Chapter 6 MENTON

In architectural parlance the cornice is the horizontal molded projection crowning a building, especially the uppermost member of the entablature of an order, surmounting the frieze. The word is also used in mountaineering to describe an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a precipice. In the Maritime Alps it has a striking figurative meaning. There are four corniches-the main roads along the two sections of the Riviera, Menton to Nice and Théoule to Saint-Rapha?l, where the mountains come right down to the sea and nature affords no natural routes.

The Grande Corniche and the Petite Corniche run from Nice to Menton, and the Moyenne Corniche from Nice to Monte Carlo. The Corniche d'Or or Corniche de l'Estérel is the new road from Théoule to Saint-Rapha?l. The word is incorrectly used, for the most part, concerning the two coast roads, the Petite Corniche and the Corniche l'Estérel. For although these beautiful roads do at many points stand high above the sea, they descend as often as possible to connect with the coast towns. But the analogy with the architectural term is perfect in so far as the Grande Corniche and the Moyenne Corniche are concerned. At every point these wonderful roads, undisturbed by tramways and unbroken by towns (except La Turbie on the Grande Corniche and éze on the Moyenne Corniche), you feel that you are traveling along a horizontal molded projection above temples built with hands and the activities of humankind.

From Nice to the Italian frontier the railway, darting in and out of tunnels, keeps near sea level. A small branch climbs from Monte Carlo to La Turbie. The tramway from Nice to Menton follows the Petite Corniche, with a branch to Saint-Jean on Cap Ferrat.

For tourists, Nice is the center of the Riviera, the place to come back to every night after day excursions. Everything is so near that this is possible. Nice is the terminus of railways and tramways east and west. It is the home of the ubiquitous Cook. You can buy all sorts of excursion tickets, and by watching the bulletin posted in front of the Cook office on the Promenade des Anglais, it is possible to "cover" the Riviera in a fortnight. But this means a constant rush, perched on a high seat, crowded in with twenty others, on a char à banes, and only a kaleidoscopic vision of Mediterranean blue, hillside and valley green and brown, roof-top red, wall gray and mountain white. At the end of your orgy, instead of distinct pictures, you carry away an impression of the Riviera in which the Place Masséna is a concrete image and the rest no more than dancing bits of colored glass. Saint-Rapha?l and Menton are the luncheon breaks of two days, and the Grande Corniche is a beautiful vague mountain road over which you whizzed.

And yet there are those who go to the Riviera every year for a daily ride over the Grande Corniche, and who dream during ten months of two months at Menton!

Sitting with our legs daggling over the stone coping at the entrance of the port in Nice, the Artist and I figured out-on the basis of just time for a glimpse and a few sketches-how long it would take us to wander through the Riviera. Reserving March and April each year, we discovered that the allotted three score and ten, seeing that we had already come to half the span, would be inadequate. And there were other parts of the world! So we decided to see what we could, eschew the "day excursions," draw on the memories of former years, and let it go at that. Grande Corniche and Moyenne Corniche would be explored afoot on sunny days and gray; shelter would be sought at Menton; and on the return to Nice, Monte Carlo and Villefranche would be the only tramway stops for us.

To Ventimiglia, as if he foresaw what part of the Riviera would eventually fall to France, Napoleon I was the builder of La Grande Corniche. His engineers, planning for horse-drawn vehicles in an age when time was not money, made the ascent easy by striking inland for several kilometers up from the valley of the Paillon and circling Mont Gros and Mont Vinaigrier. For the first two miles you have Nice and Cimiez below you. Then the road turns, passes the observatory of Bischoffsheim (who won posthumous fame by his having built the house where Wilson lost the battle of Paris in 1919), and goes over the Col des Quatre Chemins. Here begins the matchless succession of views of the loveliest portion of the Riviera coast. Below you is the harbor of Villefranche, between Montboron, which hides Nice, and Cap Ferrat jutting far into the sea with Cap de l'Hospice breaking out to the left. The sea is always on your right as you continue to climb. Ancient éze is on a lower hill midway between you and the Mediterranean. If you have made an early start from Nice, La Turbie will come most conveniently in sight a little before noon.

The only town of the Grande Corniche high up from the sea is on the line given in ancient maps as the frontier between Gaul and Italy, and it is evident that the Roman road followed here the route chosen by Napoleon. For here the Senate raised the trophaeum Augusti to commemorate the subjugation of the Gauls and the new era of tranquillity from invasion for the Empire. On its site one of the most interesting medieval towers in southern France was the ruin par excellence of the Riviera until a few years ago. It is now "restored" so well that it leaves nothing to the imagination-a crime quite in keeping with the spirit of the new age of the "movies." Its architect wanted you to see at a glance just what it used to be. You feel that he would have put arms on the Venus de Milo! As we stood there, a guide came up and began to tell us the history of the tower. We moved over to the terrace. From Montboron to Bordighera the Riviera lay below us, a panorama which commanded silence. Up came the guide fellow, and started to name each place.

