Abstract
This article examines the urban transformation of Nice in the early nineteenth century. It does so using the papers of the Consiglio d’Ornato (1832-1860), an urban planning committee charged with overseeing the development of the city at a time of demographic and economic growth brought about by tourism. This article argues that the Consiglio cooperated with private speculators to create a city rooted in a series of myths—Orientalist, Greco-Roman, and early Christian—that both shaped and were shaped by the expectations of world-wearied tourists. Nice was turned into a commodity whose purpose was to provide tourists with a feeling of fleeing a modern world characterized by instability and inauthenticity. Paradoxically, as a direct result, Nice became one of the earliest cities to experience a modern form of consumer capitalism in which people, places, cultures, and nature itself were packaged and peddled to the leisured classes.
What was it like to pass the winter in Nice in the 1850s? To begin with, you would arrive from one of two directions. The first, and most common, route would take you down the Rhone river valley and across the river Var, which serves as the southeastern border between France and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Once you made it through customs, you would continue east along the Rue de France. To your left, a large plain covered with trees rises toward the foot hills of the Maritime Alps; to your right, the sun is reflected by the gentle tides of the Mediterranean Sea. In front of you, a series of elegant villas emerge from this landscape of perpetual spring: “Arbors charged with fruit, orange trees with their dark foliage, rich plantations of olive trees serve as a sign . . . of the happy country you are about to visit.” 1 This suburb is the preferred residence of tourists who come to Nice to escape the harsh winters of Northern Europe.
The second route, though less common, was becoming more popular by the 1850s. It would take you over land to Marseille or Genoa, where you would board a boat to the town of Villefranche. Once on land, you would start to wind your way up the mountainous roads that lead westwards toward Nice. 2 Surrounded on all sides by olive trees, and perspiring under the noon sun, you would feel frustrated and fatigued, when suddenly a vast panorama opens before you. To your left is the port of Nice, once a busy commercial center, but now a simple entrepôt, since its privileges of port franc were revoked in 1851. To your right is a fertile valley interspersed with country houses. Yet these are a far cry from elegant villas. They are modest constructions, known as bastides, surrounded by small vegetable gardens, known as maraichers.
But no matter what route you took, one of the first things you would do is climb the hill called the Colline du Château. Located at the center of the city, it has been transformed into a public promenade to render the séjour of tourists more “healthy and pleasant,” “which in augmenting their numbers, will necessarily augment the profit that the population draws from them.” 3 From the Colline you can orient yourself. Toward the south is the Mediterranean; toward the east, the neighborhood known as the Port; toward the west, and separated from the Port by the Colline, are two neighborhoods known as the Ville Vieille and the Ville Neuve; and finally, even further west, separated from the other neighborhoods by the river Paillon, are two suburbs known as the Croix de Marbre and St. Jean Baptiste. The eastern neighborhoods are inhabited by the working classes and state functionaries and are drawn toward the Kingdom of Sardinia; the western neighborhoods are inhabited by the leisured classes and tourists and are drawn toward France and England. Alexandre Dumas père recognized as much when he remarked that “there are two cities in Nice, the old city and the new city, l’antica Nizza, and the new Nice: the Italian Nice and the English Nice” 4 (Figure 1).
Map of Nice in 1860. A = Colline du Château; B = Mediterranean Sea; C = The Port; D = Ville Vieille; E = Ville Neuve; F = River Paillon; G = Croix de Marbre; H = St. Jean Baptiste.
How did this state of affairs come about? How were these two cities created? We will attempt to answer these questions by examining the papers of the Consiglio d’Ornato, an urban planning committee established under the reign of Charles Albert I (1831-1849). Nice had been asked to create a plan régulateur as early as 1824, but it was only in 1832 that the Consiglio was established “to facilitate the execution of said plan régulateur” and to provide “everything related to the embellishment of the City of Nice.” The Consiglio was composed of nine members, most of whom were officials who participated in its proceedings by virtue of the offices they occupied. For example, the president was also the first consul of the city, and the secretary was also the city architect. Other members included the provincial engineer, the district judge, the director of the municipal police, two city councilmen, and finally two people chosen among those “most gifted in matters related to the Beaux-Arts.” The Consiglio was provided with wide ranging powers. They included the right to approve all building proposals within the territory of the city and to grant tax exemptions to those who followed the proper procedures and built according to the plan régulateur. In addition, the Consiglio had the power to exercise something similar to eminent domain, even if it was encouraged to reach amicable arrangements with private property owners. In the last instance, it could refer complicated cases to a “special delegation,” similarly composed of local officials, which would decide disputes and hand out punishments to those who refused to recognize its authority. 5
Although similar committees were created in other cities, suggesting a general interest in urban planning on the part of the monarchy, it would not have escaped the attention of royal officials that Nice was something of an exception. The city was experiencing considerable demographic and economic changes that needed to be controlled. The population had more than doubled since the Restoration of 1815, reaching the figure of 44,091 permanent residents in 1858, which swelled even further during the winter season as tourists settled in the suburbs. 6 At the same time, the economy had shifted decisively from maritime commerce toward tourism and the service sectors it supported. As the Guide des Étrangers put it in 1859: “After having been a place of war, then a maritime city, today it is nothing more than a charming city of pleasure whose main resource is foreigners.” 7 Although it is difficult to find good estimates of the economic impact of tourism, the French Consulate gave the figure of 1,500,000 Francs in 1834. 8 Not surprisingly, most of this money was made through real estate—through the construction of hotels and villas to be rented to tourists. Indeed, this sort of speculation had become so widespread that writers and caricaturists began to make fun of it. As Swiss poet Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn noted in Nice, poème, inspired by an 1839 séjour: “In this country one plants buildings/And the money of Nissards cannot be better employed/Their smallest rooms make a great profit/If their winter is sweet, their rents are bitter.” 9
The prevalence of this practice was so pronounced that contemporaries commonly described the city as a hotel writ large. Take, for example, a travel narrative written by French savant Henry Bruneel that was reprinted by the newspaper L’Avenir de Nice in 1851. After describing the different sorts of tourists in the city, it asserts that Nice is nothing more than a “vaste hôtellerie” where the “native population disappears under the avalanche of visitors.” 10 The newspaper Passepartout similarly deploys the metaphor of city as hotel. In a local chronicle of 1859, it encourages speculators not to wait too long to prepare their apartments for the winter season. After all, competition is stiff: “for rent signs are not rare” in a city where “hospitality is a productive virtue.” 11 It then wonders where the Niçois reside in this city that seems to be for sale. For they have exiled themselves in the name of economic exigencies. This exile appears even more clearly in a satirical sketch in the same issue of Passepartout. It is entitled “Les Appartements,” and it shows a series of scenes involving tourists and the speculators eager to earn their business. The first scene shows the city composed entirely of villas and hotels with “for rent” signs. Stacked on top of each other, they convey a sense of competition and suggest that speculation in real estate is the primary source of profit in Nice (Figure 2).
