1936 On the Continent

Armée, which is such a banal square, like thousands of others in the small provincial towns, and when you set out to see the beach, after visiting some of the finest beaches in the world, you will be utterly unable to understand the ever-increasing popularity ofSt. Tropez. “What, you will exclaim, is this hole-in-the-wall all that some people can find to prefer to Monte Carlo or Deauville? But it’s sheer madness!” You are just making up your mind to leave immediately and never set foot in the place again, when by chance your wandering footsteps lead you through some narrow and dark street out into the old port, the port of St. Tropez.
    In the twinkling of an eye, you will understand what Signac, Segonzac and other painters who discovered the place meant when they said that from the artistic point of view the port of St. Tropez is worth Cannes, Villefranche and even Marseilles all lumped together. And you will also understand why writers like Colette and Kessel admit that they have found their best inspiration in this crowd crammed with snobs and sightseers, who invade this tiny place of some 300 yards long, which constitutes the port, every year in increasing numbers. On a summer evening, especially Saturdays and Sundays, life in that short span of quay and pavement is as vibrant and intense as in any capital or seaside resort of the world.
    There is something difficult to explain and difficult to convey in this semi-smart, semi-bohemian, semi-Near-East atmosphere which marks out St. Tropez from any other place. Fifteen years ago the town was totally unknown, and even to-day, in view of the lack of good hotels, it is better only to go there after first renting in advance a room or apartment either at Sainte Maxime, or at Beauvallon or again Lavandou. Beauvallon and Lavandou are as a matter of fact quite well-known little resorts themselves.
Hyéres
    After St. Tropez, which is so very 1936, it is worth while stopping a moment, if only for the sake of the contrast, at Hyéres, the first and oldest of the Riviera resorts, which people were visiting more than a century ago before they had ever heard of St. Tropez. It is still frequented, though not as popular as it used to be.
    Toulon, the biggest naval port in France and the chief town of the Var Department, must also be mentioned among the seaside resorts of the Riviera. It is a town of about 150,000 inhabitants, and its wonderful stretch of waters would make it a place of attraction even if it were anunimportant locality. The constant presence of French and foreign men-of-war gives the town a particular flavour of its own, which is strengthened by the crowds of sailors and coloured soldiers—a youthful, military and exotic flavour. But whatever you do don’t take photos anywhere near the port or soldiers’ barracks, for you may quite easily be mistaken for the spy of a foreign power!
    Even Toulon does not entirely end the long list of interesting places on the Côte d’Azur. There is still a whole series of small seaside villages and beaches, and if you want to spend a really charming afternoon I should advise you to stop at Olliolues-Sanary, which has become since the arrival of Nazism in Germany the Weimar of the emigrant German writers and artists. The two Manns, Stefan Zweig, Joseph Roth, among others, always spend a part of their year there, and have turned this little village, which is not unlike Cagnes, almost into a smart and cosmopolitan centre. They have also brought it wealth, for, among other things, 1936 will see the opening of a casino in Sanary, the final seal setting it for ever in the rank of famous resorts of the Côte d’Azur.

PROVENCE
    Since you almost certainly came to the Riviera through Provence and Marseilles, whether you were too fast asleep to know it or not, we might as well go back to Provence by the same route and drop in for a few hours or, better still, if you have the time, for a few days at that most amazing of the Mediterranean ports, Marseilles.
Marseilles
    Marseilles is so many things at once that I really don’t know where to begin talking about it. It has the reputation of being France’s breeding ground for gangsters, and I must admit, with all the necessary reservations and pinches of salt, that there is something in that idea. On the other hand, you mustn’t run away with the notion that when you visit Marseilles you are going to see rows and rows of drug-smugglers, white-slave traders, and international