to France; protected by the Alps, the climate is delightful, and renders it a favourite health resort in winter and spring; it exports olive-oil and fruit.
Mentor, a friend of Ulysses, and the tutor of his son Telemachus, whose form and voice Athena assumed in order to persuade his pupil to retain and maintain the courage and astuteness of his father. ”

“ There is little of architectural interest in Mentone. The church, built in 1619, and added to in 1675, is in the tasteless style of the period, but tower and spire are effective from a distance. In the church is preserved a processional cross, the staff of which is formed out of a Turkish lance taken by Prince Honoré I. of Monaco, in the battle of Lepanto, 1571. But if Mentone be somewhat deficient in picturesque features, the same cannot be said of Roquebrune, which for so many centuries shared its fortunes. It is dominated by the castle of the Lascaris. ”

“ I said, falling behind so as to join them, "the English are not mystical, as some of us are. They are content with what they can definitely know, and they leave the rest."
During the next week, after a long discussion, we decided to go up the valley of the Nervia. The discussion was not inharmonious: we liked discussions.
"This is by no means one of the ordinary Mentone excursions," said Mrs. Clary, as our three carriages ascended the Cornice Road towards the east, on a beautiful morning after one of the rare showers. "Many explore all of the other valleys, and visit Monaco and Monte Carlo ”

“ Mentone was “invented” by Dr. J. Henry Bennet, whose delightful book on Winter and Spring on the Shores of the Mediterranean, 1861, has gone through several editions, and is still the best guide to such as are in quest of a winter resort. He settled at Mentone in 1859, and speedily appreciated its climatic advantages. These advantages are inestimable for the worst winter months. But when the sun gathers strength, it is advisable for the traveller to break his return journey to the cold and fogs of England by a cool bath in S. Raphael “ventosa.” ”

“ Nothing can change the eternal magnificence of form of the naked Alps behind Mentone; nothing, not even the crude curves of the railway, can utterly deform the suavity of contour of one bay after another along the whole reach of the Riviera. And of all this, he has only a cold head knowledge that is divorced from enjoyment. He recognises with his intelligence that this thing and that thing is beautiful, while in his heart of hearts he has to confess that it is not beautiful for him. It is in vain that he spurs his discouraged spirit ”

“ Mentone, says M. Planchut, which is the nearest resort to Monte Carlo, is neither rich, populous, nor luxurious. 'While there has been a surprising increase in the population of Ems, Wiesbaden, and Hombourg since the abolition [345] of their tables, the population of Mentone has scarcely increased by two thousand souls since its annexation by France. Mentone will not be possible as a winter residence for invalids until the tables have disappeared from the littoral.' Nice also suffers, says this caustic French censor, from its proximity to Monte Carlo. ”