How the French Riviera has always been a haven for the rich and decadent

SOCIAL HISTORY

ONCE ONCE WERE WORLD

by Jonathan Miles (Atlantic £22,456 pp)

What Matisse described as ‘the brightness of the Côte d’Azur’ always attracted ‘foreigners with purchasing power’.

Queen Victoria, for example, stayed in Menton, where her presence “consolidated the prestige of the seaside resorts on the Riviera,” even though the locals laughed at John Brown’s kilt. She had traveled incognito through France as the Countess of Balmoral. Less inconspicuous were the three British battleships and 15 ships of the French Mediterranean Squadron, anchored off Villefranche during her stay.

Not trusting foreign junk, Victoria brought her own food from Windsor, including Irish stew. But then the British could be difficult customers abroad, always complaining, says Jonathan Miles, about ‘flies, fleas and mosquitoes’.

British holidaymakers and residents were easily identified by their “exaltation, mispronunciation, and eating habits,” which tended to eat in solemn silence.

In the 19th century, visitors such as Robert Louis Stevenson flocked to the south of France for the guaranteed good weather, ‘cloudless, clear as crystal’. . . aromatic air, all pine and gum trees’. The warm winter climate was touted as good against gout, rheumatism and tuberculosis. DH Lawrence died of a pulmonary haemorrhage in Vence. James Joyce went to Nice to ‘have leeches fitted to take the pressure off his glaucoma’.

However, with the Riviera’s growing popularity as a ‘cocktail of illicit relationships and questionable behaviour’, disabled people were less welcome. In 1899, consumptive guests were banned from boarding houses, as other patrons would be “disturbed by coughing in the early morning.” If someone died, the next of kin of the deceased were responsible for ‘re-wallpapering, whitewashing and renewing the curtains’.

The south of France instead became the haunt of plutocrats and aristocrats, who built elaborate stucco villas. Beaches ‘located near the mouth of the city drain’ were redeveloped with boardwalks, esplanades and bandstands.

In Monte Carlo, the casino with its domes and gargoyles was designed by the architect of the Paris Opera. Dorothy Parker was not allowed into the playhouse because she was not wearing stockings. Diaghilev’s opinion said enough: ‘My taste is simple. The best is good enough for me.’

A lot of money was involved. People arrived in their private yachts, boasting perhaps a crew of 100, plus a cow on board for fresh milk.

It was not uncommon for hostesses to be carried to dinner on a silver tray, naked except for a discreet sprig of parsley.

English actress Lana Morris pictured wearing a red and white striped bikini while posing on a sailboat on a beach on the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur) in France in July 1949

Blonde bombshell Diana Dors photographed at the 1956 Cannes International Film Festival. The spot was loved by movie stars

Guests pictured at the entrance to the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France, in 1958. Green spaces have all been lost to unregulated buildings; cherished art deco and belle epoque architecture demolished

Or else there was the luxurious Blue Train, with its dining cars and sleeping compartments, the interior decorated in mahogany and gold.

Riviera shops sold extravagant goods, “sparkling diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, winking and glistening in the fierce winter sun.” Women’s fashion showed up with 20 suitcases, containing a wide variety of dresses and accessories. Patou, Molyneux, Worth and Coco Chanel had outlets on the Côte d’Azur. At the turn of the century, 300 million exotic birds were slaughtered every year to decorate hats. The perfume industry in Grasse needed 45,000 kilos of roses and 15,000 kilos of orange blossom a day.

If there was a dark side to it all, Miles points out that the Riviera also provided business opportunities for many society prostitutes. A courtesan’s clients included D’Annunzio, the Italian poet, the Duke of Westminster, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, and Tsar Nicholas.

Queen Victoria’s son and heir, the bulky, not to say morbidly obese, Edward, Prince of Wales, had a special “love seat” or custom hammock made so he could have sex with two prostitutes “with minimal effort” at the same time without crushing them to death.

Actress Brigitte Bardot photographed on the beach, at the Cannes Film Festival, in 1953. The area was loved by the best and brightest movie actors

Suicides were common, after losses at the gaming tables – 19 in the 1884 season. A man committed suicide ‘by detonating a cartridge of dynamite in his mouth’. Drink was a problem. It was not unusual for drunks to dive into empty swimming pools and be hospitalized for months.

During World War I, as a result of the Russian Revolution, the grand dukes who had supplanted the resorts suddenly found themselves working as porters and taxi drivers.

Later, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor also made pitiful figures, hanging out in the sun with wealthy acquaintances named Chips, Tufty, Baby, Nana and Fruity. When Wallis was elsewhere for two weeks, the ex-King’s phone bill was £800 (that’s about £69,000 today). He wanted to be served by lackeys in red livery and insisted on royal protocol.

World War II was worse. The Germans used the Blue Train as a brothel. The Gestapo set up torture centers in hotels and villas. The beaches were cordoned off with barbed wire.

Actress Diana Dors pictured at the Cannes Film Festival, May 1956. Shopping malls, apartment blocks, fast food chains and highways are now all over the French Riviera

Although in the following years the Riviera was discovered by Hollywood – David Niven, Dirk Bogarde and Gregory Peck acquired villas; Hitchcock filmed To Catch A Thief on location with Grace Kelly and Cary Grant; Brigitte Bardot was photographed topless in St Tropez; the Cannes festival became an international feature – in general, the place, which once saw so many lush forests, became “an immense block of reinforced concrete.”

Green spaces have all been lost to unregulated building; cherished art deco and belle epoque architecture demolished. The Blue Train was scrapped when air traffic took over. Malls, condominiums, fast food chains, and highways are everywhere.

Monte Carlo is home to Putin’s money-laundering oligarchs, and Princess Grace was killed when her car crashed over a cliff.

There are drug dealers, protection rackets and examples of judicial dishonesty; burglaries, murders and much Islamic terrorism. Residents move around in bulletproof cars with darkened windows.

It is an ecological, cultural and political catastrophe. Packed with hundreds of juicy anecdotes, Miles’s book, a chronicle of ‘opulence, scandal, war and corruption’, reminded me of the best outcome for the Cote d’Azur – ‘a sunny place for dark people’, as Maugham called it – is that it sinks completely and utterly under the sea.