Athens from 1920 To 1940 A True and

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Enveloped by a Modern City and the
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Dimitris N. Karidis
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ATHENS FROM 1920 TO 1940

A true and just account of how history was

enveloped by a modern city and the place became
an event

Dimitris N. Karidis

Archaeopress
2016
 ATHENS FROM 1920 TO 1940

A true and just account of how history was enveloped

by a modern city and the place became an event

To Leon Krier
 ATHENS FROM 1920 TO 1940

A true and just account of how history was enveloped

by a modern city and the place became an event

Dimitris N. Karidis
 Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Gordon House
276 Banbury Road
Oxford OX2 7ED
www.archaeopress.com

ISBN 978 1 78491 311 3

ISBN 978 1 78491 312 0 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and D N Karidis 2015

Cover: Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika , View of Athens, 1940 Oil on canvas, 40 x 62 cm, Private Collection,
Athens © Benaki Museum (By permission)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com
 Preface iii

1
The economic, social and political context of urban development in Greece, 1920-1940 1
The economic level of analysis
The social level of analysis
The political level of analysis

2
The construction of a modern city: ‘L’Athènes de l’avenir’, by T. H. Mawson 23
The planning context in Athens during the 1920s
A skilful deployment of architectural energy in Mawson’s ‘Plan Préliminaire’
Midway between Tony Garnier’s ‘Cité Industrielle’ and the 4th CIAM ‘Charter of Athens’;
Mawson’s land-use integration/segregation pattern
The sense of space: synthesis caught between architectural details and planning perceptions
A midsummer’s night dream, or refreshing down-to-earth proposals?

3
The 4th CIAM and the ‘Charter of Athens’, or, a parallel view of Athens and the story of Narcissus 59
The 4th CIAM and the poverty of its declarations
The ‘Charter of Athens’ in search of authorship
Greek architecture trapped between Modernism and ‘returning to the roots’ (of Tradition)
The underestimated participation of Otto Neurath

4
Archaeological excavations at the ancient agora. Urban Metamorphosis and the Diegesis of History 101
Excavations (1). The ancient agora of Athens and the free flow of space through the area for many, many years…
Excavations (2). The American sector, the Greek sector and the political agenda
Excavations (3). A series of petrified layers seeking chronological and spatial coordinates

5
Aspects of urban infrastructure strengthening the role of the capital city 125
The meteoric development of Athenian urban infrastructure –
the underground railway and the electricity power plants
The covering of the Ilissus River – new straight boulevards cutting through the city fabric
Syngrou avenue – an element of civic pride and an object of aesthetic contemplation
Drinking water: From Hadrian’s Aqueduct to the Marathon Dam

6
On the refugees from Asia Minor in 1922 153
The refugee settlement process and the phenomena of social dichotomy
The cultural interface and ‘rebetiko’ songs
Mode of production of the built environment
(refugee settlements, Garden Cities, blocks of flats and high-rise building)
A cross-examination of social housing in Athens and in central-European cities
The epitome of social division of space in Athens between the wars

7
Epilogue on inter-war Athens. A ‘View of Athens’, by N. Hadjikyriakos-Ghika (1940) 181

Bibliography 185
Illustration credits 192 – List of tables 195 – Index of names 196

