From Lago Maggiore to France to Geneva
My journey is not yet over, but the internet is with my trusty laptop once more, and so I can finally post the
Of the three big lakes in Tessin, Lago Maggiore definitely gets my vote over Lugano and Como. For starters, the towns on its shore are prettier (Lugano is an example of the 50s and 60s wreaking havoc), and secondly, Lago Como is simply so gigantic that you feel dwarfed instead of charmed, and somewhat waiting for the end. For the way back, we used a shortcut, i.e. we took a ferry for some of the distance. There is something inherently romantic about taking a ferry, at least there is to me. Full of expectations for the other shore, etc. Plus the breeze on a boat isn’t half bad, either, on a very hot day.
Sunday saw us leaving Switzerland behind for good, crossing Italy and arriving in Southern France, though not yet at my final destination there. Again, we made a detour for the scenery, in this case the small harbour Portefino near Genua. Which looks like it’s nesting in the hills of the Ligurian coast, with its red and yellow houses and the astonishingly clear water in the harbour, and all the white boats.
After Portefino, though, it was the autostrada straight to France (and the soft top was used for the first time in a while). We decided to stay overnight near Cannes, because we had done that before, only this time we didn’t find the hotel in Mougins where we had been. However, the first hotel we tried, while full, turned out to have a very nice owner who rang up the owner of a bed & breakfeast near Grasse, which is where we’re staying at now. It’s the most lovely French country house, only three rooms available for guests, and a magnificent view in all directions. This area used to be covered in fields of roses and jasmine, for the perfume industry, and there are still a few of them left. The Aged Parent managed to get some rose-picking women on camera, which shall be posted once I’m back in Germany. Anyway, roses to the left, jasmine to the right, hills with other houses and low stone walls, and far away, a glimpse of the sea. Colour me happy.
(Okay, there is no internet, which means I’m not sure when I’m going to post this, but who cares if you have scenery to admire?)
For the evening, we drove to Cannes and walked up and down the Croisette (i.e. that street you see in the news during the festival). Dozens of dog owners apparently had the same idea. Seriously, between 6 and 8 pm, I saw more dogs walking around with their owners in tow than in the entirety of Switzerland. I’m a cat person myself, but I was amused.
The beach at Cannes was overcrowded, though strangely by people who looked every bit as pale - with the beginnings of a sunburn/ bronze - as Dad & self did, leading me to the conclusion that either the weather in France had been bad until a short while ago, or they were all tourists. Speaking of foreigners, we circled the main harbour which had these huge, huge yachts in it, the ones that look like they’re made for orgies or business deals or both, and about two third of them were flying the Union Jack. (Does that mean no orgies? Sorry, bad continental joke.) Anyway, the AP wondered why there were so many British folk in Cannes and I suggested it wasn’t just Cannes but France in general, and maybe they never quite got over the impression it should belong to them.
Mind you, Italy otoh, or rather the part of it we crossed, was overcrowded with Germans if the cars were anything to go buy, and of course we have the same problem with la bella Italia. It’s probably somewhere coded into our genes: we love it, we go there, we overstay our welcome there/keep returning there, and sometimes think fondly of medieval times when the majority did belong… anyway.
After a pleasant breakfeast with two fellow guests, Israelis from Jerusalem, Monday was spent driving up the coast, back to Menton near the Italian border, and then back through the hinterland to Plascassier. The road between Nice and Menton is one of the (justly) most famous things ever - or rather I should say roads, for it is possible to take three, one directly next to the beach, one up there above the cliffs, and one in the middle. We took the one down at the shores mostly. This was the first day we had a few clouds, so the Cote d’Azur wasn’t precisely blue, but very beautiful nonetheless. Passing through Nice, we duly had our Hitchcock flashbacks (from To Catch a Thief) and were informed by the trusty ADAC travelling guide that it used to be in the hands of a dynasty from 1928 - 1994, having had father and son as mayors who were nicknamed “Roi Jean” and “Roi Jacques” respectively - and had the highest criminality rate anywhere in France. The large, generous promenade wasn’t as overcrowded as the Croisette in Cannes, but whether this was due to the time of the day, the few clouds or the fact Nice, as opposed to Cannes, has a stone beach I couldn’t say.
We tried to visit the small chappel Jean Cocteau had painted in Villefranche, but alas, St. Pierre was closed on Mondays. Otoh, our next stop was crowned by success - the villa one of the Rothschilds (daughter of Alphonse from the French and Leonora from the English branch) had build at Cap Ferrat was open to visitors, nonewithstanding. It has nine distinctly individual gardens, each with a theme - Spanish (and indeed we sighed “Alhambra” at once when we saw the small rectangular pool in the middle, the columns at the back and the plants), Japanese, Provenzal, Rose garden, etc. The one directly opposite of the villa was a French garden with firmly trimmed hedges, waterfountains and an intentional mini Versailles look, for the Baroness, as could be seen by the inside of her villa with its Louis XVI and Louis V salons, was a great enthusiast. According to what I’ve read in the guide, she even dressed up as Marie Antoinette now and then, and the whist table is one Antoinette actually owned. BTW, considering Marie Antoinette was famous for losing huge sumns when gambling, I don’t quite see this a good omen, but chacun a son gout, and in any case, the Baroness died wealthy. (In Davos, as it happens.) She left the villa and the gardens to the Academie Des Beaux Arts.
