We found the municipal authorities busy making a continuation of the promenade along the shore for a full additional half–mile or more westward towards Cape Martin,—an addition which has ere this proved a great accession to the place, and will be complete when carried as far as Cape Martin itself, which, with its forest of trees, is one of the most charming haunts about Mentone; but the access to it has hitherto been either by the dusty high road or by the rough stony beach. Builders had also been busy with new houses, but the speculation, I doubt, had not proved profitable, as, owing to the dulness of trade and to the war in the East, many of the villas remained empty, while even the hotels did not fill so rapidly as they had done the previous year. However, when we left in the spring, the builders had not seemed deterred by the want of demand, for building operations were still progressing, and I fear much that in a few years Mentone, if not overbuilt for the number of visitors, will lose a great deal of its charm as a rural town. In other respects it was the same as ever, bright and pleasant; and helping to make it so, we had friends in many of the other hotels, besides meeting old friends in our own. * * * * * During the first part of our stay, people were kept in great anxiety about the course of events in France, and we never could tell but that any day a revolution might break out: one result apparently was that newspapers were occasionally stopped, or at least some did not reach us. _Punch_ had in one number a certain distinguished gentleman floundering in the mud. This number did not reach us through the usual channels, but the cartoon nevertheless came to the hotel enclosed in a letter to one of the visitors from a friend in Germany. Perhaps the French are a people too easily excited to make it safe to allow such things to be circulated, but it seems strange to our ideas of free discussion.