RIVIERA TOWNS

BY
HERBERT ADAMS GIBBONS

Illustrations
By
LESTER GEORGE HORNBY

NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1931

Copyright, 1920, by
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & Co.

Copyright, 1917, 1918, 1920,
By HARPER & BROTHERS

To
Helen and Margaret
Who Indulge
The Author and the Artist

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We wish to thank the editors of Harper's
Magazine for allowing the republication
of articles and illustrations.

H. A. G.
L. G. H.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

"A grandfather omnibus, which dated from the Second Empire."

"The hill of Cagnes we could rave about."

"The houses in the courts were stables downstairs."

The river was swirling around willows and poplars.

"Down the broad road of red shale past meadows thick with violets."

Medieval streets and buildings have almost disappeared.

"The Old Town takes you far from the psychology of cosmopolitanism
and the philosophy of hedonism."

"La Napoule, above whose tower on the sea rose a hill crowned
with the ruins of a chapel. Behind were the Maritime Alps."

RIVIERA TOWNS

CHAPTER I

GRASSE

For several months I had been seeing Grasse every day. The atmosphere of the Midi is so clear that a city fifteen miles away seems right at hand. You can almost count the windows in the houses. Against the rising background of buildings every tower stands out, and you distinguish one roof from another. From my study window at Théoule, Grasse was as constant a temptation as the two islands in the Bay of Cannes. But the things at hand are the things that one is least liable to do. They are reserved for "some day" because they can be done "any day." Since first coming to Théoule, I had been a week's journey south of Cairo into the Sudan, and to Verdun in an opposite corner of France. Menton and St. Raphaël, the ends of the Riviera, had been visited. Grasse, two hours away, remained unexplored.

I owe to the Artist the pleasure of becoming acquainted with Grasse. One day a telegram from Bordeaux stated that he had just landed, and was taking the train for Théoule. The next