Mask.

One of the keepers at the Antibes lighthouse had been an auxiliary
soldier in the fort of Sainte-Marguerite during the early years of the
war. He told us that some of the trapped tourists were very restive,
but that most of the German civilians who were residents of the Riviera
were far from being discontented with their lot. Better a prison on
the Ile Sainte-Marguerite than exile from the Riviera! This was better
taste and wiser philosophy than we expected of Germans. One could go
far and fare worse than an enforced sojourn on one of the loveliest
islands of the Mediterranean, whose pine forests are reminiscent of
Prinkipo. From 1914 to 1919 life was much harsher beyond those Alps.

Saint-Honorat, the smaller island half a mile from Sainte-Marguerite,
was a monastic establishment from the fourth century to the French
Revolution. It passed into ecclesiastical hands again in the Second
Empire and became a Cistercian monastery. Although the restoration was
accomplished with distressing thoroughness forty years ago, some parts
of the chapel date back to the seventh century, and a huge double
donjon--the dominating feature of the island from the coast--remains
from the twelfth-century fortifications. A road, on which are ruins of
four medieval chapels, runs round the island. We were unable to visit
Sainte-Marguerite and on Saint-Honorat pencil and paper had to be kept
out of sight. But I must not wander to another day.

Joseph-Marie liked our tobacco and the horse did not mind stopping en
route. It was six o'clock when we reached Juan-les-Pins, only a mile
from Antibes on the other side of the cape. Two miles farther along
the coast, at Golfe-Juan, where the road turns in to Vallauris, we
climbed down from the cart, brushed much dust from our clothes, and
started home along the coast road to Cannes. Joseph-Marie waved his
empty sleeve in farewell, happy in our promise to look him up some day
in Vallauris with a pocketful of cigarettes.

CHAPTER XI

CANNES

Of one-half of Tarascon the prince whom Tartarin met in Algiers
displayed an astonishingly detailed knowledge. Concerning the rest of
the town he was as astonishingly noncommittal. When it leaked out that
the prince had been in the Tarascon jail long enough to become familiar
with what could be seen from one window, Tartarin understood his
limitation. My picture of Cannes is as indelible as the prince's
picture of Tarascon. For most o