Stopping by in Monaco was weird, because all of a sudden we were surrounded exclusively by English-speaking people. Americans and the British. Not a French sound heard in between. We wondered whether Rainier marrying Grace Kelly all those decades ago still fulfilled the purpose of bringing them there, despite both of them being dead and the kids married to idiots and blandness respectively. There were still some tribunes from the race last week which hadn’t been removed yet. Interestingly, the yachts in the harbour were of a considerably smaller size than the ones at Cannes. Passing the palace, the Aged Parent, who is an affirmed disliker of all royalty and aristocracy, was heart mutting “superfluos, all of them superfluos”, and I pointed out good old Albert at least fulfilled the function of keeping Monaco from falling back to the French. If he dies without a male heir, it will, and then will be just another French town - not ugly, but the operetta charme will be gone.
Leaving the coast for the countryside, we first stopped by at La Turbie, which has a 40 meter high Roman monument to recommend it. Build there to celebrate Augustus. Who isn’t exactly one of my favourite Romans, so I wasn’t exactly crushed the territory was locked from visitors as well, though in its case due to a long lunch break, not due to Mondays. At any event, you could see the entire monument much better from a distance, and we climbed on enough hills of the village to take in the view.
Then the AP took it into his head to find a rather complicated road to St. Paul de Vence cross country and took a wrong turn now and then, but the area was pretty enough that we didn’t mind. When we finally did arrive at St. Paul’s, which we had visited before, it was late afternoon. We parked the car outside - this is one of these tiny medieval towns you aren’t allowed to drive in - and threw ourselves at the beauty of it - filled to the teeth with cobblestone, small alleys and dozens and dozens of art galleries. Dad fell in love with a terracotta statue, and I knew my mother & self finally had a present for his 60th birthday this year.
Coming back to our bed & breakfeast, we took a shower and dressed up, as we had been invited by the landlord & - lady for dinner. Joining us was an Italian publisher called Giovanni Argessi, an old buddy of Christian Vagnelli’s (i.e. the landlord’s), and I butchered the French language for hours, chatting the evening away. (I’m not nearly as fluent in French as I am in English, but I understand a lot at least, and Giovanni didn’t speak English, as opposed, may I add, to Christian V. and his Korean wife Kim. So much for clichés.) Kim had asked me whether there was anything I didn’t eat, and I had said “oysters and snails”, but had forgotten I’m not exactly keen on mutton. Sure enough we got mutton. But they were so kind, and did my best to eat enough to look enthusiastic nonetheless. When it got dark, the view down to the coast with all the lights was even more spectacular than usual.
Tuesday: And off we went for a long, long drive west, still on the coast, from Cannes to Toulon; only after Toulon did we take the highway for the rest of the way to Sanary-sur-mer. My favourite bit of coastline definitely wasn’t the overrated St. Tropez, but the part between Cannes till Frejus, the so-called “Esterel”, when the colour of the cliffs changed to red, which combined with the sea made for a dashing clash of colours… and there was hardly any car on the road. Arriving in Sanary-sur-mer, we were pleasantly surprised. The only thing I knew of Sanary was that my guy Feuchtwanger together with a lot of other German emigré writers in the Thirties, until the war, with completely unfunny irony, got them interned as enemy aliens in Les Milles, where those of them who weren’t able to buy their way out one way or the other got handed over to the German army later on. (Feuchtwanger, along with Thomas Mann’s son Golo, was one of the lucky ones. Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, Heinrich and Nelly Mann, Golo Mann and Franz and Alma Werfel were then guided across the Pyrenees by a courageous American idealist named Varian Fry and left Europe via Lissabon.) And that they all loved Sanary before that happened. Coming here, I can see why. It’s a Southern France harbour town with tiny alleys that feel as if they exist for the actual inhabitants, not the tourists, and the harbour full of small boats, and further on lots of mansions (middle-sized, not gigantic) snuggled into the cliffs.
We’re staying at the bed & breakfeast called La Bergerie du Roy, but there aren’t any sheep in sight - instead, we look down on a vineyard, which to be frank I much prefer. It’s another lovely country house, though alas also sans anyting to plug my trusty laptop in. At this rate, I predict I won’t be able to post this travelling report before we leave France for Switzerland again.
Wednesday: First day of the conference, which takes place in the Theatre Galli. I met lots of old aquaintances - Marje, the best darlingest librarian one can imagine, of the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library in Los Angeles who had been incredibly helpful when I was researching for my dissertation; Ian Wallace, the chairman of the Feuchtwanger association; one other Feuchtwanger scholar and his wife, and Edgar Feuchtwanger, nephew of the writer, plus wife and son. Edgar Feuchtwanger is an incredibly sweet old man over 80 whom I met two years ago in Munich when they were honouring his father Ludwig. He’s a professor at Winchester. The wife, whom I hadn’t met before, is English and called Primrose, which made me blink. I had thought only characters in novels were called Primrose. I had met their son Adrian before, during the earlier mentioned Munich opportunity - platinum blond pony tail and all.
The conference was opened by a speech from the Mayor of Sanary, Ferdinand Bernhard. (In French, as was the majority of speeches so far. Much practice for my rusty school French. I was grateful for the occasional German lecture, though.) He turned out to be a living example of changing times, being the son of an Austrian who, like Feuchtwanger himself, came to France as an exile and ended up interned in Les Milles as an enemy alien when the war broke out. His opening speech centered on how the lesson of the past should never be forgotten und applied to oneself, the necessity of which was evident when one looked on the Front National getting 30 percent at the last election (I think he said “trente”, that I didn’t mishear. Sadly, it’s possible. The Front National is the French party of radical right wing nuts fanatics, with the odious Le Pen as their most famous representative.) The Mayor appeared to be genuinenly interested in the conference, staying not just for one lecture but most of them, dissappearing only briefly in between.
