Never is there a throng of people to be seen in these parts, and, if one wanders abroad at night, he is likely enough to have thoughts of the highwaymen of other days. Formerly the forests and mountains of the Estérel were infested with a class of brigands who were by no means of the polished villain order which one has so frequently seen upon the stage. They were not of the Claude Duval class of society, but something very akin to what one pictures as the Corsican bandit of tradition. To-day, however, all is peaceful enough, with the Gendarmerie near by, a terror to all wrong-doers, and the only reminiscences which one is likely to have of the highwaymen of other days are such as one gets from an old mountaineer or a review of the pages of history and romance, where will be found the names of Robert Macaire and Gaspard de Besse, two famous, or infamous, characters whose names and lives were closely connected with this region. It is all tranquil enough to-day, and one is no more likely to meet with any of these unworthies in the Estérel than he is with the “Flying Dutchman” at sea. As one draws near to Cannes, he realizes that he has left the simplicity of the life of the countryside behind him. While still half a dozen kilometres away, he sees a sign reading “Cannes Cricket Club,” and all is over! No more freedom of dress; no more hatless and collarless mountain climbs; but the costume of society, of London, Paris, or New York is what is expected of one at all times. Cannes is truly “aristocratic villadom,” or “_séjour aristocratique et recherché_,” as the French have it, with all that the term implies. Consequently Cannes is conventional, and the real lover of nature--regardless of the town’s charming situation--will have none of it. It is believed that the town grew up from the ancient Ligurian city of Aegytna, destroyed by Quintus Opimius a hundred and fifty years before the beginning of the Christian era. If one does not make his entry into Cannes by road, direct from the Estérel, he will probably come by the way of Le Cannet. Le Cannet is itself a sumptuous suburb which in every way foretells the luxury which awaits one in the parent city by the seashore. Three kilometres of palm and plantain bordered avenue, lined with villas and hotels, joins Le Cannet with Cannes. Not long ago the suburb was an humble, indifferent village, but the tide of popularity came that way, and it has become transformed. The Boulevard Carnot descends from Le Cannet to the sea by a long easy slope, and again one comes to the blue water of the enchanted Mediterranean. At times, Cannes is most lively,--always in a most conventional and eminently respectable fashion,--and at other times it sleeps the sleep of an emptied city, only to awake when the first fogs of November descend upon “_brumeuse Angleterre_.”