Villefranche-sur-Mer

“ Beyond Villefranche the long hilly peninsula of Beaulieu and St. Hospice stretches for fully three miles out into the bay, as green as an emerald, with some twenty pleasure-boats usually clustering about its shores, for the cork woods of St. Hospice are famous for picnics and merrymaking, and its little hotel is renowned throughout Europe for its fish-dinners. ”

“ On the Grande Corniche, where the Riviera coast from Cap d'Antibes to Cap Martin is before you, and the Mediterranean rises to meet the sky, every outstanding feature of the picture is a cape or town, fortification or lighthouse, except at Villefranche. Here the land is the setting. The water of the harbor, changing as you look to green and back to blue until you are not sure which is the color, is the feature that attracts and holds you. Montboron, the littoral and Cap Ferrat are as secondary as the prongs and ring which hold a precious stone. ”

“ We further learnt that the whole of the French Mediterranean fleet would be at Villefranche at the time, and that picked oarsmen from the fleet would compete for the championship. My father at once determined to win this prize; the idea became a perfect obsession with him, and he determined to have a special boat built. ”

“ Try to climb up from Villefranche over crags and through stone-paved and rock-lined ravines to the Moyenne Corniche, and then on to the higher mountain-slopes, and you can imagine how difficult it was to get away from raiders, and why the Barbary pirates took a full bag of luckless Riverains on every raid. You comprehend the raison d'être of the fortified hill towns, and Éze, perched on her cliff, has a new meaning as you look down on Villefranche. ”

“ Behind Villefranche, and continuing for fully fifty miles along the Italian coast, rise the majestic mountains of the Riviera. Nothing can be imagined more awe-striking than their appearance: their weird shapes, their gloomy ravines, their fearful precipices, beetling over the sea many thousand feet, their crags, peaks, chasms and desolate grandeur produce a panorama of unsurpassed magnificence. But what impresses one most is perceiving that, however barren they seem, they are nevertheless thickly peopled. ”

“ The bay is a favourite place of anchorage of the French squadron, as well as of other ships of war and yachts. Boat from the mole to the little pier on the peninsula of St. Jean, 1 fr. each person. From Villefranche commences the splendid Road to Monaco, 8 m. long and 18 ft. wide, exclusive of the space for foot-passengers. This most enjoyable carriage-drive skirts with the railway the base of the precipitous cliffs which rise from the sea. 1 m. from Villefranche by rail, or 13⁄4 by road, is
opp. 185 THE CORNICHE ROAD
NICE to MENTON
Beaulieu. ”

“ VILLEFRANCHE-DE-ROUERGUE, a town of France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aveyron, 36 m. W. of Rodez by road. Pop. (1906) town, 6297, commune, 3352. Villefranche, which has a station on the Orleans railway, lies amongst the hills on the right bank of the Aveyron at its junction with the Alzou. One of the three bridges that cross the river belongs to the 13th century, and the straight, narrow streets are full of gabled houses of the 13th and 14th centuries. One of the principal thoroughfares passes beneath the porch of Notre-Dame, the principal church of Villefranche. ”

“ On the very western limit of Villefranche, on the winding white road which rises out of Nice, a road so frequently passed over by automobiles that a haze of dust always hangs over it, is a modest little villa, so modest that a ballerina would scorn it and a duchess ignore it. It is, in truth, a pensione, where only those who come well recommended are accepted as guests. ”

“ I remember a dozen years ago watching the French Mediterranean fleet of six or eight battle-ships leaving the harbor of Villefranche, near Nice. There was some manœuvring to get their several stations, during which, here and there, a vessel lying quiet waiting her opportunity would glide forward with a dozen slow turns of the screws, not agitating the water beyond a light ripple at the bows. ”

