CHAPTER VIII.

ANTIBES AND THE GOLFE JOUAN

Beyond Cannes, on the eastern shore of the Golfe Jouan, before one comes to the peninsula’s neck, is a newly founded station known as Jouan-les-Pins. It is little more than a hamlet, though there are villas and hotels and a water-front with wind-shelters and all the appointments which one expects to find in such places.

Jouan-les-Pins really is a delightful place, the rock-pines coming well down to the shore and half-burying themselves in the yellow sands. A boulevard, bordered by a balustrade, extends along the water’s edge and forms that blend of artificiality and nature which, of all places on the Riviera, is seen at its best at Monte Carlo.

Undoubtedly there is some sort of a great future awaiting Jouan-les-Pins, for it is already regarded as a suburb of Antibes, and it is but a few years since Antibes itself was but a narrow-alleyed, high-walled little town, reminiscent of the mediæval fortress that it once was. To-day the bastions of Antibes have nearly disappeared under the picks of the industrious workmen.

The chief event of historic moment in the vicinity was the landing of Napoleon here on his return from Elba, on March 1, 1815. Every one feared the time when the “Corsican ogre” should break loose, and when the ambitious Napoleon set foot upon the shores of the Golfe Jouan, there was no doubt but that his sole object was to regain the throne which he had lost. Provence, Languedoc, and Dauphiné were supposed to be faithful to the reigning Louis, hence there was little fear that Napoleon’s march would extend beyond their confines. How well the emotions of a people were to be judged in those days is best recalled by the fact that it was but a mere promenade from Jouan-les-Pins, via Grasse, Gap, and Sisteron, to Lyons. The opinions of the advisers of Louis XVIII. were decidedly wrong, for, while the Provençaux remained faithful to the Bourbon, the mountaineers of Dauphiné were only too ready and willing to give Napoleon the aid he wished.

In the early ages the shores of the Golfe Jouan were well known and beloved by Phœnicians, Greeks, Romans, barbarians, and Moors alike. The name Jouan, which comes down from the Saracens, has by some geographers been changed to Juan. Since, however, the old Provençal spelling and pronunciation was Jouan (_ou_ being the Provençal accent of the French _u_), it is still so written by the best authorities.

Never has the word incomparable been more suitably applied than to the Golfe Jouan and the monuments of the past civilization that surround it. Together with the Golfe de la Napoule it forms one vast expanse of bay, the most ample and, perhaps, the most beautiful on the whole Riviera. To the south is the open sea, and to the north the varied background of the Alpes-Maritimes.

Antibes has itself much charm of situation, though it is mostly known to English-speaking people as a sort of rest-house on the way to the more gay attractions of Monte Carlo and about there.

Antibes is, however, of great antiquity, having been the Antipolis of the Romans. It has the usual attractions of the Riviera towns and, in addition, the proximity of the great peninsula of Antibes, locally called the Cap.

This peninsula is a rare combination of trees and rocks and winding roads, almost surrounded by the pulsing Mediterranean, always cool and comfortable, even in summer, and scarcely ever troubled by the blowing of the mistral. Villas, almost without end, occupy the Cap, tree-hidden, and all brilliantly stuccoed with a tint which so well harmonizes with the surrounding subtropical flora that the effect is as of fairy-land.

The Jardin Thuret is a great botanical collection, covering an area of over seven hectares, a gift to the nation by the sister of the great botanist of the same name. The Villa Eilen-Roc has also wonderful gardens, laid out with exotic plants, and open to visitors.

Offshore, to the westward, are the Iles de Lerins and the Golfe de la Napoule, while eastward lie the Baie des Anges and the mountains back of Nice. Northward are the snow-clad summits of the Alpine range, while to the south is the sea, where one sees the filmy smoke of great steamers bound for Genoa or Marseilles, while nearer at hand are the white-winged _balancelles_ and _tartanes_. Truly it is a ravishing picture which is here spread out before one, and therein lies the great charm of Antibes.

There is a weird combination of things devout and secular at Antibes,--Notre Dame d’Antibes, with its hermitage; the lighthouse; and the semaphore. Of the utility of the two latter there can be no doubt, while the tiny chapel of the hermitage forms a link which binds the sailor-folk at sea with their friends on shore. It is a sort of _ex-voto_ shrine, like Notre Dame de la Garde at Marseilles, where one may register his vows upon his departure or return from the sea.

When the river Var was the boundary between France and Piedmont, this Chapelle de Notre Dame was a place of pilgrimage for the seafarers on both sides of the river, and passports were freely given to permit the Italians to worship here at this seaside shrine of Our Lady.

Antibes has much of historic reminiscence about it, though to-day its monuments are neither very numerous nor magnificent.

The old town was, for military reasons, surrounded with walls, and thus the sea was some distance from the centre of the town. Then, as to-day, to get a whiff of the sea, one had to leave the narrow tortuous picturesqueness of the old town behind and saunter on the quays of the little port, with its narrow entrance to the open sea.

There is little traffic of importance going on in the port of Antibes; mostly the shipping of the product of the potteries at Vallauris and neighbouring towns. Still, by no means is it an abandoned port; it is a popular haven for Mediterranean yachtsmen, and fishermen find it a suitable base for their operations in the open sea; so there is a constant going and coming such as gives a picturesque liveliness which is lacking at a mere resort or watering-place. Antibes is, moreover, a torpedo-boat station of the French navy, being safely sheltered by a line of rocks which parallel the coast-line for some distance just beyond the harbour’s mouth, and which are marked by a great iron buoy, known locally by the name of “Cinq Cent Francs.”