The other opening speeches came from Ian Wallace and Daniel Azuelos, who is the French Feuchtwanger scholar with the tough task of organizing the conference. Which he did splendidly. The lectures took each half an hour, only Prof. Gilbert Merlio (“Lion Feuchtwanger et l’effrondrement de la République de Weimar”) took some additonal 20 minutes which mean the rest of us had to hurry, especially yours truly who had the last lecture before lunch break. I consider it a compliment that the attendants didn’t all rush out during the time I was talking but stayed. Ah, France, country of politeness. No, seriously, they seemed to be interested. The echo of the conference among the population appears to be great in general, which amazed me because I hadn’t thought that many of the French would be interested in some German writers who used to live here in the 30s. My lecture was the second one to be in German, and got translated simultanously (that’s how good the organization is - they have two translators for the German lectures, and the headset equipment). “Vive la Revolution? Lion Feuchtwanger’s look at French history” won’t exactly make me immortal among Feuchtwanger scholars, but I thought I made my point (re: Feuchtwanger projecting his feelings about the Russian revolution and Stalinism afterwards on the French revolution) in a plausible way, and I got enough nice compliments afterwards to make it look like I did.
Lunch for everyone wasn’t exactly the height of French cuisine but not bad, either. It was held beneath the town library, after we had visited (briefly) two exhibitions first that went in tandem with the conference, one about photographer Josef Breitbach who was another German exile taking photos of the rest (if you know a photo of Brecht or Feuchtwanger of Thomas Mann from the later 30s, it was probably made by him), and one featuring the documents dealing with the internment of the German and Austrian refugees and, in some fortunate cases, their liberation before the Nazis arrived. (Those who didn’t make it out in time were promptly handed over under article 19 of the Vichy regime’s agreement with Hitler.)
The afternoon brought lectures on Feuchtwanger’s novels “Paris Gazette” (German title: “Exil”, which was one of his contemporary novels set in France) and “Simone” (aka transporting the Jeanne d’Arc story into France of the 40s - this one started out as a collaboration with Brecht, but they couldn’t agree on several crucial things, including the age of the heroine, and thus Brecht wrote a play and Feuchtwanger wrote a novel). Unfortunately, one of the lectures was the most incompetent thing I have ever had the misfortune to hear. Even the worst report at school was better than this stumbling mess of completely disorganized and disconnected thoughts. How Ludwig Fischer ever made it to the rank of Professor is beyond me. American students, beware. He’s currently working in Salem, Oregon. However, after one suffered through his lecture, the rest was a joy again.
In the evening, we drove back to our bed & breakfeast to change clothes for the soiree the Mayor was giving and managed to find the villa Feuchtwanger & his wife Marta had been living in - the villa Valmer, much like their later place in Pacific Palisades, i.e. gorgeous view to the sea and lovely to look at. Feuchtwanger was one of the three German writers of his time who actually had a foreign audience and was a bestseller abroad as well, and it shows in his places of residence.
The soiree took place at the Theatre Galli as well and offered your usual assortment of melon & ham combinations plus sushi for snacks plus a great singer of songs from the 50s. I really felt like dancing, but unfortunately there was no one to dance with. Otoh, entertaining conversations continued. Poor Mrs Feuchtwanger didn’t understand French or German, as opposed to her husband & son, so she had been quite lost during the day. She, my aged parent and a couple of other spouses and relations chose the better part of valour the next day, Thursday, and didn’t show up for the lectures, which left the hardcore Feuchtwangerians.
Tursday’s morning was packed - six lectures - one dealing with Feuchtwanger’s book “The Devil in France”, his report of his internment in Les Milles, one dealing with “Paris Gazette” (again), and one comparing the use of satire when dealing with the Nazis in his novel “The False Nero” with Heinrich Mann’s “Lidice”. The other lectures were all devoted to his trilogy of novels about Flavius Josephus, which since they are among my favourites of his works I was all for. Said trilogy is remarkable for many reasons: as historical novels, as Feuchtwanger tackling his life-long question how to define Jewish identity by picking a Jewish writer traditionally considered a traitor, as an example of what we call “Exilliteratur” in German - he started writing it in Germany where the first volume got published barely before Hitler came to power, then was among the first to get kicked out of the country and wrote the other two volumes abroad, the last within his last weeks in France before departing to the US, and as one of the crucial topics is cosmopolitism versus nationalism, the experience of exile reflects massively on it.
The afternoon saw me abstaining from more lectures as well, but I had a good reason: the Italian publisher I had met earlier had called to tell he had arranged a meeting with a French publisher called Christiane Revelly. In Nizza. So the convertible was put to use again, and back to Nizza I went. (And back to Sanary afterwards, which is a two hours drive to and thro on the highway instead of the beautiful but much longer country road on the coast.) The conversation went well - I think - but the drive back was eerie, because there was hardly anyone else on the road. In Germany that never happens with our autobahns. Personally, I blame the French habit of taking money for using theirs.
Friday: was the day with the most German lectures, which was relaxing - though I think I’m getting better at comprehending more and more of fastly spoken French - except for the translators, who according to the French participants did a fabulous job. The lectures most interesting to me were:
1.) one about Friedrich Sieburg, who was the model for Erich Wiesner in Feuchtwanger’s novel Paris Gazette (yup, another Exil lecture, so to speak); Sieburg, like Wiesner in the novel, had been the Paris correspondant of one of the main German papers (the Frankfurter Zeitung) for years pre-Hitler, like Feuchtwanger had been one of the star authors of the Weimar Republic, and unlike Feuchtwanger had thrown himself into the arms of the regime wholeheartedly, supporting the Nazis 100% post-33. I hadn’t known anything about him other than he existed, so it was interesting to hear details. He even became one of the diplomatic liasons to the Vichy government (and hence got arrested with it later), but returned to the top pretty quickly in post-war Germany, becoming the head of the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (the successor of the Frankfurter Zeitung) and thus the literary pope of Germany till his death in the early 60s, a position currently inhabited by Marcel Reich Ranicki. (Himself first oppressed in a ghetto and then an exile during the time Sieburg was lording with the Nazis.)