Les Appartements.
It is our contention that these demographic and economic changes, encouraged by the Consiglio, many of whose members personally profited from them, created the two cities of Nice. Using the concept of “place-myths” proposed by the sociologist John Urry, we will show that the location of buildings, along with their architecture and ornamentation, both shaped and were shaped by mythologies elaborated in travel narratives, newspapers, and prints. These mythologies drew on Orientalism, Greco-Roman antiquity, and early Christianity and depended on the interpenetration of the built and natural environment. They promoted a sense of escape from an everyday world experienced as unstable and inauthentic in the Age of Romanticism. 12 And they were used by the Consiglio, in collaboration with private speculators, to transform the western neighborhoods into a commodity that was appealing to the tired tourists of Northern Europe, like British physician John Bunnell Davis, who sought “tranquil retirement from the tumultuous turmoil of civilized life,” an urbs in rure where reverie and refined feeling replaced the crassness of commercial modernity, while the eastern neighborhoods were left to languish. 13 As Urry states, “It seems to be a characteristic of ‘modernity’ that social spaces develop which are wholly or partly dependent on visitors, and that those visitors are attracted by the place-myths that surround and constitute such places.” 14 It might be observed that those spaces often contribute to the contradictions of modernity, that they conceal the conquering spirit of consumer capitalism, the displacement of la valeur d’usage by la valeur d’échange, creating what Walter Benjamin called “phantasmagoria . . . rendered in stone.” 15
Before looking at urban planning in Nice under the Consiglio, it is necessary to provide a sort of prehistory. After all, the Consiglio was not working with a tabula rasa. It had to come to terms with geographical and political problems that had developed over the course of the early modern period and that had manifested themselves in the urban development of Nice. To begin with, following a war of succession, Nice was separated from the County of Provence and was annexed by the House of Savoy in 1388. In the eyes of its new sovereigns, the city had two roles to play. The first was that of a fortified stronghold. Accordingly, it became the site of a château and city walls which were reputed impregnable in the early modern period. As the fortifications were reinforced and expanded, public institutions and private residences were expelled from the city center on top of what is now known as the Colline du Château. The pivotal moment in this process came in 1517 when the city hall and cathedral were relocated to what is now known as the Ville Vieille, a small piece of land sandwiched between the Colline, the Paillon, and the Mediterranean. It was here that the city began to develop from the sixteenth century onwards. But its development was limited. For it was surrounded on all sides by natural barriers and man-made fortifications. 16
This military role came to an end with the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). The House of Savoy entered the war on the side of the Bourbons, but it soon shifted its support to the Habsburgs, as part of a long-standing strategy of playing these early modern superpowers against each other. This shift led Louis XIV to invade Nice and to dismantle the château and city walls in 1706. After the war ended, they remained in ruins. Nice now became an open city, and this opening produced positive results: “in losing its military importance, Nice was assured civic tranquility, without violence, scarring or perturbation of the urban framework,” while “the suppression of the city walls permitted the creation of new zones of expansion that offered unexpected space to the baroque city.” 17 And the eighteenth century did indeed see expansion. The city limits were pushed outwards toward the Paillon and the Mediterranean creating what is now known as the Ville Neuve. The city walls were transformed into terraces and public promenades, and a royal square called the Place Victor was constructed in the 1780s. The latter was conceived on a monumental scale and ornamented with a triumphal arch for royal arrivals. In short, this period produced “spaces of representation” where the nobility and the monarchy could assert their power.
The same periodization applies to the second role played by Nice. Historically, the House of Savoy had no coastal cities. Therefore, it had no direct access to overseas trade routes and no merchant fleet. It sought to solve these problems in two ways: first, by annexing the city of Nice and, second, by promoting the port of Nice through favorable trade laws. Toward this end, it granted the privileges of port franc in 1612. These privileges allowed goods to enter the city and its territory tax free and provided safe haven for merchants who had run afoul of the laws in their home countries. However, it was not until the eighteenth century that the House of Savoy started to focus its energies on constructing a port capable of supporting trade on an enlarged scale. It settled on a marsh known as Lympia as the ideal location, and it began construction in 1748. 18 The French Revolution arrived before the port could be brought to completion. The privileges of port franc were abolished soon after Nice was annexed by France in 1793, but Nice had close commercial ties with Marseille, and now that the two ports were under a common customs regime, their relationship would only grow stronger.
After the Restoration of 1815, Nice was returned to the House of Savoy. Due to the traumas of war, its population had declined and its public works projects had stalled. As a consolation, Nice had its privileges of port franc reestablished despite the fact that the House of Savoy had annexed Genoa. In terms of urbanism, the restoration period was characterized by cautious completion of public works projects begun in the eighteenth century. The terraces and public promenades of the Ville Neuve were refurbished and redecorated with new buildings, including the Théâtre Royal constructed in 1826. The port and its surroundings similarly expanded as depots were built along the land route leading to Turin. But by far the most decisive development was the construction of a bridge that connected the Ville Neuve to the Croix de Marbre and St. Jean Baptiste in 1824. It symbolized the escape of the city from the barriers and fortifications of the early modern period and its entry into the modern era of tourism. While tourism had been essential to the economy since the eighteenth century, its effect on urban expansion had been minimal. 19 Yet this state of affairs would soon change. With the Pont Neuf, the stage was set for the Consiglio. This committee would usher in an era defined by the tastes of tourists and the interests of speculators. As French writer Antoine de Tourtoulon put it when describing Nice in 1840, “the olive, the orange, the fig and the foreigner are its principal harvests; the renting of apartments its principal industry.” 20
There have only been two studies dedicated to the urban transformation of Nice under the Consiglio. The first, entitled Le Consiglio d’Ornato, was published in the 1950s. Written by Edouard Scoffier and Félix Blanchi, it is a thorough examination of the structure and administration of this urban planning committee, with a few insights into the broad outlines of its work. Its only argument is that the plan régulateur exercised control over speculation in real estate in contrast to the more liberal laws of Second Empire France. For with the annexation of Nice by France in 1860 came “the regime of liberty, with its inconveniences, which succeeded the regime of controlled construction, with the essential aim of a public aesthetic.” 21
The second study, entitled L’Exception urbaine: Nice de la Renaissance au Consiglio d’Ornato, was published roughly 50 years later. The author Philippe Graff argues that the House of Savoy had a highly developed sense of urban planning. Its roots lay in the sixteenth century, when Emmanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, decided to move his court from Chambéry to Turin. The problem was how to transform this provincial town into a royal capital worthy of his ambitions on the Italian Peninsula. The answer was to make his court a center of humanist thought on the city and to create a series of plans régulateurs. 22 This highly developed sense of urban planning was then exported to Nice in the seventeenth century, when for the first time proposals for urban planning began to emerge. Graff labels this tradition “baroque urbanism,” a concept he associates with several characteristics: an understanding of the city as a unified whole, a coherent approach to its expansion, a desire to integrate new neighborhoods within the existing urban fabric, and a desire to achieve this integration through the creation of public spaces that lend themselves to le droit à la ville.