In the days of the Romans Antibes was probably the military port of Cimiez, and in a later day it came into the favour of both Henri IV. and Richelieu as a strongly fortified place. Later, Vauban came on the scene and surrounded its harbour with a great circular mole with considerable architectural pretensions. To-day the place is practically ignored as a military stronghold in favour of Villefranche and Toulon and the many intermediate batteries which have been erected.

The origin of the name of the town comes from the colony of Massaliotes who came here in the fifth century. Its modern name is a derivation from its earlier nomenclature, which became successively Antibon, Antibolus, and then Antiboul,--the Provençal name for the Antibes of the later French.

To-day one may see the remains of two ancient towers built by the Romans, and there are still evidences of the substructure of the antique theatre, built into the lower courses of some modern houses. In the walls of the Hôtel de Ville is a tablet reading as follows:

+-------------------------------+ | D. M. | | PVERI SEPTENTRI | | ONIS ANNORXI QUI | | ANTIPOLI IN THEATRO | | BIDVO SALTAVIT ET PLACVIT. | +-------------------------------+

According to Michelet this was a memorial to “the child Septentrion, who, at the age of twelve years, appeared two days at the theatre of Antipolis; doubtless one of the slaves who were let out to managers of spectacles.”

Inland from Antibes, on the banks of a little streamlet, the Brague, lies Biot, once a settlement of the Templars, and later, in the fourteenth century, a possession of the Genoese, or at least peopled by a colony of them.

It is a remarkable little place, generally over-looked by travellers in the rush to the show-places of the Riviera, and the suggestion is here made that any who are seeking for a real exotic could not do better than hunt it here. The manners and customs, and even the speech, of many of the old people of the town are as Italian as those of the Genoese themselves. The tiny bourg possesses a series of arcades surrounding a tiny square, a product of the fourteenth century, and is as “foreign” to these parts as would be the wigwam of an Indian. There are also remains of the old ramparts of the town still visible, and the whole ensemble is as a page torn from a book which had been closed for centuries.

One need not fear undue discomfort here in this little old-world spot, where things go on much the same as they have for centuries. There is nothing of the allurements of the great hotels of the resorts about the two modest inns at Biot, but for all that there is a bountiful and excellent fare to be had amid entirely charming surroundings, and, if one is minded, he can easily put in a month at the retreat, and only descend to the super-refinements of Cannes or Nice--each perhaps a dozen miles away--whenever he feels the pangs which prompt him to get in touch with a daily paper and the delights of asphalt pavements and “dressy” society.

Not all Riviera tourists know the Iles de Lerins as well as they might, though it is a popular enough excursion from Cannes.

These isles give the distinct note which lends charm to the waters of the Mediterranean just offshore from Cannes, forming, as they do, a sort of a jetty, or breakwater, between the Golfe de la Napoule and the Golfe Jouan.

There are but two islands in the group, St. Honorat and Ste. Marguerite, the latter separated from the Pointe de la Croisette at Cannes by a little over a kilometre. It costs a franc to cover this by boat, and another franc to pass between Ste. Marguerite and St. Honorat.

The Ile Ste. Marguerite and its prison are redolent of much of history, from the days of the “Iron Mask” up to those of the miserable Bazaine. Much has been hazarded from time to time as to the real identity of the “Man in the Iron Mask,” but the annals of Provence dealing with Ste. Marguerite seem to point to the fact that he was Count Mattioli, the minister of the Duke of Mantua, who had agreed to betray his master into the hands of the French, and then for some unaccountable reason--no one knows why--repented, with the result that he was entrapped and thrown into prison. One sees still the walls of the dungeon where twenty-seven years of his unhappy life were spent.

Bazaine, the unfortunate Maréchal de France who capitulated at Metz during the Franco-Prussian war, was also confined here, from December, 1873, to August, 1874, when by some unexplained means, he was able to escape to Italy.

The islands take their collective name from the memory of a pirate of the heroic age, Lero by name, to whom a temple was erected on the larger isle.

The Ile St. Honorat has perhaps a greater interest than that of Ste. Marguerite. St. Honorat established himself here in retreat in the fifth century, and his abode was afterward visited by Erin’s St. Patrick.

A religious foundation, known as the Monastery of Lerins, took shape here in the sixth century, and became one of the most celebrated in all Christendom.

Barbarians, fanatics, and pirates attacked the isle from time to time, but they could not disturb the faith upon which the religious establishment was built, and it was only in 1778, when it was desecularized by the Pope, that its influence waned.

In 1791, Mlle. Alziary de Roquefort, an actress of fame in her day, acquired the isle and made it her residence. To-day it is in the possession of a community of Benedictines of Citeaux, who cultivate a great portion of its soil for the benefit of the Bishop of Fréjus.

The modern conventual buildings are on the site of the old establishment, now completely disappeared, but the community is well worth the visiting, if only to bring away with one a bottle of the Liqueur Lerina, which, in the opinion of many, is the equal of the popular “Benedictine” and “Chartreuse.”

There is a fragment of the old fortress-château still left to view, bathing the foot of its crenelated donjon in the sea, a reminder of the days when the monks fought valiantly against pirate invasion.

Legend accounts for the names borne by both the Iles de Lerins. Two orphans of high degree, brother and sister, left their home in the Vosges and came to Provence, which they adopted as their future home.

Marguerite took up her residence on the isle nearest the shore, and her brother on the farthermost. Disconsolate at being left alone, the maid supplicated her brother to come to her, and this he promised to do each year when the cherry-trees were in bloom. Marguerite prayed to God that her brother, who had become a _religieux_, would come more often; at once the cherry-trees about her habitation burst into bloom, a miracle which occurred each month thereafter, and her brother, true to his promise, came promptly the first of each month, and thus broke the lonely vigil of his sister.