2.) One about the form of the “open letter” which was used very often by the emigrés in their newspaper publications, trying to engage the people at home in international debates (with moderate success - I think the Gottfried Benn/Klaus Mann controversy was one of the few instances where the adressee, Benn, actually wrote back); Feuchtwanger’s most well-known one is addressed to “Sieben Berliner Schauspieler”, i.e. “seven Berlin actors”, with all of whom he had worked during the Weimar days and all of whom had starred or in one case directed the most vicious of antisemite films, Jud Süß. (Incidentally not based on Feuchtwanger’s bestselling novel of the same name which got burned and forbidden as early as ’33; officially, the Harlan movie was based on the Hauff novella from the 1800s which again had the same title, but actually had nothing to do with either literary precedent, content-wise, other than using the title and claiming to be about the same historical figure, Josef Süß Oppenheimer.) They were among the most well-known actors in Germany from the 20s onward: Werner Krauss, Heinrich George, Eugen Klöpfer - imagine the most respected and admired actors of the present starring in the most vicious piece of propaganda imaginable, and you get the idea of how that felt.
(Sidenote: All the actors who didn’t star in that film inevitably after the war told the story of how they were asked to by Goebbels but refused. The only case in which we know this to be true was Gustaf Gründgens who ironically enough, thanks to his former brother-in-law, Klaus Mann, and the later’s novel “Mephisto” ended up as the most famous actor collaborating with the Nazis. I always thought Krauss would have deserved it more, but hey.)
3.) A lecture on the great congress of 1935 in Paris which featured intellectuals from all over Europe in a rare (and doomed) attempt of unity between left wing and right wing. I knew the speeches by Feuchtwanger and Heinrich Mann already, but what I hadn’t known was that E.M. Foster, he of “Maurice” and “Howard’s End” and “Journey To India” fame, spoke as well, about England’s laws against homosexuals, no less. (Alas since the majority of the congress not surprisingly was devoted to events in Germany, this speech got zilch attention.)
4.) One about some of the film versions of Feuchtwanger’s novels. The lecturer, Professor Stern from Tel Aviv & Vienna, showed examples from the tv version of Erfolg (worthy but dull, if you ask me, which is a crime because Erfolg the novel, the first one to depict the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular THREE YEARS before Hitler came to power, in 1930, is biting and funny as a book), and the film version of Goya (well-made). And he lamented the fact there still isn’t an onscreen version of Die Jüdin von Toledo; I must say I’m with him there - it’s one eminently filmable book and in my heretic opinion far better than the Grillparzer drama about the same subject.
After the lectures ended, we went to dinner with my friend Marje (the most lovable librarian ever, remember) in a terrific restaurant called Le coin du table or something like that, ate delicious food and nearly had a heart attack when Dad couldn’t find his purse afterwards (it had dropped to the floor when he sat down, as it turned out - after I had payed).
Saturday: The last day of the conference started with a lecture on an unknown (to me) and still living writer, Fred Wander, whose vita sounds horrible and yet inspiring. Because he went through such a lot - being an Austrian Jew in Vienna during the 30s is traumatic for starters. Then came France and poverty but liberty, until he got arrested as an enemy alien and put in a camp. As opposed to Feuchtwanger, he didn’t get out in time, thus was handed over to the Nazis once they were there, and then came to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Which he survived. He was one of the few survivors who went back to Germany - to East Germany, to be specific. Where he made it as a writer, only to see his daughter Kitty die in an attempt to cross the EastGerman/West German border in 1968. Later on, he left the GDR, and now he lives in… Vienna. As the lecturer said, the fact he returned to Vienna, in spite of everything, and is still alive, and still writing with hope and didn’t grow bitter through all the horror of what happened to him is perhaps the most amazing thing about this amazing story.
The last two lectures I heard, otoh, were about one of Feuchtwanger’s most well known contemporaries, Franz Werfel, one about his relationship with Zionism (which was not that different from Feuchtwanger’s - if it has to be summed up in a catch phrase, they admired the dedication but thought it was a step back instead of forward, and it conflicted with their idea of cosmopolitism), and one of politics (since Werfel was Austrian, not German, he didn’t become an emigré until 1938 and apparently like Thomas Mann took his time to come out explicitly against the regime).
Then it was time to say farewell, hop into the convertible and take the autoroute for a change, cross country to Geneva, which is where I’m sitting in my hotel room now. Geneva reminds me a bit of Hamburg, all patrician elegance and waterfronts and wealth. The trademark waterfountain is supposed to be the highest in the world, which I somewhat doubt (I’ve been to Iceland), but it certainly looks splendid. I also paid my respects to Rousseau’s birth place in the old city and the statue at the Ile Rousseau which looks nothing like him (if the drawings are anything to go buy) and instead looks distinctly Caesarian, dressed up in philosphical robes. The effect is somewhat ruined by a beer bottle someone placed in poor Rousseau’s hand.
The Aged Parent wanted us to light a candle in the Cathedrale St. Pierre because we tend to do that when visiting a church, for our dead. Quoth I: “This is Calvintown, Dad. They don’t light candles.” (Poor old Jean Calvin would probably rotate in his grave at the idea of such popery.) However, tomorrow we’ll visit St. Gallen which has a Benedictine Abbey. Also Bern. But the majority of my journey is over, and I feel distinctly wistful already.