The concept of le droit à la ville was developed by the sociologist Henri Lefebvre in the 1960s. It refers to the simultaneity and heterogeneity of urban spaces characteristic of the precapitalist city. In other words, it implies a sort of space that is not subject to the division of labor and that has the capacity to combine simultaneously home, work, and leisure. It implies a sort of space where the wealthy and the poor interact with each other regularly and in various social and cultural contexts. Hence, le droit à la ville is closely associated with la valeur d’usage. 23 According to Lefebvre, these spaces begin to break down with the rise of capitalism. Space is parceled and sold to private speculators who are concerned above all with turning a profit, and the state attempts to control private speculators in the name of “the general organization of industry.” 24 Accordingly, the latter creates spaces subject to the division of labor in which home, work, and leisure are separated. In addition, it creates spaces segregated along socioeconomic lines in which the wealthy and the poor interact with each other only rarely and only in an economic context. To illustrate this shift, Lefebvre regularly refers to the transformation of Second Empire Paris under the Baron Haussmann. For him, this is the time and place where precapitalist urban spaces dissolved, where le droit à la ville and la valeur d’usage were destroyed by la valeur d’échange. 25
Thus, Graff makes the same argument as his predecessors. Pointing to the plan régulateur, he argues that the Consiglio maintained the common good in the face of private profit. But its work was undone by the French annexation of Nice in 1860: “The plan régulateur becomes obsolete and is replaced by a liberal conception founded on private property, inviolable and sacred according to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.” 26
This argument is fundamentally flawed, first, because the existence of an urban planning committee is no guarantee of the common good. It is a sign that the precapitalist city is in the process of breaking down as state planners try to control the energies of private speculation. As the Count Ippolito Cais di Pierlas wrote when addressing the Consiglio in 1842, If we have seen rise, as if by magic, various blocks in the suburb of the Croix-de-Marbre to the point of forming a new city, we cannot attribute it uniquely to a growth in population or a development of commerce, but also, we must admit, to speculation in housing for foreigners who appreciate this suburb.
27
The regulations established by the Consiglio, particularly with regard to the relationship between the built and natural environment, were designed more than anything else to ensure that private speculators would not inadvertently hurt their own interests.
Second, this argument depends upon the existence of a coherent approach to the city, which implies the integration of new neighborhoods with the old, but it is clear that the Consiglio dedicated most of its time and effort to three neighborhoods in particular: the Ville Neuve, Croix de Marbre, and St. Jean Baptiste. The plans for the Ville Vieille were basically abandoned, while those for the Port were reduced in their scope and ambition. Thus, the Consiglio authorized the construction of buildings in the latter neighborhoods “without arcades and, with exception, without ornamental effort.”
28
This unevenness coincided with socioeconomic segregation as seen in contemporary travel narratives. Tourists rarely ventured into the Ville Vieille, but when they did, they did not fail to describe its inhabitants with a disdain matched only by their disgust at the decrepit condition of the buildings. To quote Antoine de Tourtoulon once more, It is not the beauty of the city that attracts that opulent crowd from all the countries of Europe. The old roads, narrow and tortuous, almost exclusively inhabited by the working classes, have in general a sad and miserable aspect.
As for the Croix de Marbre, it is “the neighborhood of predilection for foreigners,” where “luxury, livery, and equipages are everywhere.” 29
Indeed, this socioeconomic segregation was so pronounced that it affected the tone of proposals submitted to the Consiglio. Take, for example, an undated request submitted by Onorato Malbecqui, Bernardo Spinetto, and Felice Garziglia. These three men had recently purchased property by the Port, and they were surprised to find that the ground floor of the building they wished to construct had to be decorated with arcades. They wished to be excused from this requirement for two reasons: first, because of the expense and, second, because “in all probability this new neighborhood will not be appreciated or inhabited by foreigners.” 30 Another good example comes from Henri Roubaud, a retired French rentier, who had purchased a piece of property in St. Jean Baptiste in 1839. He too was surprised by the decorations required for the building he wished to construct, and he too requested to be excused from executing them. He had intended to build “small apartments” that were “suitable for the small fortunes of the inhabitants of Nice,” but he found himself constrained to build rooms that “resemble those of a château.” 31 What were the responses of the Consiglio? Conscious of the segregation that characterized the city—the relative importance of tourism to the western neighborhoods and its relative unimportance to the eastern neighborhoods—it approved the first request and rejected the second. It would seem that, unlike Paris under the Baron Haussmann, Nice under the Consiglio did not destroy the city center and relocate its poor inhabitants to the periphery. Rather, it turned the city center into a working-class slum through malign neglect, thereby encouraging the leisured classes and tourists to settle in the suburbs.
