Queen Victoria in Grasse: in her own words (part 1)

Queen Victoria famously visited Grasse from 25th March to 28th April 1891, staying at what was then the Grand Hotel and generating lots of press and literature coverage, then and since. However, she herself wrote a daily diary in which we can still read her own description of her visit*.

After her death, her youngest daughter Princess Beatrice, apparently at the queen’s request, transcribed and edited her manuscripts, destroying many of the originals as she went, and censoring some of the queen’s texts. However, much of what she expurgated was about the period of her parents’ marriage (before Prince Albert died in 1861), and I think we can assume that most of what the queen wrote in 1891 survived the transcription largely intact.

In total, Victoria wrote close to 10,000 words just for the 35 days of her visit here. She included details of whom she lived with and met, most of them not at all interesting, and many comments about events in India (she seems to have been quite untroubled about any happenings in the UK). I have eliminated those parts of her text; what's left (about 4,000 words) gives us Victoria’s personal description of her time in Grasse.

Wednesday 25th March 1891

At 4 reached Cannes, with its endless Villas, hotels, & beautiful gardens, where we stopped 5 minutes at the station….We then proceeded by a small branch line up to Grasse, the line winding along through endless olive groves, which are so pretty against the deep blue sky, & houses dotted about the hill sides, which has such a picturesque effect.

At length we reached Grasse, the position of which is very fine built & piled up against the hills, with a church perched very high & a cluster of old houses around it. I was most kindly received with all honours, the station beautifully decorated with flags & the arms of England & the French Republic.

Victoria’s reception at the station, judging by this engraving from the Illustrated London News of April 4th, was indeed grand, although no doubt no more than she was used to!

The Hotel is a mile & ½ from the station, & I drove in my own landau, & my own horses…..The little streets were crowded with enthusiastic people. My sitting room is charming, & was full of beautiful flowers, kindly sent me by the Town of Grasse.

Victoria’s sitting room (image from Facebook, taken from Royal Collection). She brought some of her furniture from Windsor Castle for her visit.

The view from my sitting room as well as from the little Salon, & dining room, is most beautiful, the ground being very undulated & wooded & the range of the Estérelles stretching out in a purple line into the sea, the blue Mediterranean forming a lovely background to the splendid view.

The Grand Hotel, which was financed by a group of Grasse bankers and perfumers, had opened in 1882, nine years before Victoria’s visit. These images are from ‘Black and White’, a weekly magazine’s 4th April 1891 issue. The upper engraving illustrates Victoria’s ‘range of the Estérelles [sic] stretching out in a purple line into the sea’, although the magazine spells it correctly! The lower drawing shows an arch erected for her arrival, which was obviously a major event.

Thursday 26th March 1891

A glorious day, with a deep blue sky. Did not get out till 12, when I went with Beatrice & the 2 Ladies to Miss Alice de Rothschild's garden, in which her Villa Victoria stands, only 3 or 4 minutes' walk from the Hotel, both being quite as it were, on the high road. I went about in the garden in my donkey chair, the others walking. Miss Alice de Rothschild met us outside, giving me some delicious violets.

She took us all round her paradise of a garden, which she says has suffered a good deal from the frosts they have been having. There are orange trees laden with fruit, aloes, prickly pear, beautiful palms, olives, & every sort of flower. As the ground is very much up & down, she has planted things up the banks, & she has placed a tent where there is a lovely view. It is all beautifully planned out. The view is magnificent from the garden.

Alice de Rothschild’s Villa Victoria. See my blog here. It lay a little north west of the Grand Hotel along the same road. It was demolished in the late 1920s and replaced by the Park-Palace hotel (now the Palais Provençal apartments). (Image from Luce Collection, Archives des Alpes-Maritimes reference 60 Fi188)

Drove with Beatrice & Jane C. up the road to St. Vallier, about 6 or 7 miles, returning the same way. It was an excellent road, the ascent very gradual & winding, a very desolate wild road, rising to a great height, overlooking the Town & the whole beautiful country. We were not far from the snow.

