Eugénie twenty years ago. The mantle has not fallen to England and
Alexandra. Only a people like the French can endue fashion with
absolutism.

So it was, that when the Empress came to Biarritz, "all the world" came
also. From the building of her villa dates the true origin of Biarritz.
From that time its growth was progressive and sound. When the empire
finally fell, this creature of its making had already passed the
danger-point, and so stood unshaken; Biarritz had become too popular,
its clientèle too devoted, to part company. Even in the winter it has
its increasing colony; in summer its vogue is beyond caprice. The
sparkle of the royal occupation has gone, and the royal villa is
tenantless; but the place no longer needs a helping hand, for it is
abundantly able to walk alone.

[Illustration: BEACH AND VILLA EUGÉNIE AT BIARRITZ.]


II.

In the afternoon we wander down to the sands. The tide is low. The long
billows of the Bay of Biscay roll smugly in, hypocritical and placid,
with nothing to betray the unenviable reputation they sustain _in mediis
aquis_. The broad, smooth beach is not notably different in kind from
other beaches; but we instantly see the peculiar charm of its location.
The shore sweeps off in a long, lazy crescent, rounding up, a mile or
two to the northward, with the light-house near Bayonne. Southward we
cannot follow it from where we stand, for the near irregularities of
cliff cut it off from sight. Back from the beach rises the bluff,
curving northward with the crescent; at our left it comes boldly down