Hyères is no longer fashionable. One would not think this to read the alluring advertisements of its palatial hotels, which, if not so grand and palatial as those at Monte Carlo, are, at least, far more splendid than those “board-walk “ abominations of the United States, or the deadly brick Georgian façades which adorn many of the sea-fronts of the south coast of England. The fact is, that society, or what passes for it, flutters around the gaming-tables of Monte Carlo, though for motives of economy or respectability they may sojourn at Nice, Menton, or Cap Martin. For this reason Hyères is all the more delightful. It is the most southerly of all the Riviera resorts, and, while it is still a place of villas and hotels, there is a restfulness about it all that many a resort with more lurid attractions entirely lacks. Built cosily on the southern slope of a hill, it is effectually sheltered from the dread mistral, which, when it blows here, seems to come to sea-level at some distance from the shore. The effect is curious and may have been remarked before. The sea inshore will be of that rippling blue that one associates with the Mediterranean of the poets and painters, while perhaps a league distant it will roll up into those choppy whitecaps which only the Mediterranean possesses in all their disagreeableness. Truly the wind-broken surface of the Mediterranean in, or near, the Golfe de Lyon is something to be dreaded, whether one is aboard a liner bound for the Far East or on one of those abominable little boats which make the passage to Corsica or Sardinia. Hyères in one of its moods is almost tropical in its softness with its famous avenue of palms which wave in the gentle breezes which spring up mysteriously from nowhere and last for about an hour at midday. Its avenues and promenades are delightful, and there is never a suggestion of the snows which occasionally fall upon most of the Riviera resorts at least once during a winter. The only snow one is likely to see at Hyères is the white-capped Alps in the dim northeastern distance, and that will be so far away that it will look like a soft fleecy cloud. Hyères is beautiful from any point of view, even when one enters it by railway from Marseilles, and even more so--indescribably more so, the writer thinks--when approaching by the highroad, from Toulon or Solliès-Pont, awheel or “_en auto_.” Of all the historical memories of Hyères none is the equal of that connected with St. Louis. None will be able to read without emotion the memoirs of Joinville, giving the details of the return of Louis IX. and his wife, Marguerite de Provence, from the Crusades. The account of their arrival “_au port d’Yeres devant le chastel_” is most thrilling. One readily enough locates the site to-day, though the outlines of the old city walls and the château have sadly suffered from the stress of time.