Of the three big lakes in Tessin, Lago Maggiore definitely gets my vote over Lugano and Como. For starters, the towns on its shore are prettier (Lugano is an example of the 50s and 60s wreaking havoc), and secondly, Lago Como is simply so gigantic that you feel dwarfed instead of charmed, and somewhat waiting for the end. For the way back, we used a shortcut, i.e. we took a ferry for some of the distance. There is something inherently romantic about taking a ferry, at least there is to me. Full of expectations for the other shore, etc. Plus the breeze on a boat isn’t half bad, either, on a very hot day.
Sunday saw us leaving Switzerland behind for good, crossing Italy and arriving in Southern France, though not yet at my final destination there. Again, we made a detour for the scenery, in this case the small harbour Portefino near Genua. Which looks like it’s nesting in the hills of the Ligurian coast, with its red and yellow houses and the astonishingly clear water in the harbour, and all the white boats.
After Portefino, though, it was the autostrada straight to France (and the soft top was used for the first time in a while). We decided to stay overnight near Cannes, because we had done that before, only this time we didn’t find the hotel in Mougins where we had been. However, the first hotel we tried, while full, turned out to have a very nice owner who rang up the owner of a bed & breakfeast near Grasse, which is where we’re staying at now. It’s the most lovely French country house, only three rooms available for guests, and a magnificent view in all directions. This area used to be covered in fields of roses and jasmine, for the perfume industry, and there are still a few of them left. The Aged Parent managed to get some rose-picking women on camera, which shall be posted once I’m back in Germany. Anyway, roses to the left, jasmine to the right, hills with other houses and low stone walls, and far away, a glimpse of the sea. Colour me happy.
(Okay, there is no internet, which means I’m not sure when I’m going to post this, but who cares if you have scenery to admire?)
For the evening, we drove to Cannes and walked up and down the Croisette (i.e. that street you see in the news during the festival). Dozens of dog owners apparently had the same idea. Seriously, between 6 and 8 pm, I saw more dogs walking around with their owners in tow than in the entirety of Switzerland. I’m a cat person myself, but I was amused.
The beach at Cannes was overcrowded, though strangely by people who looked every bit as pale - with the beginnings of a sunburn/ bronze - as Dad & self did, leading me to the conclusion that either the weather in France had been bad until a short while ago, or they were all tourists. Speaking of foreigners, we circled the main harbour which had these huge, huge yachts in it, the ones that look like they’re made for orgies or business deals or both, and about two third of them were flying the Union Jack. (Does that mean no orgies? Sorry, bad continental joke.) Anyway, the AP wondered why there were so many British folk in Cannes and I suggested it wasn’t just Cannes but France in general, and maybe they never quite got over the impression it should belong to them.
Mind you, Italy otoh, or rather the part of it we crossed, was overcrowded with Germans if the cars were anything to go buy, and of course we have the same problem with la bella Italia. It’s probably somewhere coded into our genes: we love it, we go there, we overstay our welcome there/keep returning there, and sometimes think fondly of medieval times when the majority did belong… anyway.
After a pleasant breakfeast with two fellow guests, Israelis from Jerusalem, Monday was spent driving up the coast, back to Menton near the Italian border, and then back through the hinterland to Plascassier. The road between Nice and Menton is one of the (justly) most famous things ever - or rather I should say roads, for it is possible to take three, one directly next to the beach, one up there above the cliffs, and one in the middle. We took the one down at the shores mostly. This was the first day we had a few clouds, so the Cote d’Azur wasn’t precisely blue, but very beautiful nonetheless. Passing through Nice, we duly had our Hitchcock flashbacks (from To Catch a Thief) and were informed by the trusty ADAC travelling guide that it used to be in the hands of a dynasty from 1928 - 1994, having had father and son as mayors who were nicknamed “Roi Jean” and “Roi Jacques” respectively - and had the highest criminality rate anywhere in France. The large, generous promenade wasn’t as overcrowded as the Croisette in Cannes, but whether this was due to the time of the day, the few clouds or the fact Nice, as opposed to Cannes, has a stone beach I couldn’t say.
We tried to visit the small chappel Jean Cocteau had painted in Villefranche, but alas, St. Pierre was closed on Mondays. Otoh, our next stop was crowned by success - the villa one of the Rothschilds (daughter of Alphonse from the French and Leonora from the English branch) had build at Cap Ferrat was open to visitors, nonewithstanding. It has nine distinctly individual gardens, each with a theme - Spanish (and indeed we sighed “Alhambra” at once when we saw the small rectangular pool in the middle, the columns at the back and the plants), Japanese, Provenzal, Rose garden, etc. The one directly opposite of the villa was a French garden with firmly trimmed hedges, waterfountains and an intentional mini Versailles look, for the Baroness, as could be seen by the inside of her villa with its Louis XVI and Louis V salons, was a great enthusiast. According to what I’ve read in the guide, she even dressed up as Marie Antoinette now and then, and the whist table is one Antoinette actually owned. BTW, considering Marie Antoinette was famous for losing huge sumns when gambling, I don’t quite see this a good omen, but chacun a son gout, and in any case, the Baroness died wealthy. (In Davos, as it happens.) She left the villa and the gardens to the Academie Des Beaux Arts.
