This was a great occasion for Hyères; the greatest it has ever known, perhaps. “They saluted the returning sovereign with loud acclamations, and the standard of France floated from the donjon of the castle as witness to the fidelity of the inhabitants for the sovereign.” The “good King René,” in a later century, had a great affection for Hyères also, and was equally beloved by its inhabitants. One of his legacies to Jeanne de Provence were the salt-works of Hyères, which were even then in existence. Hyères enjoyed a strenuous enough life through all these years, but the saddest event in its whole career was when the traitorous Connétable de Bourbon took the château and turned it over to France’s arch-enemy, Charles V. Charles IX. visited Hyères and remained five days within its walls, “his progress having been made between two rows of fruit-bearing orange-trees, freshly planted in the streets through which he was to pass.” This flattery so pleased the monarch that he himself, so history, or legend, states, carved the following inscription upon the trunk of one of those same orange-trees, “_Caroli Regis Amplexu Glorior_.” One of the most beautiful strips of coast-line on the whole Riviera lies between Hyères and Fréjus. A narrow-gauge railway makes its way almost at the water’s edge for the entire distance, and the coast road, a great departmental highway, follows the same route. The distance is too great--seventy-five kilometres or more--for the pedestrian, unless he is one who keeps up old-time traditions, but nevertheless there is but one way to enjoy this everchanging itinerary to the full, and that is to make the journey somehow or other by highroad. The automobile, a bicycle, or a gentle plodding burro will make the trip more enjoyable than is otherwise conceivable, even though the striking beauties which one sees from the slow-running little train give one a glimmer of satisfaction. Seventy-five kilometres, scarce fifty miles! It is nothing to an automobile, not much more to a bicycle, and only a two-days’ jaunt for a sure-footed little donkey, which you may hire anywhere in these parts for ten francs a day, including his keeper. No more shall be said of this altogether delightful method of travelling this short stretch of wonderland’s roadway, but the suggestion is thrown out for what it may be worth to any who would taste the joys of a new experience. Close under the frowning height of Les Maures runs the coast road, for quite its whole length up to Fréjus, while on the opposite side, and beneath, are the surging, restless waves of the Mediterranean.