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 Every attempt has been made to replicate the original book as printed.

Some typographical errors have been corrected. A list follows the etext.
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                    orthography of the printed book.

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           (etext transcriber’s note) RAMBLES ON THE RIVIERA

                               _WORKS OF_

                           _FRANCIS MILTOUN_

 _The following, each 1 vol., library 12mo, cloth, gilt top, profusely
                          illustrated. $2.50_

  _Rambles on the Riviera_
  _Rambles in Normandy_
  _Rambles in Brittany_
  _The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_
  _The Cathedrals of Northern France_
  _The Cathedrals of Southern France_
  _The Cathedrals of Italy_ (_In preparation_)

   _The following, 1 vol., square octavo, cloth, gilt top, profusely
                          illustrated. $3.00_

     _Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and the Loire Country_

                         _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY_

                 _New England Building, Boston, Mass._

[Illustration]




                                Rambles

                                 on the

                                RIVIERA

          BEING SOME ACCOUNT OF JOURNEYS MADE _en automobile_
              AND THINGS SEEN IN THE FAIR LAND OF PROVENCE

                           BY FRANCIS MILTOUN

        Author of “Rambles in Normandy,” “Rambles in Brittany,”
              “Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine,” etc.

                       _With Many Illustrations_

              _Reproduced from paintings made on the spot_

                           BY BLANCHE MCMANUS

                        [Illustration: colophon]

                                 BOSTON
                          L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
                                  1906

                           _Copyright, 1906_
                        BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY

                             (INCORPORATED)

                         _All rights reserved_

                      First Impression, July, 1906

                            _COLONIAL PRESS_
            _Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
                           Boston, U. S. A._




APOLOGIA


This book makes no pretence at being a work of historical or
archæological importance; nor yet is it a conventional book of travel or
a glorified guide-book. It is merely a record of things seen and heard,
with some personal observations on the picturesque, romantic, and
topographical aspects of one of the most varied and beautiful
touring-grounds in all the world, and is the result of many pleasant
wanderings of the author and artist, chiefly by highway and byway, in
and out of the beaten track, in preference to travel by rail.

The French Riviera proper is that region bordering upon the
Mediterranean west of the Italian frontier and east of Toulon. Nowadays,
however, many a traveller adds to the delights of a Mediterranean winter
by breaking his journey at one or all of those cities of celebrated art,
Nîmes, Arles, and Avignon; or, if he does not, he most assuredly should
do so, and know something of the glories of the past civilization of the
region which has a far more æsthetic reason for being than the florid
Casino of Monte Carlo or the latest palatial hotel along the coast.

For this reason, and because the main gateway from the north leads
directly past their doors, that wonderful group of Provençal cities and
towns, beginning with Arles and ending with Aix-en-Provence, have been
included in this book, although they are in no sense “resorts,” and are
not even popular “tourist points,” except with the French themselves.

Particularly are the byways of Old Provence unknown to the average
English and American traveller; the wonderful Pays d’Arles, with St.
Rémy and Les Baux; the Crau; that fascinating region around the Étang de
Berre; the coast between Marseilles and Toulon (and even Marseilles
itself); the Estaque; Les Maures; and the Estérel; and yet none of them
are far from the beaten track of Riviera travel.

Of the region of forests and mountains that forms the background of the
Riviera resorts themselves almost the same thing can be said. The
railway and the automobile have made it all very accessible, but ninety
per cent., doubtless, of the travellers who annually hie themselves in
increasing numbers to Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, and Menton know nothing
of that wonderful mountain country lying but a few miles back from the
sea.

The town-tired traveller, for pleasure or edification, could not do
better than devote a part of the time that he usually gives to the
resorts of convention to the exploring of any one of a half-dozen of
these delightful _petits pays_: Avignon and Vaucluse, with memories of
Petrarch and his Laura; the pebbly Crau, south of Arles; and the fringe
of delightful little towns surrounding the Étang de Berre.

Any or all of these will furnish the genuine traveller with emotions and
sensations far more pleasurable than those to be had at the most blasé
resort that ever opened a golf-links or set up a roulette-wheel, which,
to many, are the chief attractions (and memories) of that strip of
Mediterranean coast-line known as the Riviera.

The scheme of this book had long been thought out, and much material
collected at odd visits, but at last it could be delayed no longer, and
the whole was threaded together by hundreds of miles of travel, _en
automobile_, through the highways and byways of the region.

The pictures were made “on the spot,” and, as living, tangible records
of things seen, have, perhaps, a quality of appealing interest that is
not possessed by the average illustration.

The result is here presented for the value it may have for the traveller
or the stay-at-home, it being always understood that no great thing was
attempted and little or nothing presented that another might not see or
learn for himself.

The reason for being, then, of this book is that it does give a little
different view-point of the attractions of Maritime Provence and the
Mediterranean Riviera from that to be hitherto gleaned in any single
volume on the subject, and as such it is to be hoped that it serves its
purpose sufficiently well to merit consideration.

F. M.

CHÂTEAUNEUF-LES-MARTIGUES, _January, 1906_.

[Illustration: _CONTENTS_]




CONTENTS

                                                           PAGE

APOLOGIA                                                      v


PART I.

CHAPTER
I. A PLEA FOR PROVENCE                                        3

II. THE PAYS D’ARLES                                         24

III. ST. RÉMY DE PROVENCE                                    42

IV. THE CRAU AND THE CAMARGUE                                56

V. MARTIGUES: THE PROVENÇAL VENICE                           70

VI. THE ÉTANG DE BERRE                                       87

VII. A SEASCAPE: FROM THE RHÔNE TO MARSEILLES               107

VIII. MARSEILLES--COSMOPOLIS                                122

IX. A RAMBLE WITH DUMAS AND MONTE CRISTO                    144

X. AIX-EN-PROVENCE AND ABOUT THERE                          156


PART II.

I. MARSEILLES TO TOULON                                     177

II. OVER CAP SICIÉ                                          202

III. THE REAL RIVIERA                                       226

IV. HYÈRES AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD                            239

V. ST. TROPEZ AND ITS “GOLFE”                               254

VI. FRÉJUS AND THE CORNICHE D’OR                            271

VII. LA NAPOULE AND CANNES                                  292

VIII. ANT