This transformation can be studied more systematically using the registers of requests submitted to the Consiglio between 1832 and 1860. As a basis for statistical analysis, the registers present several problems. The first is that of organization. Some of them are organized by date, some by name, and some not at all. At the same time, they include both approved and rejected requests, which can lead to double counting if there was a problem that was then rectified at a later time. The second is that of representativeness. Some registers are obviously incomplete. This is especially true for the years surrounding 1860 when it was increasingly clear that Nice was going to be annexed by France. These difficulties have been addressed as much as possible. To avoid double counting, only approved requests have been analyzed. To ensure that incomplete data do not distort the analysis, the first and final years of the registers have been dropped. These difficulties should not discourage us, but simply serve as a warning. The registers are a vital source that allows us to trace changes in the city over time, but the patterns they suggest should be understood in relative not in absolute terms. 32
By comparing the approved requests from three periods that span the existence of the Consiglio (1833-1836/1843-1846/1853-1856), it becomes clear that the center of gravity was shifting from the city center to the suburbs. In the 1830s, the majority of requests were accounted for by the Ville Vieille, followed at a considerable distance by the Ville Neuve. Although these two neighborhoods were located next to each other, they were very different in terms of economic and social structure. The former, with its winding streets, was the early modern nucleus, while the latter, with its boulevards and promenades, was built in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on land that was once occupied by the city walls. These differences were reflected in the nature of the requests: those from the Ville Vieille were primarily concerned with repairs to existing structures, while those from the Ville Neuve were primarily concerned with new structures and ostentatiously ornate devantures for luxury shops. The Faubourgs, which comprise the suburbs of the Croix de Marbre and St. Jean Baptiste, had the third highest number of requests and were dominated by new constructions to be rented to tourists. The Port lagged far behind in a distant fourth (Figure 3).
Number of Approvals per Neighborhood.
However, this state of affairs had begun to change by the 1840s. The overall number of requests had decreased, but more importantly the relative positions of the neighborhoods had shifted. The Ville Neuve now accounted for the largest number of requests, followed closely by the Faubourgs. What was most striking was the decline of the Ville Vieille, which now only slightly surpassed the Port, a neighborhood experiencing modest expansion due to the privileges of port franc (Figure 4). These trends continued into the 1850s. The overall number of requests decreased even further, attributable perhaps to the consolidation of a property owning class, the economic crisis of previous years, or the anticipated annexation. But the Faubourgs now accounted for the largest number of requests, with the Ville Neuve slipping into second place. Meanwhile, the Ville Vieille and the Port were reduced to seeming insignificance. As tourism took off in the 1840s and 1850s, encouraging the growth of western neighborhoods, the eastern neighborhoods were left to languish (Figure 5).
Number of Approvals per Neighborhood.
Number of Approvals per Neighborhood.
Now that broad patterns have been established, it might prove useful to examine the distribution of professions in different neighborhoods. For we know that the importance of the Ville Neuve and Faubourgs was rooted in tourism, but we do not know what their precise roles were. Using the Indicateur Niçois of 1846, which coincides with the second statistical period, it is possible to suggest some conclusions. 33 As mentioned above, a large number of requests from the Ville Neuve were related to devantures for luxury shops lining its boulevards and promenades, whose exposure to the southern sunlight during the winter season made them ideal places for tourists to play the role of flâneur. It comes as no surprise, then, that all those who classified themselves as modistes or marchands de nouveautés were located in this neighborhood. More interesting is that they tended to concentrate in specific places—namely, the Place St. Dominique and the Rue du Pont Neuf. It was there that tourists would have purchased their suits, dresses, and other fineries intended to be shown off in high society. For the “principal means of amusement and distraction in the winter are the theaters, concerts, balls, and private soirées” 34 (Figure 6). Yet the Ville Neuve offered more sober pastimes as well. The book trade, including reading rooms and lending libraries, was located within its confines. Indeed, it was concentrated overwhelmingly in one street—namely, the Rue du Gouvernement. It was there that tourists would have been able to consult whatever they desired by way of printed matter and engage in educated sociability. For a certain M. Visconti was known to carry “the principal books, journals and reviews that are published in the various capitals of Europe.” Afterward, they would have most likely walked down to Le Cours, “where the principal cafés of Nice” were located (Figure 7). 35
Number of Modistes per Street.
Number of Librairies per Street.
While the Ville Neuve was a luxurious shopping district, the Faubourgs were primarily residential. Fortunately, the Indicateur Niçois was not simply an informal census, but also a platform for private speculators to advertise villas they wished to rent to tourists. Not surprisingly, the vast majority were located in the Faubourgs, with the Ville Neuve coming in a distant second. These properties came with considerable amenities. A certain M. Carboni, for instance, offered “a house facing south with the pleasure of a beautiful garden planted with orange trees and roses”
36
(Figure 8). Given this division of leisure, it is to be expected that there were relatively few luxury shops located in the Faubourgs. But there were certain professions that found them particularly attractive. Professors of language and music were in very high demand. They were located overwhelmingly in the Faubourgs, which made it convenient to give private lessons in the villas (Figure 9). The presence of such personal services makes sense culturally—traveling was a time to cultivate oneself—but it also makes sense in terms of the myths that Romantic tourism promotes. The villa was supposed to be a retreat where the concerns of the everyday world were a distant memory (or at least on the other side of the Paillon). According to French essayist Alphonse Karr, the villa was a place of which one can make, when one wants, a paradise where one is Adam . . . or an island on which one is Robinson . . . where one can breath for a few moments outside of the laws, the commerce and the customs of society.
37
Another popular profession in the Faubourgs was the renting of carriages to tourists. It too was consistent with the myth of escape from the everyday world, as the carriages were used for promenades in the surrounding countryside, where exotic plants stimulated the imagination (Figure 10).
Number of Advertisements per Neighborhood.
Number of Professeurs per Neighborhood.
Number of Voituriers per Neighborhood.
