THE RIVIERA, THEN AND NOW

A beginner’s guide

Bathing

British nobles didn’t swim in the sea any more than they wrestled in mud. The season was winter, the water cold and the sea, anyway, for proletarian pursuits. British society had brought with it to southern France tennis, golf and horse racing. That was sport enough.

Locals

They were considered less as equals, more as domestic staff. Some locals, at least, were gratified: it was a good break for unmarried mothers from the Provençal hinterland. Plus they could earn more than farm or forest labourers. That said, treating every French person as a potential servant these days doesn’t invariably end well.

Transport

Nineteenth-century historian Jules Michelet worried that the “extreme rapidity” of the 20-hour train journey from Paris to the Med would be “antimedical … for nervous and anxious person(s)”. Twentyfirst-century nervous and anxious persons may have quite different but equally piquant concerns related to budget air travel.

Royalty

They flooded the Riviera for the winter months, from Victoria and her offspring through to the Romanovs. As Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII was considered the “king of the Côte d’Azur. No fête or party was organised without his say-so.” These days, royals are scarcer on the Riviera. I haven’t heard of any since Harry and Meghan flew to Nice on Sir Elton’s jet.

Russians

The Romanovs led Russian nobles into the Riviera in numbers second only to the British. They put up the grandiose Russian cathedral in Nice just in time for a deluge of post-revolution White Russians. Much later, after the fall of communism, the Riviera saw a fresh influx of well-moneyed Russians, though there will doubtless be fewer of those from now on.

Worship

Anglican churches sprang up along the Riviera as our Victorian nobles needed to pray. Now, in Nice, Cannes and Monaco, the need is satisfied by Chanel and Dior.

Food

Should the idea ever have occurred to them, the Crawleys would have had to wait for a very long time for a pizza or a crèpe. Now, one hardly has to wait at all.

Clothes

Ladies wore lots up until the 1920s; there’s a lot less now. Flip-flops, too, would not have been countenanced by a real countess

Gambling

Vital then as now for the entertainment of high rollers. Lower rollers get in these days for the fruit machines

Glamour

Ever-present though, back then, it didn’t have to hide. Queen Victoria rode around the Alpes Maritime in a donkey cart in view of all (and giving alms to many).

She didn’t have to face paps, camera phones or much in the way of democracy. Also the good old days were a bit more damned deferential.

Democracy

The working classes never got near the Riviera (except as servants) until paid holidays, obligatory in France from 1936, allowed them to travel to the Med. At least one noble Frenchwoman is reported to have foresworn bathing from then on. “I shall not share the sea with

Bolsheviks,” she said. Things have evened out subsequently.

Balls and soirées

Or Jimmy’z (Monaco) and the Caves du Roy

(St Tropez)? A no-brainer. Give me tails and take me back to the 1890s.

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