i
Preface
Definitively, Athens transgressed the short boundaries
set by a twenty-year period of development (1920-1940),
defying the Braudelian longue durée of the previous
Ottoman and 19th-century periods. The cataclysmic
series of political events which took place during the few
inter-war years rub shoulders with the meteoric social
metamorphoses that occurred during the same period.
Hardly can someone refer to any other capital city so
radically transformed over such a short period of time.
For instance, it is not just that the population increased
by almost 50%, it is that, a) such an increase of several
hundreds of thousand people took place within a few days
only, and b) the new-comers were desperate refugees
from the other side of the Aegean sea, who, although
of the same nationality and although they professed the
same religion, were treated as ‘foreigners’. The ensuing
‘settlement pattern’ was inscribed within an alien context,
considering that the native population was very much in
favour of implementing a strong social segregation policy.
Only to stress how deep such metamorphoses were, it
should be emphasized that although the Greek immigrants
from Anatolia represented a cheap labour force, in its
own way this factor strengthening the local industrial and
agricultural production at a time of deepening universal
economic crisis, it was that the same social group, which
introduced an advanced cultural pattern on the mainland, in
the long run overthrew the myopic, one-sided nineteenth-
century cultural affiliations: although short-lived, 1930s’
cultural movement known as ‘returning to the roots (of
Tradition)’, although restricted to a small intellectual
minority, left its imprint for future generations to follow.
Indeed, it was the first time in Greece that eastern/Oriental
and western/Occidental life-styles were viewed as an
integrated, monolithic cultural approach.
The epitome of the refugee settlement in the Athens/
Piraeus area was the implementation of a huge housing
programme which relied heavily on economic support,
amply provided by European countries (although the blame
for the Smyrna catastrophe should be laid at some of these
countries’ doors). Economic support was granted mainly
through loans, and, in this case, a sophisticated international
banking system was put in action, whereupon the United
iii
States of America had the final word. In fact, the specific
financial involvement of the United States came at a time
when this country also initiated her interest in two other
sectors of Greek affairs, one on entrepreneurial and the other
on ideological grounds. Supposedly, Athens benefited from
both. On the entrepreneurial level, the paramount event was
the construction by Ulen & Co of the Marathon Dam, close
to Athens, which provided the capital city of Greece with
valuable fresh drinking water, of which she was in urgent
need considering the recent steep population increase.
On the cultural level, it seems that the American School
of Classical Studies at Athens declared such a fervent
desire to undertake archaeological excavations in the area
of the ancient agora that an air of fierce determination on
the behalf of the School soon blew all around Athens and
beyond. In this sense any obstacles that might prevent
American archaeologists from unearthing the precious
relics of the past had to be removed at all costs. ‘At all
costs’? An affirmative answer on this issue illustrates what
really happened. On one side, a synoptic procedure curtailed
all objections raised by the few thousand souls who lived
atop the area of the ancient agora, and their ‘squalid’ houses
were expropriated and hastily demolished; and on the other
side, strong political intervention was ushered in by the
Greek prime minister and the required decree was issued by
parliament under a fast-track procedure. It has been claimed
that as it was at exactly that time that the American banking
system was about to give its approval for a loan to Greece,
intended to serve the refugee settlement process, Prime
Minister Venizelos had to be informed accordingly.
After 1931, as excavations were well in advance,
Athens acquired a world-wide reputation. Just as
during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to
paraphrase Grabar, Athens had become a playground for
visual and other sensory experiences for people weaned on
Romanticism, seeking aesthetic excitement, only this time
civilized souls were in search of a different wealth: of the
Heliaia, the seat of the most famous law-court of the ancient
city; of the Tholos, where ‘those members of the council
(Βουλή) acting as chairmen (πρυτάνεις) eat together’,
as Aristotle wrote; of the Enneakrounos – the many-
spouted fountain erected by Peisistratos and mentioned
by Pausanias; of the Sanctuary of the Twelve Gods and of
the Giants and the Tritons…Yet, during the 1930s Athens
had one more chance (this time almost unexpectedly) of
becoming the focus of intellectual interest. The capital city
of Greece hosted the 4th International Congress of Modern
Architecture. The city gained in reputation, not through
the event itself but by the proceedings published later,
supposedly concluding the results of the meeting, under
the title ‘The Charter of Athens’ – and what intrinsically
linked her with the avant-garde architectural theory and
practice of the time. Although it is commonly held that
the International Congress previously referred to, and the
Charte d’Athènes, the latter attributed to Le Corbusier,
are both cornerstones of the inter-war modern movement
in architecture and urban planning, I stand in opposition
to such a view. To make a long story short, I believe that
the 4th CIAM meeting commemorates not the modernist
formats echoed by star architects, who generated the
greatest possible publicity in expectation of being assigned
the maximum number of world-wide architectural/
planning projects, but, rather, the participation of Otto
Neurath. Even today, at least in my country, most architects
and planners ignore the contribution of this prominent
sociologist, philosopher and political activist involved
at the Athens meeting. The beliefs of this exponent of
Logical Empiricism and the inventor of ISOTYPE, who,
as David Hollinger argues, ‘combined a robust embrace
of uncertainty and historicity with an old Enlightenment
belief in the liberating potential of science’, not only deeply
affected the way planning information was codified in the
panels representing the plans of 33 cities discussed during
the Athens Congress, but, as well, opened up new means
of forging political consciousness, the masses becoming
socially aware of the process of built-space production.
Indeed, that was something much farther ahead an ill-
defined or impoverished concept of a functional city, as
the 4th CIAM decided its main object of research to be.
Between the Wars, architectural discourse in Athens
had a twofold character. On one side, architectural
practitioners in the capital city of Greece did not hang
to the view that architecture and urbanism might have
any vital role in reforming social systems so as to make
iv
a better society, just as their counterparts in central
Europe enthusiastically believed at the time. Yet, a good
many architectural paradigms were built in this city, but
success should be measured on the basis of the architects’
competence in, simply, understanding the vocabulary of
modern architectural language. On the other side, the
interwar modernist architectural rhetoric was counter-
balanced by a supposedly more persuasive format
for cultural development based on a re-definition of
‘Tradition’. A small elitist group of intellectuals, among
whom architects held pride of place, adhered to a ‘Return-
to-the-Roots’ (of Tradition) fresh view of understanding the
Past. Context and cultural continuity were now supposed
to be the means of breaking through the nationalist view
of the ruling class of producing History solely through
the ‘Ancient Ancestors’. It seems that the call for such
a cultural re-appraisal must be attributed to the myriads
of the 1922 immigrants from Asia Minor. