Riviera Towns | Page 6

engaged in a maze of narrow streets, which were made before the days
of victorias. There was no way of turning. We had to go
down--precipitously down. With brake jammed tight, and curses that
echoed from wall to wall and around corners, the cocher held the reins
to his chest. The horses, gently pushed forward, much against their will,
by the weight of the carriage, planted all fours firm and slid over the
stones that centuries of sabots and hand-carts had worn smooth. The
noise brought everyone to windows and doors, and the sight kept them
there. Tourist victorias did not coast through Grasse every day. Advice
was freely proffered. The angrier our cocher became the more
frequently he was told to put on his brake and hold tight to the reins.
After half an hour we came out at the funicular beside the railway
station.
"How delightful, and how fortunate!" exclaimed the Artist. "That
certainly was a short cut. We have saved several kilometers!"

I thought the cocher would explode. But he merely nodded. Far be it
from me to say that he did not understand the Artist's French for "short
cut." Perhaps he thought best to save all comment until the hour of
reckoning arrived. He did not need to. The ride back to the sea was
through the fairyland of the morning climb, enhanced a thousandfold,
as all fairylands are, by the magic of the twilight. One never can make
it up to hired horses for their work and willingness and patience. But
we did live up to local American tradition in regard to the cocher.
CHAPTER II
CAGNES
American and English visitors to the Riviera soon come to know
Cagnes by name. It is a challenge to their ability to pronounce
French--a challenge that must be accepted, if you are in the region of
Grasse or Nice or Antibes. Two distinct tramway lines and several
roads lead from Grasse to Cannes and Cagnes. Unless you are very
careful, you may find yourself upon the wrong route. Once on the
Cagnes tramway, or well engaged upon the road to Cagnes, when you
had meant to go to Cannes, the mistake takes hours to retrieve. At Nice,
chauffeurs and cochers love to cheat you by the confusion of these two
names. You bargain for the long trip to Cannes, and are attracted by the
reasonable price quoted. In a very short time you are at Cagnes. The
vehicle stops. Impossible to rectify your mispronunciation without a
substantial increase of the original sum of the bargain. Antibes is
between Cagnes and Cannes. Cagnes is nearer, and it is always to
Cannes that you want to go. Spell the name, or write it on a piece of
paper, if you are to be sure that you will be taken west instead of east.
The place, as well as the name, is familiar to all travelers--from a
distance. Whether you move by train, by tramway or by automobile,
you see the city set on a hill between Cannes and Nice. But express
trains do not stop. The tramway passes some distance from the old
town, and prospect of the walk and climb is not alluring to the tramway
tourist, whose goal is places important enough to have a map in
Baedeker, or a double-starred church or view. If motorists are not in a

hurry to get to a good lunch, their chauffeurs are. You signal to stop,
and express a desire to go up into Cagnes. The hired chauffeur declares
emphatically that it cannot be done. If you do not believe him, he
drives you to the foot of the hill, and you see with your own eyes.
Regretfully you pass on to towns that are plus pratiques. More than
once I had done this: and I might have done it again had not the Artist
come to the Riviera.
We were afoot (the best way to travel and see things) on an April
Sunday, and stopped for lunch at the restaurant opposite the Cagnes
railway station. The Artist was not hungry. While I ate he went out "to
find what sort of a subject the ensemble of the city on the hill over there
makes." He returned in time for cheese and fruit, with a sketch of
Cagnes that made the waitress run inside to get better apples and
bananas. She insisted that we would be rewarded for a climb up to the
old town, and offered to keep our coats and kits.
Along the railway and tramway and motor-road a modern Cagnes of
villas and hotels and pensions, with their accompaniment of shops and
humbler habitations, has grown for a mile or more, and stretched out
across the railway to the sea. Two famous French artists live here, and
many Parisians