It should be emphasized that the functions performed by these two neighborhoods were symbiotic. They both worked toward the same thing—creating new ways of looking at and consuming the natural world. For nature means different things to different people in different historical periods. And in the early nineteenth century, its meaning was changing. As Nicholas Green has argued, new sorts of urban spectacle, developed in Paris during the 1830s and 1840s, had a profound effect on the way people looked and consumed. Luxury shops, with their decorated window displays, created “a series of links between parading on the boulevards, looking and acquiring.” 38 At the same time, new forms of entertainment like panoramas pioneered new modes of perception that vacillated between an awareness of the image as commodity and an intense emotional immersion within it. 39 These ways of looking and consuming were then applied to the natural world, which came to be conceptualized as “scenery, views, and perpetual sensation.” 40
These modes of perception soon reached the boulevards and promenades of the Ville Neuve in Nice. The devantures of its luxury shops incorporated natural forms and engaged with complex colonialist and Orientalist motifs. Take, for example, the devanture that a certain Bastiano Barteld wished to construct along the Rue St. François de Paule in 1843. According to his request, submitted to the Consiglio, he was planning on opening an establishment for the sale of mineral water. But the devanture was designed more to titillate flâneurs than to inform them of his wares. Lions, sphinxes, and pilasters carved to look like pharaonic statues would have transported the flâneur to a place, distant in space and time, which was populated by mythical creatures and demigods (Figure 11). The same can be said of another request, submitted by a certain Camille Bourroul, who wished to open a drugstore on the Rue du Gouvernement in 1844. Above the entrance is the image of a black slave, flanked on both sides by cornucopias and a banderole announcing the presence of “colonial products.” Although the cornucopia comes from Greek mythology, here the abundance that they represent is associated with the new world and its exotic goods. 41 So despite the fact that the Ville Neuve was a shopping district, it too was able to contribute to the myths of tourism by creating new ways of looking at and consuming nature. It taught tourists wandering its boulevards and promenades that nature and its associated myths were commodities to be consumed and feelings to be felt (Figure 12).
Bastiano Barteld, Fabricant d’Eau Minérale. Rue St. François de Paule, September 25, 1843.
Camille Bourroul, Droguiste. Rue du Gouvernement, August 14, 1844.
These myths were further elaborated in the Faubourgs. Perhaps the most important was that of the climate of Nice. Travel narratives emphasized the mildness of its winters. Indeed, many claimed there was no winter at all, and that the city lived in a perpetual spring. Nice was a place where “the springing flowers no coming winter fear.” 42 Nonetheless, it was possible to call into question the accuracy of these claims. Only the introduction of exotic plants could prove the mildness of the climate and ensure an increasing number of tourists. Two species, in particular, were widespread. The first was the agave, a plant indigenous to the Americas. The second was the cactus, which contemporaries closely associated with Africa. Together they communicated that, in Nice, “the sky, always calm, is only disturbed by gentle and warm breezes; there, all forms of vegetation flourish, from the fir tree of the northern latitudes to the agave and to the cactus of burning and black Africa.” 43 In fact, their meaning was so clear that they could communicate the mildness of the climate in the absence of any verbal elaboration. Thus, in an image of the villa rented by French noblewoman Stéphanie de Bade, published by the newspaper Le Monde illustré in 1858, an agave in full bloom dominates the foreground, while other agaves are planted in urns lining the property wall (Figure 13). These exotic species were so common that they were actually assimilated to indigenous species, and it would seem that tourists had a hard time telling them apart. This comes through in two images, taken from the newspaper L’Illustration in 1854, showing agaves and cactuses with an olive tree and labeled “Vegetation in Nice” (Figure 14).
Villa of Stéphanie de Bade.
Vegetation in Nice.
Yet the most celebrated exotic plant to be introduced into Nice was the palm tree. Less common than agaves and cactuses, its meaning was much more potent. This potency is borne out by deliberations of the Chambre Royale d’Agriculture et de Commerce, which was founded in 1825 to encourage economic growth in Nice. The Chambre Royale realized early on that tourism was of paramount importance, and accordingly dedicated most of its time and effort to the transformation of the Colline into a public promenade. Toward this end, it held a series of deliberations about what plants were to be used so as to make the promenade as pleasant as possible. In 1843, a member referred to “the public desire to see palm trees planted, to increase the ornamentation with its singular and noble aspect, and to give faith in the mildness of the climate to foreigners who visit this city” and urged the purchase and planting of sixty palm trees along the promenade. 44 Similarly, private speculators were introducing them into the pleasure gardens of their villas. For there was nothing more capable of sending tourists into poetic raptures. Take, for example, the French poet Théodore de Banville, who described them “thrusting toward the sky their immense branches, straight, strong, luxuriant, slightly agitated by the warm breeze, sublime like Glory.” 45 While agaves and cactuses never entirely disappear from images of Nice, by the 1850s they were being displaced. This displacement can be seen in an image of the Villa De Orestis published by the newspaper L’Illustration in 1859. Rented by the Dowager Empress of Russia, the villa emerges from a dense vegetation that prominently displays a palm tree (Figure 15).
Villa De Orestis.
More interesting is the way palm trees began to be incorporated into architecture and ornamentation. As Simon Schama has shown, theorists of architecture in early modern Europe believed that converging branches of oak trees were the origin of the vaults characteristic of gothic churches. 46 Thus, there was a long history of associating natural and architectural forms. Yet whereas oak trees were associated with gothic structures, palm trees were associated with Greek temples and Arab mosques. They were at times described as “immense columns of an ideal temple,” and at others as “mosques of leaves.” For contemporaries, it was clear that “it is in the nature of palm trees . . . to form architectural combinations as regular as anything emerging from the mind of an inspired artist.” 47 It comes as no surprise, then, that several requests submitted to the Consiglio from the Faubourgs drew their inspiration from palm trees. Take, for example, the undated request of a certain Antoine Marion to construct a small pavilion on the Rue St. Barthélemy. Its flowery ornamentation is complemented by a flag holder in the shape of a palm frond attached to the top of the roof (Figure 16). The potent meaning of the palm tree may also account for the preference on the part of private speculators for Corinthian and Composite columns. While Corinthian columns were more closely associated with acanthus leaves, there is at least one instance of their association with palm trees in Nice. It comes from the Galerie des Palmiers of the recently refurbished Imperial Palace in 1860. Although it does not prove anything, it does suggest that private speculators were aware of such connections (Figure 17).
Pavilion of Antoine Marion. Rue St. Barthélemy, n.d.
Galerie des Palmiers, Palais Impérial de Nice.
