La celebridad que hizo Cannes

Cannes today is a gorgeously glamorous jet-set destination. It plays host to the eponymous Film Festival, along with boat shows, car shows, real estate congresses, yachting regattas—the list goes on and on. There are Dior and Prada stores, Chanel and Louis Vuitton… fine dining… superyachts and supercars… homes in the hills with jaw-dropping price tags.

But Cannes wasn’t always the epitome of European glamour. Before it was host to the world’s most fashionable red-carpet festival, it was just a simple fishing village. Until Lord Brougham showed up.

Henry Peter Brougham stands out as one of the most famous, forward-thinking, important and impressive British politicians in history. A Scot by birth and a lawyer by training, at age 14 he went to Edinburgh University, where he studied Humanities and Philosophy. It was here that he acquired his interest and skill in public speaking and helped to found the The Edinburgh Review. He was known as a colorful character with a strong personality.

En 1810, ingresó al Parlamento y casi de inmediato impulsó una ley que prohibía una de las mayores injusticias de la época: la trata de esclavos. Científico, apasionado y de una elocuencia excepcional, fue citado con frecuencia en los periódicos y se hizo famoso como uno de los mayores defensores de la época.

Further bolstering his celebrity was his extraordinary achievement of successfully defending the Queen, Caroline of Brunswick, against a false charge of adultery trumped up by her horrible husband, King George IV. Brougham became a major celebrity of the era for his charismatic speeches and his defense of Caroline. He was very recognizable, and large crowds often turned out when he visited towns outside the capital.

Political cartoonists of the era took great pleasure in caricaturing the outspoken M.P. and barrister, with his long nose and trademark plaid trousers.

Soon after, he helped create the University of London y el Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, intended to make good books available at low prices to the working class. He was largely responsible for the establishment of the central criminal court in London and the judicial committee of the Privy Council. He greatly speeded equity proceedings, a county court system, and was a leader in forcing the parliamentary Reform Act of 1832 through the House of Lords, a critical stage on the way to universal suffrage.

Como si todo esto no fuera suficientemente impresionante, continuó defendiendo numerosos casos que sentaron precedentes en la época. En aquella época, los marineros y soldados británicos aún eran azotados por infracciones, y cuando un periódico publicó un artículo criticando esta práctica bárbara, sus editores fueron demandados por la Corona por difamación. Brougham los defendió con éxito. También logró la absolución de 38 tejedores de Manchester, un importante centro textil, acusados de intentar sindicalizarse. Se ganó aún más admiración al proponer garantizar la libertad de prensa.

Brougham tuvo menos éxito en su vida personal. En el verano de 1819, se enteró de que había dejado embarazada a una mujer, así que se casó en secreto con ella —Mary Anne Spalding, viuda y con dos hijos— y la pareja tuvo una hija, que nació ese mismo noviembre. Su segundo hijo nació poco después.

Lamentablemente, su matrimonio fue infeliz debido a una incompatibilidad intelectual, y ambas hijas estaban condenadas a morir jóvenes. Agotado, en 1834, Brougham dejó el cargo para no regresar jamás. Su hermano acababa de fallecer y él estaba agotado por años de exceso de trabajo.

En el invierno de 1834, su carruaje de seis caballos llegó a Cannes. A bordo viajaban el Gran Canciller Henry Brougham y su hija Eléonore-Louise, enferma. Se dirigían a Italia, donde esperaban curar sus problemas respiratorios (en aquel momento desconocían la causa de su tuberculosis). Pero el carruaje tuvo que detenerse y Brougham fue advertido de que no podrían entrar en Italia. Un brote de cólera bloqueó su ruta y tuvo que esperar en Cannes a que se levantara la cuarentena.

This was not the reception Brougham had anticipated: he was used to getting his own way, and, as the historian Macaulay said, “There is no other man whose entrance into any town would be so certain to be greeted with huzzaing.” Yet although Brougham huffed and puffed, the border guard stood firm. History is made on such incidents.

So they turned back and stopped in the village where they spent the night before and rented a room in the ‘Auberge Pinchinat’ — the only inn in town. Situated on the apex of the bay, looking out to the Islas de Lérins, sheltered by high ground to the west, north and south, cannes was then a fishing-village called Le Suquet, with no more than three hundred inhabitants and two streets of very humble Provençal houses.

In the days that followed, Brougham fell in love with this small port at the foot of the Suquet tower. He toured the area, and the red rock of the Esterel captivated his heart. He was hooked. “In this enchanted atmosphere, it is a delight for me who loves dreams, to forget for a few moments the ugliness and miseries of life”, he wrote to a friend who remained in London. One day, two days and then more… While discovering the surroundings, Brougham imagined the life he and his daughter could have if they settled there. 

