PROMENADING ON THE RIVIERA

The movies are wrong sometimes. Even the Riviera has its more staid, moral and conservative element. It seems that the younger generation of France had read Rousseau and had taken his teachings to heart. In the cool of the afternoon they were wont to bathe on the Riviera beach clad only as God made them.

The conservative element taking the air and cocktails on the verandas overlooking the beach looked down upon these profiles in the nude. They too had read Rousseau, so they turned their back to nature. Worse, they called in the police, who, dulled to aesthetic beauty, told the younger generation to swim three miles away, out of sight of the naked eye and where the eye could not sight them naked. Then these limbs of the law returned to their baccarat game.

A few days later, while the younger generation were enjoying the sea three miles out, the conservative element again called the police. Again morals had been offended. The moral, staid, conventional element could still see the bathers--with spyglasses.