The Chambre Royale provided impetus for introducing not only palm trees but all sorts of exotic plants into public works projects. This pioneering role makes perfect sense, as its transformation of the Colline into a public promenade was an important part of the plan régulateur that the Consiglio was tasked with promoting. In the first year of its stewardship, it introduced roughly 20,000 plants. They included agaves, cactuses, and aloes, as well as a number of species from far off places such as Bengal, Japan, and the Philippines. 48 And despite an initial desire to dedicate the Colline to agricultural experiments, the effort and expense of importing these exotic plants was meant to “embellish and render flourishing and pleasant” this space so as to “serve as a public passage and pastime, especially for foreigners who spend the winter in this city.” 49
Still, importing these exotic plants was only half the battle. The Chambre Royale had to protect them as well. For the public promenade was constructed on territory near and dear to the hearts of the working classes. In a report, prepared in 1837, it was informed that the work it had done was being destroyed by “men, women, and children, who for pure profit, for immorality, or for amusement, without respect for the public good or utility, trespass with impunity.” 50 Accordingly, it enclosed the entries leading from the Ville Vieille, and it decided that they were to remain closed at all times except in cases of “urgency or necessity.” Thereafter, to access the Colline, it was necessary to take the roads leading from the Ville Neuve, which were protected by soldiers tasked with preventing damage to the exotic plants. 51 As we will show, in the western neighborhoods, iron gates were intended to create a sense of openness for tourists, but in the context of the Colline they were used to exclude and to exile undesirables. And by the end of our period, according to some contemporaries, they worked: “The promenade of the Château is little frequented by the inhabitants of Nice.” 52
Building on the climatic myth, and drawing inspiration from the same sorts of exotic plants, was the myth of Nice as Orient. This myth could be introduced into a description by something as simple as referring to Villefranche as a “small Arab city,” but sometimes it could assume incredibly complex forms. 53 After describing exotic plants in Nice, for example, Alphonse Karr could not resist telling the tale of the European traveler, who chances upon some Arab children playing marbles with “diamonds, rubies, emeralds.” Mistaking them for members of the royal family, he bows in their presence yet receives ridicule in return. It is then that he realizes “these children are nothing but rascals, and the precious stones are nothing but pebbles in that country.” 54 In the same way, agaves, cactuses, and palm trees were nothing but weeds in Nice. And the palm tree was not only associated with fertility but also renewal. Because the date palm was “the very first fruit-bearing tree to be systematically cultivated” in the ancient Near East, it was used by early Christians to symbolize the passion and resurrection of Christ. 55 This association with renewal, while still capable of conjuring religious remembrances, had become secularized by the nineteenth century. Thus, the Guide des Étrangers of 1859 described a tradition where the palm tree planted in front of the Royal Palace in Nice is “carefully harvested every year” and the fruit sent to the king in Turin. 56
The river Paillon similarly contributed to the myth of Nice as Orient. It was known to overflow its banks as the winter snows melted in the Alps and moved downstream toward the Mediterranean. Sometimes these floods were harmless, other times they were destructive: “it covers the bridges, it swallows the stone quays, it uproots orange, palm and aloe trees.” 57 But its destructiveness foretold fertility and renewal. In this respect, it was not unlike the Nile. The Paillon was even referred to as a “miniature Nile,” whose source in the Alps was just as mysterious. 58 Much like exotic plants, this Orientalist myth could be incorporated into architecture. Perhaps the best example comes from the request submitted by the Count De Orestis to the Consiglio in 1844. The pavilion he hoped to construct along the Promenade des Anglais was calculated to send tourists into Orientalist reveries. Surmounted by a crescent, surrounded by sphinxes, and decorated with Solomonic pilasters, it was an ornamental potpourri that could not fail to encourage thoughts of the Near East (Figure 18).
Pavilion of the Count De Orestis. Promenade des Anglais, July 16, 1844.
Founded by Phocaean Greeks and capital of the Roman Alpes Maritimae, Nice was haunted by the spirits of Greco-Roman antiquity as well. Unfortunately for tourists, there were few physical remains apart from an amphitheater and baths. Yet what they lacked in artifacts, they made up for in imagination. Thus, Villefranche was thought to be the famous Port Hercules, carved out of rock by this demigod, who had just “come back from slaying the giant Geryon.” 59 Nice was also compared with the Island of Calypso and the Garden of the Hesperides because of its perpetual spring. The latter comparison was due in large part to the presence of orange trees, for nineteenth-century Europeans assumed that oranges were the mythical golden apples that Hercules was sent to pick. 60 Greco-Roman architecture was so widespread in Nice that it is difficult to choose just one example, but a representative image comes from the request of merchant-financier Isaac Avigdor submitted to the Consiglio in 1840. Hoping to renovate his villa in the Faubourgs, he designed a façade decorated with Ionic pilasters and surmounted by a series of classical statues (Figure 19).
Villa of Isaac Avigdor. Rue de France, June 10, 1840.
Still, the most powerful myth was that of the Garden of Eden. Nice and its inhabitants were thought to enjoy the special providence of god. The climate was so mild and the land so fertile that it was unnecessary to work in order to survive. Instead, time was passed among pastoral amusements. This led some contemporaries to accuse the inhabitants of laziness. Others like Alphonse Karr discouraged such accusations, for if the inhabitants exerted themselves, they would soon be “kings of the world.” He proceeded to support his claim with a story about how, on arrival in Nice, he had accidently left his walking stick in a garden. He returned two days later to find that it had taken root and sprouted leaves. 61 Of course, the story was fictional. However, it might have brought to mind the tale of Joseph of Arimathea, who had set out to convert Roman Britain to Christianity. The latter had also planted his staff in the ground, which then bloomed and became a site of pilgrimage. 62 As for Théodore de Banville, he regularly referred to Nice as a paradise where normative notions of time and space did not apply. The Mediterranean was a “lake of forgetfulness situated at the gates of paradise,” which “contains the delirious desire for rest.” 63
The myth of Nice as Garden of Eden is more difficult to detect in architecture. It was not associated with any particular plants, and it was not signaled by certain symbols. But it does come through in descriptions of buildings that emphasize how they emerge magically from the ground, as if outgrowths of the surrounding countryside. A good example comes from the travel narrative of Niçois physician Pierre Richelmi who, when contemplating the large number of villas, cannot help thinking that “they are here, like the plants, the production of so happy a soil.” Moreover, he mentions how their form and their proportions seem well suited to the terrain, as if they “had been constructed by a happy accident.” 64 Yet these poetic conceits are nothing compared with those of Théodore de Banville. He asserts that the city is “born of unknown laws,” and that its charms cannot be attributed to man but arise from some kind of cosmic harmony. For in Nice, “the city and nature understand each other, they have made a secret pact.” 65 Granted, these are extreme examples. They have the merit, however, of exposing a discourse that might otherwise go undetected—namely, the references to planting and harvesting buildings linked with the myth of Nice as Garden of Eden. This myth can be seen in prints as well. A good example is, once more, the image of the villa rented by Stéphanie de Bade in Le Monde illustré. The entrance to the property is framed by two pillars, aligned with trees planted in the courtyard, creating the illusion that they are simply tree trunks.