“ The moon—Captain and Madame d'Haumont's honeymoon—rose with its soft refulgence over the silver waves at Villefranche, at the extremity of Cape Ferrat, between Nice and Monte Carlo. It was here, in the seclusion of the fragrant gardens of "Thalassa," the splendid villa which M. de la Boulays possessed on the azure coast of the Mediterranean, that they had hidden their great and new-found happiness.
Leaning on the beflowered balcony the happy couple listened in silence to the moaning of the sea breaking itself at the foot of the hills which watched over this enchanted bay. ”

“ To know the full charms of the road from Nice to Villefranche and Beaulieu one should start early in the morning, say in April or even May, when, to him who has only known the Riviera in the winter months, the very liquidness of the atmosphere and the landscape will be a revelation. All is impregnated with a penetrating gentle light, under which the house walls, the roadway, the waves, the rocks, and the foliage take on a subtle tone which is quite indescribable and quite different from the artificiality which is more or less present all through the Riviera towns in winter. ”

“ In an affray over this the mountaineers killed several citizens of Bayonne. In reprisal, in the reign of Edward III of England, Duke of Gascony and Aquitaine, the mayor of Bayonne, a Sieur de Puyane, descended on Villefranche on S. Bartholomew's Day, when a fair was being held there, caught five burgesses of note and fastened them to the arches of the bridge, and let them drown to show by occular demonstration that the tide did rise to Villefranche, and that therefore it was within the jurisdiction of Bayonne. The Basques rose en masse and massacred the Labourdins wherever they caught them. ”

“ Suddenly there rose from the sea a flat-topped building, then another and another, until a whole village lay spread out on the water before us. The houses appeared to sit like gulls on the ruddy sea. It was Port Said. Beyond the town we could see a stretch of reddish desert sand. Slowly the Warwickshire nosed her way into the canal, the anchor ran out with a rattle and roar, and there swarmed upon our decks a multitude of strange-looking people who seemed to belong to another world. ”

“ The erection of a new quay absorbs every mind; and all the workmen that can be procured are busy hurrying to and fro, amidst the mud and water of the spot where passengers land from the steam-boat. One would wonder why any body should think of coming to Saintes at all, except from curiosity, as we did; but that it is the direct route to the Gironde; where, from Mortagne, another steam-boat, in communication with the Charente, conveys passengers to Bordeaux. ”

“ The Worcestershire glided past a far-reaching break-water, and, steaming among a school of smaller boats and vessels, rode to an anchorage in the center of the harbor. A crowd swarmed on board, and in the rush and noise I left my stone and hurried below to pack my “shore bundle.” Through the kindness of the chief steward, I was well supplied with cotton suits. I returned to the captain, got his permission to leave, tossed my bundle into the company launch, and, with one English half-penny jingleless in my pocket, set foot on the green island of Ceylon. ”

“ Between the two shores, cut by the prows of the rapid steamers that stop not for wind or wave, and the sailing vessels that the westerly winds keep back at times in hundreds, there stretches the expanse of ever-moving water, ever changing, here gray and streaked with foam, there blue and calm, and broken into restless bills that mark the zigzagged current-line. No one can remain insensible to the sublime beauties that the two continents, Europe and Africa, bring face to face along the double panorama of the Straits of Gibraltar.
Swiftly does the “Ferrato” approach the African coast. ”

“ For in these yards there seems no particular difference between land and water; the tide comes and goes anywhere, and nobody minds it; boats are drawn up among burdocks and ambrosia, and the platform on which you stand suddenly proves to be something afloat. Vessels are hauled upon the ways, each side of the wharf, their poor ribs pitiably unclothed, ready for a cumbrous mantua-making of oak and iron. On one side, within a floating boom, lies a fleet of masts and unhewn logs, tethered uneasily, like a herd of captive sea-monsters, rocking in the ripples. ”

“ The last day of November, a month after my arrival in Marseilles, found me still gazing out upon the Château d’If and up at the ship’s ball on the summit of Notre Dame de la Garde, and still tramping sorrowfully up and down the breakwater and the endless wharves. But with the new month my luck changed. The Warwickshire of the Bibby Line, plying between England and Burma, put in at Marseilles to await her overland passengers and sent out a call for a sailor. I was the first man on board, displayed my discharge from the cattle boat, and was called into the cabin. ”