"I am about to commit murder," I cried.

"I'll save you the bother by telling him to chase himself with this franc," said the Artist, pulling out the coin. "If only the restorer of the Tower of Augustus were around, he'd come in for a franc too."

La Turbie is not a town to hurry away from after lunch. Its old gateways and leaning houses brought out the Artist's pencil. I tried to explore the paths up the Tête du Chien. Défense de pénétrer-and then selections from the Code about how spies are treated. The same fate met me on the Mont de la Bataille. France may love Italy just now-but she is taking no chances! As far as I could judge, every high slope was fortified. I had tea at one of the hotels perched above the town, counted my money, and suggested to the Artist that we slip down to Monte Carlo for the night.

The next morning we took the little railway back to La Turbie and continued our walk. From La Turbie the Grande Corniche makes a gradual descent behind the principality of Monaco to Cabbé-Roquebrune, and joins the Petite Corniche at Cap Martin. Three miles farther on the Promenade du Midi leads into Menton. This is the most beautiful stretch of the Grande Corniche; and it is paralleled by no other road, as the new Moyenne Corniche ends at Monte Carlo. The view is before you as you go down. The vegetation becomes more tropical. You are nearer the sea, and the feeling of dolce far niente gets into your bones as you approach Cap Martin.

Mont Agel's limestone side gives you back the heat of the sun. It is a radiator. No wonder lemons flower all the year round, and you discover on the same tree buds, flowers, green and yellow fruit. No wonder the palms are not out of their setting as at Cannes and Nice. Locusts, flourishing where there is seemingly no ground to take root in, live from the air, and give forth pods that almost hide the leaves in their profusion. The undergrowth of myrtle and dwarf ilex above becomes aloes and sarsaparilla and wild asparagus as we go down to the sea. We have left the cypresses and cork-trees, and eucalyptus struggles in our nostrils with orange and lemon. Even the ferns are scented! The Artist looks with apathetic eye on the rocks and ruined castle of Roquebrune. When we reach Menton we are willing to sink into cane-seated rockers on the H?tel Bristol porch, call for something in a tall glass with ice in it, and let the morning walk count for a day's journey.

The tourists who know Menton only as a mid-day luncheon break have robbed themselves of an experience that no other Riviera town offers. The Promenade des Anglais at Nice is interesting in the sense that the Avenue des Champs-Elysées is interesting. The Mediterranean is accidental-an unimportant accessory. The Promenade du Midi at Menton is another world. And this other world, with its other world climate, reveals itself to you with increasingly keen delight, as you ride (you do not walk at Menton) around Cap Martin, up the mountain to old Sainte-Agnès, in the gorge of Saint-Louis, along the Boulevard du Garavan, and out to the Giardino Hanbury. You say giardino instead of jardin because Mortola is just across the Italian frontier. The eccentric Englishman chose this spot, without regard to political sovereignty present or future, as the best place to demonstrate the catholicity of the Riviera climate to tropical flora. I simply mention these drives; for you do not ride at Menton any more than you walk. The man who wants to keep his energy and work on the Riviera must not go farther east than Nice.

But why another world? And another world even from that of the rest of the French Riviera? It is partly the climate and the consequent flora, but mostly the light. The general aridity of the Riviera, with the prevalence of everbrowns and evergreens, strikes unpleasantly at first the visitor from the North. Sunshine and riotous colors of flowers and blossoming trees do not make up for the absence of water-fed green. When it rains, the Northerner's depression cannot be fought off. The chill gets to his soul as well as to his bones. He prays for the sun he has come south to seek. But when the sun returns, the dust annoys him. The high wind gets on his nerves.

The casual tourist, whose stay is brief, even if he has come in the most favorable season, is "not so sure about the Riviera, you know." He is impatient with himself because, after the first vivid impression, panoramas and landscapes leave him unsatisfied. There is no compensation for the absence of water-fed green in the canvas of nature until one becomes responsive to other colors. I do not mean particular patches of color in flowers and blossoms. These are of a season. Often they pass in a week. The sun that gives rich life kills quickly. The glory of south lands, especially along the sea, is the constant changing of colors. These colors you will drink in only when by familiarity you have become sensitive to lights and shadows.

If you stay long enough at a place like Menton you will be ready for Southern Italy and Greece. You will be able to drink in the beauty of landscapes without foliage. And when you have acquired this sense, your own country will be a new world to you. Never again, as long as you live, will you tire of any landscape.

The sun veils and unveils itself more often and more quickly and more unexpectedly at Menton than at any place on the Riviera. And the setting for watching the changes is perfect. Menton can say, in the words of the old sundial,

"Son figlia del sole,

Eppure son ombre."