Of course, the Consiglio was aware of these myths and their importance to tourism. It was also aware that they relied on the presence of exotic plants in pleasure gardens. Therefore, it did not hesitate to protect open spaces. It pursued a plan régulateur for the Faubourgs based on the interpenetration of the built and natural environment. Contrary to the argument of Graff, this was not because it was asserting le droit à la ville or protecting la valeur d’usage. Rather, it was following a commercial logic. The Consiglio realized that nature was a commodity that provided intense emotional experiences in the form of mythology. And it was a commodity that needed to be preserved if tourism was to flourish. Hence, when the Consiglio stepped in to protect open spaces it was often at the request of private speculators. For open spaces were vital to the value of their villas and their ability to rent them. As Antoine de Tourtoulon put it, villas had to provide “a life of agitation and pleasure, in gardens perfumed with lemons and oranges, or in salons that are warm and resplendent with light.” 66
Such was the case when a certain Orazio Gauthier wanted to construct a villa along the Promenade des Anglais in 1844. Instead of being situated in a pleasure garden, it was to be built right next to the promenade, which would have obstructed the views of tourists walking along the shore, as well as those of tourists who had rented neighboring villas. One proprietor in particular, Augusto Laurencin, took it upon himself to protest and to highlight the problems that the villa could cause if constructed. From the perspective of the promenade, it would be prejudicial “to the view, to the regularity, and to the beautiful prospect of this passage,” which was “one of the most frequented sites” in the city. From the perspective of private property owners, it would be prejudicial to adjacent structures, depriving them of “the action of the sun and the free circulation of air,” not to mention views, which would diminish their “worth and profit.” 67 In other words, the villa would be detrimental to the interpenetration of the built and natural environment that was so important to tourism and its myths. Gauthier recognized as much in his original request, where he described his property as “terrain destined to serve as a garden, and to delight the view of the stroller.” 68
The Consiglio intervened without delay, asserting that the promenade owes “a large part of its pleasantness to the many gardens situated to the north of it,” and that allowing villas to be constructed further south would “deprive this passage of the above mentioned advantages.” 69 These assertions were then codified in the updated plan régulateur for the Faubourgs in 1858. Article V stated that all constructions on the Promenade des Anglais, as well as other boulevards and promenades, had to be set back at least seven meters, while Article IV stated that the properties on which these constructions were built could only be enclosed by ornamental iron gates. 70 For these gates were transparent, and in that respect they were similar to the devantures that displayed goods in the luxury shops of the Ville Neuve. But in the Faubourgs, the goods being displayed were exotic plants in pleasure gardens. As a certain Hyppolite Masclet observed in his request to the Consiglio in 1842, these gates were constructed for the “advantage of the perspective and for the ornament of the coast.” 71
Moreover, these gates were rarely closed, since it was the custom to let “foreigners penetrate and walk everywhere.” That way, “one increases the chances of renting the houses; which easily explains this hospitable custom.” It would seem that the Faubourgs were being transformed into one large pleasure garden. As Alphonse Karr noted, this transformation was good for private speculators, who abandoned their villas in the autumn, to start preparing them for the arrival of tourists. For those who lived in their villas throughout the year, however, this transformation could cause some uncomfortable situations. Such was the case for Karr. While working in his garden one morning, he was confronted with a large group of tourists. Not prepared to receive company, he retired to his study, where he watched the group make its way through his garden, admiring the exotic plants, and passing before his relatives, who were unaware of their identity, but bowed as a matter of good manners. Only later did they discover that the “old woman with the noble, sweet and melancholic face” leading the group was the Dowager Empress of Russia, who had decided to stop in unannounced. This visit was an especially embarrassing version of something that occurred on a regular basis, since foreigners, accustomed to enter everywhere, do not always have the discretion to halt before a house visibly inhabited, and, when walking around the house, without a suit of clothes, with a spade or pruning knife in hand, one finds oneself . . . face to face with a group dressed in finery.
72
Karr was, of course, an exception. For most private property owners, leaving garden gates open, enabling tourists to wander where they wished, was financially beneficial. Consequently, they welcomed tourists: “The gates of gardens are rarely closed; in any case they open at the first request, and the foreigner receives a most gracious greeting.”
73
As for tourists themselves, they thought the open garden gates and the interpenetration of the built and natural environment central to the charm of Nice. These were its characteristic traits. These were the reasons for its success as a winter resort: In Nice . . . the countryside is in the city and the city in the countryside; the gardens of palm trees and orange trees, saturated with perfumes and drowned in flowers, display their glory in the midst of populous neighborhoods.
74
In addition to protecting open spaces at the request of private speculators, the Consiglio incorporated the natural environment into its public works projects. Yet this was not the case in every neighborhood—only in the Ville Neuve, Croix de Marbre, and St. Jean Baptiste—which is to say only in those neighborhoods important to tourism. Beginning with the construction of a church on the Place Masséna in 1835, it made sure that in the Faubourgs it was always possible to see the surrounding countryside. After determining the architectural details of the church façade, for example, it specified that the roads on either side of the church were to be enclosed with a “simple gate” so as not to deprive the square of “the gracious perspective of the countryside, and not to preclude the major prolongation of the roads, as the augmentation of the population, and the tendency of the city require.” 75 Similar concerns come through in a different deliberation in 1840. After examining a new plan régulateur for the Faubourgs, the Consiglio considered whether it was necessary to suppress a series of secondary roads. It concluded that it was indeed necessary because of the “multiple divisions they made in gardens, and the most conspicuous, and precious terrains.” It then debated whether another road was detrimental to the project for “a gracious perspective for the view from the Pont Vieux.” 76
Such concern for the natural environment can be seen in subsequent modifications of the plan régulateur as well. In a debate concerning the relative importance of different projects in 1843, for example, the Consiglio decided not to execute a block of buildings in the Faubourgs because the city treasury was low on funds and the rate of construction did not necessitate it. In the meantime, if private speculators were to construct anything in the area earmarked for these buildings, their constructions would be limited in height, especially if they did not follow the pattern of projected roads, so as “not to impede the view of the countryside from passages along the two banks of the Paillon.”