“ Sooth to speak, I am captain of an English cruizer, which lies in the harbour yonder.”
“Jesu shield us!” exclaimed Inez, with lips that would have told her terror without words. “Durst thou, then, to enter Cadiz Harbour with a single cruizer?”
“’Twas a perilous deed, certes,” answered [296] Hildebrand, “and Heaven grant it prove not fatal! But, to the point. My bark is the outermost one in the harbour, and hath the Scottish flag (St. Andrew’s cross, red on white) flying at the stern. I would the cavalier would visit her.” ”

“ In the very midst of wharf traffic was a small and flashing garden gay with cannas and dahlias, a garden kept with care and tenderness. It had an air of having strayed in by mistake; one expected to see the wife of one of the old whalers' weeding it.
I suppose it has been the dream of everyone who cares for things of the sea to take a long voyage on a sailing-vessel. Most of us on the New England coast have had our minds stored when we were young with tales of such voyages. ”

“ Once out of the narrow Villerville streets, and the pastoral was in full swing.
The sea along this coast was not in the least insistant; it allowed the shore to play its full gamut of power. There were no tortured shapes of trees or plants, or barren wastes, to attest the fierce ways of the sea with the land. Reminders of the sea and of the life that is lived in ships were conspicuous features everywhere, in the pastoral scenes that began as soon as the town ended. Women carrying sails and nets toiled through the green aisles of the roads and lanes. ”

“ How beautiful it was outside in that gay little place, with the Red Hungarian Band playing on the terrace of the Café de Paris, and half the grand monde of Europe lounging about and chattering! How enchanting was the grim Dog's Head as a fitting background in dark purple against the winter sunset, the brown Grimaldi rock rising sheer from the sea to the castellated walls of the Palace; to the right, Villefranche and San Juan dark upon the horizon,—the serrated Esterels dark and mysterious afar; while to the left, Bordighera was sparkling white in the sunshine. ”

“ Our vessels being built sharp, for swift sailing, suffer extremely in most of the western ports of France, in which they are left on dry ground at every ebb of the tide. But at Honfleur, I am told, they can ride in bold water, on a good bottom, and near the shore, at all times. ”

“ On arriving at Rio in 1555, Villegagnon first took possession of the small island Lage near the mouth of the harbor; but soon finding this too much exposed to the sea, removed to one larger near the site of the present city, to which, with the fort erected upon it, he gave the name of Coligny. The vessels were sent back to France for reinforcements. Great interest in the enterprise had in the mean time been excited among the Protestants there. ”

“ Down on the harbor front the electric arcs were blazing fitfully; by the wharves and at anchor in the roadstead, slant lateen sails of feluccas gleamed weirdly in the moon's soft radiance, and a mail steamer just in from Gibraltar looked like some monstrous crawling white bug studded with many-colored eyes.
The Straits were very calm that night; they seemed a sheet of clear, black glass, star strewn; far out rested a blur of faintly luminous haze, behind which Gibraltar itself loomed dark and menacing. ”

“ In the still dawn the arms of the harbour were like gold bars encircling a sapphire, and in the distance we could see the little towns along the sea-board shining rosily from their misty hills. Sometimes the bay was sown with boats, like azure embroidery with butterflies, and sometimes below the windows the cargo of a felucca with gold and bronze sails was being unloaded on the wharf. The sailors were clad in white and blue, or stripped to the waist, with scarlet sashes girding up their short white drawers. How Brangwyn could have caught that vivid colour against the pearly dawn! ”

“ Little mer-boats of carved pink coral with purple seaweed sails or of mother-of-pearl with rosy, mer-flower-petal sails, were floating through the streets. In some, sat little mer-maidens, the sunlight flashing on their pretty green scales, on their long, golden tresses, on the bright mirrors they held in their hands. Other boats held little mer-boys who made beautiful music on the harps they carried.
“At one end of the mer-village Klara could see one palace, bigger and more beautiful than all the others. ”