Stopping by in Monaco was weird, because all of a sudden we were surrounded exclusively by English-speaking people. Americans and the British. Not a French sound heard in between. We wondered whether Rainier marrying Grace Kelly all those decades ago still fulfilled the purpose of bringing them there, despite both of them being dead and the kids married to idiots and blandness respectively. There were still some tribunes from the race last week which hadn’t been removed yet. Interestingly, the yachts in the harbour were of a considerably smaller size than the ones at Cannes. Passing the palace, the Aged Parent, who is an affirmed disliker of all royalty and aristocracy, was heart mutting “superfluos, all of them superfluos”, and I pointed out good old Albert at least fulfilled the function of keeping Monaco from falling back to the French. If he dies without a male heir, it will, and then will be just another French town - not ugly, but the operetta charme will be gone.
Leaving the coast for the countryside, we first stopped by at La Turbie, which has a 40 meter high Roman monument to recommend it. Build there to celebrate Augustus. Who isn’t exactly one of my favourite Romans, so I wasn’t exactly crushed the territory was locked from visitors as well, though in its case due to a long lunch break, not due to Mondays. At any event, you could see the entire monument much better from a distance, and we climbed on enough hills of the village to take in the view.
Then the AP took it into his head to find a rather complicated road to St. Paul de Vence cross country and took a wrong turn now and then, but the area was pretty enough that we didn’t mind. When we finally did arrive at St. Paul’s, which we had visited before, it was late afternoon. We parked the car outside - this is one of these tiny medieval towns you aren’t allowed to drive in - and threw ourselves at the beauty of it - filled to the teeth with cobblestone, small alleys and dozens and dozens of art galleries. Dad fell in love with a terracotta statue, and I knew my mother & self finally had a present for his 60th birthday this year.
Coming back to our bed & breakfeast, we took a shower and dressed up, as we had been invited by the landlord & - lady for dinner. Joining us was an Italian publisher called Giovanni Argessi, an old buddy of Christian Vagnelli’s (i.e. the landlord’s), and I butchered the French language for hours, chatting the evening away. (I’m not nearly as fluent in French as I am in English, but I understand a lot at least, and Giovanni didn’t speak English, as opposed, may I add, to Christian V. and his Korean wife Kim. So much for clichés.) Kim had asked me whether there was anything I didn’t eat, and I had said “oysters and snails”, but had forgotten I’m not exactly keen on mutton. Sure enough we got mutton. But they were so kind, and did my best to eat enough to look enthusiastic nonetheless. When it got dark, the view down to the coast with all the lights was even more spectacular than usual.
Tuesday: And off we went for a long, long drive west, still on the coast, from Cannes to Toulon; only after Toulon did we take the highway for the rest of the way to Sanary-sur-mer. My favourite bit of coastline definitely wasn’t the overrated St. Tropez, but the part between Cannes till Frejus, the so-called “Esterel”, when the colour of the cliffs changed to red, which combined with the sea made for a dashing clash of colours… and there was hardly any car on the road. Arriving in Sanary-sur-mer, we were pleasantly surprised. The only thing I knew of Sanary was that my guy Feuchtwanger together with a lot of other German emigré writers in the Thirties, until the war, with completely unfunny irony, got them interned as enemy aliens in Les Milles, where those of them who weren’t able to buy their way out one way or the other got handed over to the German army later on. (Feuchtwanger, along with Thomas Mann’s son Golo, was one of the lucky ones. Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, Heinrich and Nelly Mann, Golo Mann and Franz and Alma Werfel were then guided across the Pyrenees by a courageous American idealist named Varian Fry and left Europe via Lissabon.) And that they all loved Sanary before that happened. Coming here, I can see why. It’s a Southern France harbour town with tiny alleys that feel as if they exist for the actual inhabitants, not the tourists, and the harbour full of small boats, and further on lots of mansions (middle-sized, not gigantic) snuggled into the cliffs.
We’re staying at the bed & breakfeast called La Bergerie du Roy, but there aren’t any sheep in sight - instead, we look down on a vineyard, which to be frank I much prefer. It’s another lovely country house, though alas also sans anyting to plug my trusty laptop in. At this rate, I predict I won’t be able to post this travelling report before we leave France for Switzerland again.
Wednesday: First day of the conference, which takes place in the Theatre Galli. I met lots of old aquaintances - Marje, the best darlingest librarian one can imagine, of the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library in Los Angeles who had been incredibly helpful when I was researching for my dissertation; Ian Wallace, the chairman of the Feuchtwanger association; one other Feuchtwanger scholar and his wife, and Edgar Feuchtwanger, nephew of the writer, plus wife and son. Edgar Feuchtwanger is an incredibly sweet old man over 80 whom I met two years ago in Munich when they were honouring his father Ludwig. He’s a professor at Winchester. The wife, whom I hadn’t met before, is English and called Primrose, which made me blink. I had thought only characters in novels were called Primrose. I had met their son Adrian before, during the earlier mentioned Munich opportunity - platinum blond pony tail and all.
The conference was opened by a speech from the Mayor of Sanary, Ferdinand Bernhard. (In French, as was the majority of speeches so far. Much practice for my rusty school French. I was grateful for the occasional German lecture, though.) He turned out to be a living example of changing times, being the son of an Austrian who, like Feuchtwanger himself, came to France as an exile and ended up interned in Les Milles as an enemy alien when the war broke out. His opening speech centered on how the lesson of the past should never be forgotten und applied to oneself, the necessity of which was evident when one looked on the Front National getting 30 percent at the last election (I think he said “trente”, that I didn’t mishear. Sadly, it’s possible. The Front National is the French party of radical right wing nuts fanatics, with the odious Le Pen as their most famous representative.) The Mayor appeared to be genuinenly interested in the conference, staying not just for one lecture but most of them, dissappearing only briefly in between.