Friday 27th March 1891

We drove to the little English Church, which is close by. It is very pretty & was only finished 3 years ago, having been built by a rich gentleman, a Mr Bowes.

On the right of the picture, what is now known as the Chapelle Victoria a little after Victoria’s time. The area was still mostly rural (photo Grasse Archives). See also my blog here.

Drove at 4 with Jane C. & Marie A., going straight past the Villa Victoria & the Church, along a beautiful road, with a deep valley below on the one side & the high mountains on the other.

Went through the little village of Le Bar, which is perched on the side of a steep hill, just above the road, surrounded by olive & orange groves, palms & aloes, having an almost Oriental aspect, in the brilliant sunshine, the Church, with its campanile, & very high old houses with red roofs standing out most picturesquely against the deep blue sky. A military railway is being constructed at the bottom. We heard some loud reports of blasting on both sides of the valley & the men seemed hard at work.

Bar sur Loup today. In 1891, work was progressing on the Nice-Grasse sector of the Chemins de Fer du Sud narrow gauge railway, which came into service in June 1892. Its viaduct and track can be seen in the lower part of this photograph. Its main station in Grasse, the Gare du Sud, was close to the Chiris perfumery and it carried both freight and passengers.

Saturday 28th March 1891

Out with Beatrice, meeting Louise, & went up a charming winding road through olive woods, & flowers & orange trees on the other side of the road, which belongs to Miss de Rothschild. She has most kindly purposely had the road widened to enable my donkey chair to go along it. We went on some way & into the adjoining garden of a M. Chiris, from the terrace of which there is a most beautiful & extensive view, the sea always coming in, in the distance.

Victoria must mean the gardens of Chateau St Georges, built by Léon Chris some years before the queen’s visit to Grasse and a little further west along the road from Villa Victoria. It is rather puzzling that there are references elsewhere to Victoria having been received several times at the house, but she doesn’t mention any such visit in her diary – only this reference to the gardens. The Illustrated London News issue of April 25th covers Victoria’s visit to the Chiris perfumery (see her diary entry of 10th April) and illustrates it with this engraving of Chateau St Georges but it does not say that she visited the house. To the right, Chateau St Georges today (photo André Raspail).

Sunday 29th March 1891

After luncheon….drove with Beatrice & Marie A. to the wonderful old Castle of Gourdon, which stands really like an eagle's nest. Went by the Pont du Loup, going down to the Gorge & turning up a long but almost imperceptible ascent. It is a very remarkable Alpine road, winding under high projecting rocks, above & below, & admirably engineered, so that one could go at a gentle trot almost the whole way. The road is not entirely finished, & there are parapets still missing in some places.

Another slightly puzzling entry, because the road from Chateauneuf de Grasse to Gourdon was indeed mostly but not entirely complete by 1891, but it doesn't go via Pont du Loup. This view of the road is dated between 1890 and 1900. The railway viaduct’s presence at the bottom right dates it to at least 1892 so a little after Victoria’s visit. It would be a fairly alarming road in parts today were it not for the parapets now in place!

A nice looking woman who lives at the Château, came up to the carriage to explain, that we had passed by the Château & asked: "Est-ce que je peux demander à qui je parle?" [“May I ask with whom I am speaking?”] to which I replied "à la Reine d'Angleterre", at which she was quite taken aback. She begged us to come & see the Château, but I said we could not do so today & would come again.

The Illustrated London News published a drawing of Gourdon in its April 4th issue (above left, compared with a view today), seemingly inspired by this visit. The draughtsman seems to have exaggerated a little for effect, but it certainly endorses Victoria’s description of an ‘eagle’s nest’.

Monday 30th March 1891

I feel I can hardly describe the gay fête, which took place this afternoon at 3. It was what they call a "Bataille de Fleurs", of which I have so often heard & read accounts, but of course never seen. It is pretty & curious. We were on a balcony covered with an awning, just over the entrance. The procession was headed by mounted Gens d'Armes, followed by Buglers in the dress of Louis XV, & the Band of the Chasseurs playing a march. Then came endless people in every conceivable costume seated in cars all decked with flowers & emblems, saluting & throwing flowers up at our balcony as they passed. We also threw flowers, of which we had baskets full ready prepared, but it was almost impossible to hit anyone. The procession was a very long one. It was a very original & amusing sight.