77
Finally, in 1856, the Consiglio had to defend the scope of this plan régulateur against accusations of royal officials in Turin that it was too ambitious for contemporary circumstances. In doing so, it outlined not only the building practices of private speculators, but its own vision of the relationship between the built and natural environment in the Faubourgs, which clashed with traditional Torinese understandings of the urban. It argued that the plan was not too ambitious considering that the mode of construction prevailing in the suburbs requires that large tracts of land remain unbuilt to leave space for courtyards and spacious gardens so that the land actually capable of being built upon does not account for perhaps a tenth of the total area.
78
This interest in guaranteeing glimpses of nature in the city also comes through in images of public works projects. Take, for example, an undated drawing of the western façade of the Place Masséna. In addition to the flowery ironwork of the balconies, the Corinthian or Composite pilasters, and the potted plants crowning the façade, there is a sketch of the view into the surrounding countryside. A road pierces through the ground floor arcades drawing our attention toward a fertile landscape dominated by large trees and even larger mountains (Figure 20).
Place Masséna, n.d. Archives municipales de Nice, O4 13, Consiglio d’Ornato.
We have shown that the Consiglio was aware of the myths associated with tourism in Nice and that, in collaboration with private speculators, it tried to incorporate them into its conception of the city. Yet several questions remain. How did the Consiglio learn of these myths, along with their reliance on exotic plants and pleasure gardens? Was it a matter of able administrators who recognized and encouraged the evolution of their city? Or were members personally implicated in the real estate speculation they were tasked with controlling in their official capacities? Answering these questions requires that we determine who those members were. Doing so is difficult since the papers of the Consiglio do not contain membership lists. To remedy this problem, it has proved necessary to consult the procès-verbaux and the signatures affixed thereto. This method has produced imperfect but suggestive results. It has permitted us to identify forty-three individuals. 79 At first glance, this may seem like a large number. It should be remembered, however, that this represents the complete nine man membership during nearly three decades. The Consiglio was actually controlled by a fairly small circle of local notables who often served for years at a time. Take, for instance, the Count Ippolito Cais di Pierlas. Belonging to a family that had been ennobled in the eighteenth century, and trained as a military officer, he served continuously for seventeen years, from the creation of the Consiglio in 1832 until the Revolution of 1848. 80 Others who found the work less interesting might shorten their tenure, opting instead to turn their office into a family fiefdom that could be passed down to future generations. Such was the case for the Count Raimondo Garin di Cocconato, who held office for three years, but whose son Urbano served for a further seven, preserving a family presence stretching from the early 1830s through the late 1850s. 81
If compiling a membership list is difficult, developing a compendium of private property owners who rented villas to tourists is virtually impossible. The papers of the Consiglio cannot be used since the requests rarely mention the purpose of the proposed construction, making it risky to claim that a building was intended for commercial as opposed to personal pursuits. The only resource that remains is the series of Indicateur Niçois published in the mid-1840s. Apart from their chronological limits, they present many other problems. Perhaps the most important is that the villa advertisements they contain represent a fraction of the total market. It was common to rent a villa to the same family for several winters, or to secure tenants through networks of agents, and those properties would not have found their way into the Indicateur Niçois. Still, on the basis of these documents, we can establish that eleven members of the Consiglio clearly engaged in real estate speculation related to tourism. This represents roughly twenty-six percent of the overall membership. 82 Moreover, they tended to rent several villas at a time. A good example comes from the Count Alessandro Saissi di Castelnuovo, who advertised “a large furnished home” in the Croix de Marbre, not to mention “a pavilion in Magnan, and a home at the Porte Turin” for the winter of 1847. 83 They also actively shaped the myths associated with tourism. Hence, the Niçois naturalist Antonio Risso not only advertised a “furnished first floor, on the south, Rue des Ponchettes” in 1845, but one year before published a travel narrative entitled Nouveau Guide du Voyageur dans Nice. 84 As the above numbers are undoubtedly an underestimate, they demonstrate that members of the Consiglio followed a commercial logic and pursued policies from which they personally profited.
It should be clear by now that both state planners and private speculators were involved in the commodification of the built and natural environment in Nice. La valeur d’échange had established itself as the main motivating force in the transformation of the city, as the Niçois attempted to make as much money as possible from renting villas and pleasure gardens to tourists. But this insight can be applied to other cities as well. As Lefebvre has shown, Paris under the Baron Haussmann was witnessing similar developments. Real estate speculation ran riot and, according to scholars like Claire Hancock and H. Hazel Hahn, tourists played their part in transforming the capital into a “city of pleasure,” characterized by spectacle and ephemeral excitement along the grands boulevards. 85 Notwithstanding, there was something different about Nice. This difference derives from the paramount importance of Romantic tourism to its economy. A central characteristic of modernity is the search for stability and authenticity in a modern world perceived as unstable and inauthentic. Thus, tourists in Nice were described by a contemporary observer as “victims for the most part of the false pleasures of society,” for whom “anxieties, regrets, various disillusions, are the incurable malady.” 86 Romantic tourist destinations try to create a sense of stability and authenticity through myths. They attempt to create spaces that provide the illusion of a return “to the immediate, to the organic,” an antidote to the flashiness and superficiality of places like Paris. To do so, they have to deny their origins in the commodification of space. They have to hide their reliance on la valeur d’échange behind an illusion of la valeur d’usage. It comes as no surprise, then, that Lefebvre has asserted that “the space of leisure is the contradictory space par excellence.” 87 And the Consiglio was at the center of this contradiction. It created spaces characterized by the interpenetration of the built and natural environment—by myths rooted in Orientalism, Greco-Roman antiquity, and early Christianity—aware that its motivation, as well as that of private speculators, was to profit from the commodification of space.
So why was the urban fabric rent asunder in Nice? Why was there not one, but two cities? The answer, it has been suggested, is tourism and the economic and demographic changes it brought about. While time and effort were poured into the Ville Neuve and Faubourgs, and while private speculators made fortunes, entire neighborhoods and populations were neglected. The natural boundaries that separated neighborhoods—the Paillon and Colline—were overlaid with economic and cultural boundaries that were in many ways more difficult to cross. Contrary to scholarly opinion, these boundaries were created before the French annexation of Nice in 1860. The city had been rent asunder before the arrival of the Baron Haussmann. Alas it would continue to be so after his death.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research for this article was funded by the Chateaubriand Fellowship Program and the Georges Lurcy Charitable and Educational Trust.