The other opening speeches came from Ian Wallace and Daniel Azuelos, who is the French Feuchtwanger scholar with the tough task of organizing the conference. Which he did splendidly. The lectures took each half an hour, only Prof. Gilbert Merlio (“Lion Feuchtwanger et l’effrondrement de la République de Weimar”) took some additonal 20 minutes which mean the rest of us had to hurry, especially yours truly who had the last lecture before lunch break. I consider it a compliment that the attendants didn’t all rush out during the time I was talking but stayed. Ah, France, country of politeness. No, seriously, they seemed to be interested. The echo of the conference among the population appears to be great in general, which amazed me because I hadn’t thought that many of the French would be interested in some German writers who used to live here in the 30s. My lecture was the second one to be in German, and got translated simultanously (that’s how good the organization is - they have two translators for the German lectures, and the headset equipment). “Vive la Revolution? Lion Feuchtwanger’s look at French history” won’t exactly make me immortal among Feuchtwanger scholars, but I thought I made my point (re: Feuchtwanger projecting his feelings about the Russian revolution and Stalinism afterwards on the French revolution) in a plausible way, and I got enough nice compliments afterwards to make it look like I did.
Lunch for everyone wasn’t exactly the height of French cuisine but not bad, either. It was held beneath the town library, after we had visited (briefly) two exhibitions first that went in tandem with the conference, one about photographer Josef Breitbach who was another German exile taking photos of the rest (if you know a photo of Brecht or Feuchtwanger of Thomas Mann from the later 30s, it was probably made by him), and one featuring the documents dealing with the internment of the German and Austrian refugees and, in some fortunate cases, their liberation before the Nazis arrived. (Those who didn’t make it out in time were promptly handed over under article 19 of the Vichy regime’s agreement with Hitler.)
The afternoon brought lectures on Feuchtwanger’s novels “Paris Gazette” (German title: “Exil”, which was one of his contemporary novels set in France) and “Simone” (aka transporting the Jeanne d’Arc story into France of the 40s - this one started out as a collaboration with Brecht, but they couldn’t agree on several crucial things, including the age of the heroine, and thus Brecht wrote a play and Feuchtwanger wrote a novel). Unfortunately, one of the lectures was the most incompetent thing I have ever had the misfortune to hear. Even the worst report at school was better than this stumbling mess of completely disorganized and disconnected thoughts. How Ludwig Fischer ever made it to the rank of Professor is beyond me. American students, beware. He’s currently working in Salem, Oregon. However, after one suffered through his lecture, the rest was a joy again.
In the evening, we drove back to our bed & breakfeast to change clothes for the soiree the Mayor was giving and managed to find the villa Feuchtwanger & his wife Marta had been living in - the villa Valmer, much like their later place in Pacific Palisades, i.e. gorgeous view to the sea and lovely to look at. Feuchtwanger was one of the three German writers of his time who actually had a foreign audience and was a bestseller abroad as well, and it shows in his places of residence.
The soiree took place at the Theatre Galli as well and offered your usual assortment of melon & ham combinations plus sushi for snacks plus a great singer of songs from the 50s. I really felt like dancing, but unfortunately there was no one to dance with. Otoh, entertaining conversations continued. Poor Mrs Feuchtwanger didn’t understand French or German, as opposed to her husband & son, so she had been quite lost during the day. She, my aged parent and a couple of other spouses and relations chose the better part of valour the next day, Thursday, and didn’t show up for the lectures, which left the hardcore Feuchtwangerians.
Tursday’s morning was packed - six lectures - one dealing with Feuchtwanger’s book “The Devil in France”, his report of his internment in Les Milles, one dealing with “Paris Gazette” (again), and one comparing the use of satire when dealing with the Nazis in his novel “The False Nero” with Heinrich Mann’s “Lidice”. The other lectures were all devoted to his trilogy of novels about Flavius Josephus, which since they are among my favourites of his works I was all for. Said trilogy is remarkable for many reasons: as historical novels, as Feuchtwanger tackling his life-long question how to define Jewish identity by picking a Jewish writer traditionally considered a traitor, as an example of what we call “Exilliteratur” in German - he started writing it in Germany where the first volume got published barely before Hitler came to power, then was among the first to get kicked out of the country and wrote the other two volumes abroad, the last within his last weeks in France before departing to the US, and as one of the crucial topics is cosmopolitism versus nationalism, the experience of exile reflects massively on it.
The afternoon saw me abstaining from more lectures as well, but I had a good reason: the Italian publisher I had met earlier had called to tell he had arranged a meeting with a French publisher called Christiane Revelly. In Nizza. So the convertible was put to use again, and back to Nizza I went. (And back to Sanary afterwards, which is a two hours drive to and thro on the highway instead of the beautiful but much longer country road on the coast.) The conversation went well - I think - but the drive back was eerie, because there was hardly anyone else on the road. In Germany that never happens with our autobahns. Personally, I blame the French habit of taking money for using theirs.
Friday: was the day with the most German lectures, which was relaxing - though I think I’m getting better at comprehending more and more of fastly spoken French - except for the translators, who according to the French participants did a fabulous job. The lectures most interesting to me were:
1.) one about Friedrich Sieburg, who was the model for Erich Wiesner in Feuchtwanger’s novel Paris Gazette (yup, another Exil lecture, so to speak); Sieburg, like Wiesner in the novel, had been the Paris correspondant of one of the main German papers (the Frankfurter Zeitung) for years pre-Hitler, like Feuchtwanger had been one of the star authors of the Weimar Republic, and unlike Feuchtwanger had thrown himself into the arms of the regime wholeheartedly, supporting the Nazis 100% post-33. I hadn’t known anything about him other than he existed, so it was interesting to hear details. He even became one of the diplomatic liasons to the Vichy government (and hence got arrested with it later), but returned to the top pretty quickly in post-war Germany, becoming the head of the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (the successor of the Frankfurter Zeitung) and thus the literary pope of Germany till his death in the early 60s, a position currently inhabited by Marcel Reich Ranicki. (Himself first oppressed in a ghetto and then an exile during the time Sieburg was lording with the Nazis.)