Dressed earlier as we were to see the ending of the Fête of the "Bataille de Fleurs", a torch light procession, which however was rather a poor affair. The wind was so high that it blew the torches out.

This photograph is from the Royal Collection. With a little artistic licence, it’s possible to discern that Victoria is on the balcony in the top middle, which is above the entrance door to the Grand Hotel.

This image, like those of Victoria’s arrival at the Grand Hotel on 25th March, is from ‘Black and White’, but dated 2nd May 1891. The caption says that the occasion was Princess Beatrice’s birthday, but that was 14th April and Victoria would surely have mentioned it on that date, so I think this torchlight procession is from the Battle of Flowers. Assuming the view is looking back towards the old town along avenue Thiers, the draughtsman has been pretty free in his depiction of the buildings in the background.

Tuesday 31st March 1891

Took a very pretty drive with Beatrice & Marie A., winding along a valley with fields & fields of those lovely small Narcissus, which smelt so sweet, as did the violets. We passed through the Town, which is very quaint & foreign looking, with such an immensely extensive panoramic view of the whole surrounding country, with the deep blue Mediterranean as the furthest portion of the background.

Wednesday 1st April 1891

After 4, took a charming drive, passing through the lower part of the Town, below the Church, where one sees the most extraordinary houses, of a very ancient date, one especially, with very curious old arches, which are wonderfully picturesque. We then turned towards the coast along a very fertile valley, the road winding between wooded hills. There were quantities of red & lilac anemones growing wild on all sides, & bright patches of yellow jonquils, & fruit trees all in blossom.

My poor English housemaid, has a very bad poisoned hand, which makes her suffer terribly, & is I am afraid rather serious.

Thursday 2nd April 1891

Drove with the 2 Ladies along the road to the Pont du Loup, as far as one gets the first view of that splendid Gorge, which I tried to make a slight sketch of.

By 1903, when this photograph was taken, the viaduct of the Chemins du Sud railway crossed the Gorge du Loup. If it was already under construction, Victoria doesn’t mention it.

Friday 3rd April 1891

Poor unfortunate Elizabeth underwent a terrible operation, her wrist having to be opened down to the bone, which, being so close to the artery was dangerous. Dr Vidal performed the operation, & Dr Reid gave the chloroform. He is very anxious about poor Elizabeth.

Saturday 4th April 1891

Out with Louise & Jane C. in Baroness de Rothschild's garden, where all the flowers are coming out so fast. The garden is most beautifully kept….took tea with Baroness de Rothschild in her pretty little house.

Even Victoria surely didn’t regard the Villa Victoria as a ‘little house’! It had 37 rooms. She also can’t be referring to the Alice de Rothschild’s Pavillon de Thé (above, in a photograph from Grasse Vintage: Jean Napoli Collection), because that wasn’t completed until later, on a site which was not part of the garden in 1891. So she must have meant another of the several houses which were dotted around the garden having been acquired by Alice de Rothschild before 1891.

Sunday 5th April 1891

Philip & Louise Coburg came to luncheon. Afterwards, he told me all about poor Rudolph's death, as he was the first person to have the door opened, & he said he would never forget the sight of both him & Fräulein Vetzera [sic] lying dead in that room. Philip thinks that he shot her & himself & that it was premeditated. Philip had never had an idea of such a thing, or he would not have gone there. He said Rudolph had taken to drink & his conduct had become dreadful.

Victoria is writing about the famous tragedy at the imperial hunting lodge at Mayerling, when the mentally unstable Crown Prince Rudolf (the only son of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary) shot first his teenage mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera, and then himself. The story has been the subject of several films.

To be continued in part two…

*Queen Victoria's diaries are part of the Royal Archive. Transcripts of Princess Beatrice's version of the diaries for 1891 are available to UK readers at https://www.proquest.com/qvj/browseabstracts/qvj/2?accountid=142537