One of the guests at the Auberge Pinchinat said: “Ten apartments have been fitted out there, as well as a small villa in the old stables. Other small houses were built in the park. This one, in Brougham’s time, was much more extended both towards the Croix des Garde and towards La Bocca… We live well here. The villa is still beautifully made and the place is pleasant,” said one of the residents. “Perhaps we could consider sealing a plaque at the entrance to remind us that this is where Brougham settled,” Ella sugirió. Esta placa aún se puede ver hoy en la pequeña rue du Port, que une el bulevar Jean-Hibert con la rue Georges-Clemenceau.

Brougham was enchanted by the winter warmth, the light and the scenery. He also enjoyed the local bouillabaisse, and even the region’s thin wines. Thwarted in an attempt to rent a house once used by Napoleon (the French objected to its occupation by an Englishman), within a week he bought a tract of land overlooking the sea and began working on the plans to build Villa Éléonore-Louise . He named the villa, which was completed a couple of years later, after his daughter, whom he built it for. Fate had other plans: his daughter died in 1839 and he decided to make the chateau his own.

He wrote to the folks back home that he had been “enjoying the delightful climate of Provence, its clear skies and refreshing breezes, while the deep blue of the Mediterranean stretched before us. The orange groves and cassia plantations perfumed the air around us, and the forests behind, crowned with pines and evergreen oaks, and ending in the Alps, protected us by their eternal granite, from the cold winds of the north.”

Luego, en un fenómeno que se repitió hasta convertirse en un factor crucial para el desarrollo de la costa, el propio Lord Brougham se convirtió en una atracción. Su entusiasmo por Cannes y sus suaves inviernos atrajo a los ricos y poderosos de toda Europa. Ellos también construyeron espaciosas villas. Su patrocinio de la ciudad la convirtió en el centro de atención de toda Europa; la realeza y los aristócratas, desde la reina Victoria hasta el zar de Rusia, se aseguraron de veranear allí, y la ciudad aprovechó al máximo su recién adquirida fama. A medida que se difundía este boca a boca, se construyeron hoteles. Poco a poco, el pueblo pesquero pasó a la historia, y nació la glamurosa Cannes que conocemos.

“At some time or other,” wrote Brougham’s biographer G. T. Garratt, “everyone of importance seems to have drifted down to see him in the South of France.” Brougham was nothing if not a puller of strings. After he had settled himself in Cannes, he used his friendship with King Louis-Philippe Para mejorar Cannes.

Las carreteras locales estaban en tan mal estado que la mejor manera de llegar a la ciudad era por mar. La bahía, aunque agradable cuando el viento soplaba del norte, era imposible de usar para los barcos costeros cuando soplaba del sur. Cannes necesitaba un puerto artificial: esto no solo permitiría a Brougham y a sus amigos llegar a su paraíso privado con mayor comodidad, sino que también permitiría exportar los productos de Grasse de forma mucho más fácil y económica que transportarlos por tierra hasta Marsella.

In 1838, he designed ‘the Brougham carriage’, the first four-wheeled carriage intended to be drawn by only one horse. The Brougham carriage became very popular with gentry and royalty of the day. The Studebaker brothers adopted the carriage design in the United States selling it to the rich and famous including Presidents, such as Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevolt. A motorized version was later created and was very popular. General Motors and Ford adopted the Brougham name for their cars as it became synonymous with quality and elegance.

At around the same time, he persuaded Louis-Philippe to put up nearly two million francs for a breakwater on the west side of the bay, and work started in 1838. In 1847 Murray’s Handbook described Cannes as a “neat and cheerful small town”. Courtesy of Brougham, Cannes had arrived.

In Cannes, Brougham’s villa was the first of many. One of his friends, Thomas Robinson Woolfield, became the village’s first de facto estate agent: he acquired building plots from the locals and sold them on to aristocratic English acquaintances. At the Villa Victoria, Woolfield introduced flora to the coast that eventually came to be regarded as typical of the region and thought by many to be indigenous: gooseberry, sweet potato, eucalyptus and acacia. Soon mimosa and palm trees joined them.

No contento con estos adornos del paisaje, el propio Brougham fue pionero en la importación de césped de Inglaterra para crear un «jardín campestre inglés», aunque las temperaturas del verano obligaban a sustituirlo cada año.

A man of many opinions, his writing never stopped, including his many thoughts, books and autobiography. He often entertained at his villa in Cannes, bringing high-profile guests like King Louise-Phillippe of France to Cannes.

Brougham never remarried and spent much of the last 30 years of his life in Cannes, until his death in the spring of 1868 (at age 89). His body is buried in Cannes’ Grand Jas cemetery , and a statue of Lord Brougham stands in Allée de la Liberté , next to the Palais des Festivals. There is also a boulevard Lord Brougham  in his memory. His villa still stands, but has since been remodeled and divided up into residential apartments. The Auberge Pinchinat inn is now a private residence. Examples of the original Brougham carriage still form part of collections at Buckingham Palace, Castle Howard in Yorkshire and Littlecote in Berkshire.

If the duly-anglicised Cannes was the creation of Henry Brougham, Menton was the child of Dr James Henry Bennet. Cannes was for the living, while mentón was for the dying. Learn about the birth of the French Riviera and Menton’s pitch to sick Brits.