2.) One about the form of the “open letter” which was used very often by the emigrés in their newspaper publications, trying to engage the people at home in international debates (with moderate success - I think the Gottfried Benn/Klaus Mann controversy was one of the few instances where the adressee, Benn, actually wrote back); Feuchtwanger’s most well-known one is addressed to “Sieben Berliner Schauspieler”, i.e. “seven Berlin actors”, with all of whom he had worked during the Weimar days and all of whom had starred or in one case directed the most vicious of antisemite films, Jud Süß. (Incidentally not based on Feuchtwanger’s bestselling novel of the same name which got burned and forbidden as early as ’33; officially, the Harlan movie was based on the Hauff novella from the 1800s which again had the same title, but actually had nothing to do with either literary precedent, content-wise, other than using the title and claiming to be about the same historical figure, Josef Süß Oppenheimer.) They were among the most well-known actors in Germany from the 20s onward: Werner Krauss, Heinrich George, Eugen Klöpfer - imagine the most respected and admired actors of the present starring in the most vicious piece of propaganda imaginable, and you get the idea of how that felt.
(Sidenote: All the actors who didn’t star in that film inevitably after the war told the story of how they were asked to by Goebbels but refused. The only case in which we know this to be true was Gustaf Gründgens who ironically enough, thanks to his former brother-in-law, Klaus Mann, and the later’s novel “Mephisto” ended up as the most famous actor collaborating with the Nazis. I always thought Krauss would have deserved it more, but hey.)
3.) A lecture on the great congress of 1935 in Paris which featured intellectuals from all over Europe in a rare (and doomed) attempt of unity between left wing and right wing. I knew the speeches by Feuchtwanger and Heinrich Mann already, but what I hadn’t known was that E.M. Foster, he of “Maurice” and “Howard’s End” and “Journey To India” fame, spoke as well, about England’s laws against homosexuals, no less. (Alas since the majority of the congress not surprisingly was devoted to events in Germany, this speech got zilch attention.)
4.) One about some of the film versions of Feuchtwanger’s novels. The lecturer, Professor Stern from Tel Aviv & Vienna, showed examples from the tv version of Erfolg (worthy but dull, if you ask me, which is a crime because Erfolg the novel, the first one to depict the Nazis in general and Hitler in particular THREE YEARS before Hitler came to power, in 1930, is biting and funny as a book), and the film version of Goya (well-made). And he lamented the fact there still isn’t an onscreen version of Die Jüdin von Toledo; I must say I’m with him there - it’s one eminently filmable book and in my heretic opinion far better than the Grillparzer drama about the same subject.
After the lectures ended, we went to dinner with my friend Marje (the most lovable librarian ever, remember) in a terrific restaurant called Le coin du table or something like that, ate delicious food and nearly had a heart attack when Dad couldn’t find his purse afterwards (it had dropped to the floor when he sat down, as it turned out - after I had payed).
Saturday: The last day of the conference started with a lecture on an unknown (to me) and still living writer, Fred Wander, whose vita sounds horrible and yet inspiring. Because he went through such a lot - being an Austrian Jew in Vienna during the 30s is traumatic for starters. Then came France and poverty but liberty, until he got arrested as an enemy alien and put in a camp. As opposed to Feuchtwanger, he didn’t get out in time, thus was handed over to the Nazis once they were there, and then came to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Which he survived. He was one of the few survivors who went back to Germany - to East Germany, to be specific. Where he made it as a writer, only to see his daughter Kitty die in an attempt to cross the EastGerman/West German border in 1968. Later on, he left the GDR, and now he lives in… Vienna. As the lecturer said, the fact he returned to Vienna, in spite of everything, and is still alive, and still writing with hope and didn’t grow bitter through all the horror of what happened to him is perhaps the most amazing thing about this amazing story.
The last two lectures I heard, otoh, were about one of Feuchtwanger’s most well known contemporaries, Franz Werfel, one about his relationship with Zionism (which was not that different from Feuchtwanger’s - if it has to be summed up in a catch phrase, they admired the dedication but thought it was a step back instead of forward, and it conflicted with their idea of cosmopolitism), and one of politics (since Werfel was Austrian, not German, he didn’t become an emigré until 1938 and apparently like Thomas Mann took his time to come out explicitly against the regime).
Then it was time to say farewell, hop into the convertible and take the autoroute for a change, cross country to Geneva, which is where I’m sitting in my hotel room now. Geneva reminds me a bit of Hamburg, all patrician elegance and waterfronts and wealth. The trademark waterfountain is supposed to be the highest in the world, which I somewhat doubt (I’ve been to Iceland), but it certainly looks splendid. I also paid my respects to Rousseau’s birth place in the old city and the statue at the Ile Rousseau which looks nothing like him (if the drawings are anything to go buy) and instead looks distinctly Caesarian, dressed up in philosphical robes. The effect is somewhat ruined by a beer bottle someone placed in poor Rousseau’s hand.
The Aged Parent wanted us to light a candle in the Cathedrale St. Pierre because we tend to do that when visiting a church, for our dead. Quoth I: “This is Calvintown, Dad. They don’t light candles.” (Poor old Jean Calvin would probably rotate in his grave at the idea of such popery.) However, tomorrow we’ll visit St. Gallen which has a Benedictine Abbey. Also Bern. But the majority of my journey is over, and I feel distinctly wistful already.