Nice has
always maintained a life and industries apart from tourists and
residents of the leisure class. Cannes, on the other hand, with the
exception of the little Quartier du Suquet, is a watering place. It
needs Mont Chevalier, as Monte Carlo needs Monaco, to make us realize
that Cannes existed before this spot was taken up and developed by
French and British nobility. The square tower and the cluster of
buildings around it, the hotels and restaurants of fishermen on the
Quai Saint Pierre, dominate the port. This bit out of the past, and of
another world in the present, is at the end of the vista as one walks
along the Promenade de la Croisette: and the Boulevard Jean Hibert runs
right into it. The touch of antiquity would otherwise be lacking, and
the Artist would scarcely have considered it worth his while to take
his kit when we went to Cannes.

The port is formed by a breakwater extending out from the point of Mont
Chevalier, with a jetty opposite. Except for the fishermen, who are
strong individualists and sell their catch right from their boat, the
harbor's business is in keeping with the city's business. Its shipping
consists of pleasure craft. Among the yachts whose home is Cannes one
used to see the _Lysistrata_ of Commodore James Gordon Bennett. How
many times have I received irate messages and the other kind, too, both
alike for my own good, sent from that vessel! In the garden of his
beautiful home at Beaulieu, between Villefranche and Monaco, the
Commodore told me of the offer he had received from the Russian
Government for this famous yacht. Not many months after the
_Lysistrata_ disappeared from its anchorage at Cannes, the man who had
been the reason--and means--of Riviera visits to more journalists than
myself died at Beaulieu.

Only on the side of Mont Chevalier has the harbor a quay. The inner
side is bordered by the Allees de la Liberte, a huge rectangle with
rows of old trees under which the flower market is held every morning.
At the Old Town end is the Hotel de Ville and at the east end the
Casino. Running out seaward from beside the Casino is the Jetee Albert
Edouard. To its very end the jetty is paved, and when a stiff sea wind
is blowing you can drink in the spray to your heart's content. Behind
the Casino is a generous beach. This is one great advantage of Cannes
over Nice, where instead of sand you have gravel and pebbles. The
Riviera is largely deserted before the bath