with the long-distance
cannon, I spoke at the Eldorado. The meeting, organized by the Prefet
and Maire, drew a large and sympathetic audience. Among residents and
visitors are to be found thousands of intense patriots. But when I
left the theater and walked back to my hotel, I realized that Nice in
1918 was like Nice in 1916. The population as a whole, inhabitants and
guests, had no French national consciousness. When I delivered the
same message in the municipal casino of Grasse the next day, I knew
that I was again in France. Frenchmen themselves attribute the lack of
war spirit in Nice to the general indifference and lesser patriotism of
the Midi! But this is because Nice means the Midi to most of them.
They are unfair to the Midi. In no way does Nice represent the Midi of
France except that it basks in the same sun.

The common explanation of the failure of France to assimilate Nice is
that only sixty years have passed since the annexation and that a large
portion of the Nicois are Italian in blood and culture and instincts.
There may be some truth in all this. But two generations is a long
time, and France has proved her ability to make six decades count in
attaching to herself and stamping in her image other border
populations. Two factors have worked against the assimilation of Nice:
the maintenance of the independence of Monaco, with privileges and no
responsibilities for its inhabitants; and the enormous number of
foreign residents, who have lost their attachment to their own
countries and who do not care to give or are incapable of giving
allegiance to the country in which they live. Add to these
demoralizing influences, at work throughout the sixty years, the flood
of tourists and temporary residents of all nations; and is it to be
wondered at that the Nicois, native and alien, have so little in common
with France?

When you stroll along the Promenade des Anglais, with its hotels and
palm-surrounded villas, the Mediterranean coast line extending
alluringly from the distant lighthouse of Antibes in the west to the
Chateau, set in green, in the foreground to the east, you feel that you
are in one of the fairy spots of the earth. The sea, the city climbing
up the hill to Cimiez, the white-capped mountains beyond, and on the
handsome promenade the best-gowned of Europe, all in the brilliant
sunshine of a soft spring day--what could be more charming? And then,
suddenly, your unwilling nostrils breat