Apartment Menton

Jean Cocteau, Love, and Lemons
Mentori is squeezed between the mountains and a pair of shingle-beached bays: the Baie de Caravan, on the Italian side, where villas and gardens overlook the yacht harbour, and the Baie du Soleil (the Roman Pacis Sinus or Cult of Peace), stretching 3 km west to Cap Martin.<br />
In between these two bays stands a little century harbour bastion looking out to sea that Jean Cocteau converted into the Musee Cocteau in the late 1950, and which is decorated with grey and white mosaics madefrom seaside pebbles.The hallway is dominated byan enormous bloodthirstytapestry, Cocteau's first, Judith et Holopherne, in which Judith seduces Holofernes, general of theenemyforces, in ordertosave hercity, and then decapitates him in his sleep and slinks out looking vicious. Niches on the upper level, each with their own pebble-mosaic floor and a Cocteau-designed display case, hold the playful Animaux fantastiques, which Cocteau created in a burstof admirationfor the colourful ceramicsthat Picasso was making in Vallauris in the late 1950S. Picasso's work also inspired the series of coloured pendi drawings, Les Innamorati, portraying the happier love affairs of the Mentonnais.<br />
Thisthemeof Menton's lovers was first explored by Cocteau in his decorations for the 1957 Salle des Mariages, in the Hotel de Ville,five minutes'walk northwest on Ruede la Republique.Atthe entrance, gilt mirrorsare painted with a biowsy Marianne, symbol ofthe Republic, who French lawinsists makes ittoevery French wedding.The interior resembles a buche nightclub: carpeted with leopard-skin, upholstered with plush red velvet and lit with sinuous tulip-shaped lamps. A lemon-pickerweds a fisherman amid rather discouraging mythological allusions: on the right wall there's a wedding party in Saracen costume, referring to the Mentonnais'Saracen blood,although amongthe company wesee the bride'sfrowningmother.thegroom'sjilted girlfriend and her armed brother.Theotherwall showsOrpheusturning backtosee if his beloved Eurydice is following him out of Hell, and thereby condemning her to return there forever, while, on the ceiling, Love, Poetry (on Pegasus) and Science (juggling planets) look on.<br />
Love was also a favourite theme ofthe originai Riviera inhabi-tants, who carved the little Cro-Magnon Venuses now housed in the Musee de la Prehistoire Regionale, a couple of blocks north on Rue Loredan Larchey .An earnest series ofdioramas recreates the area's cave interiors from the time when the furry animals people lived alongside were mammoths rather than poodles, but the star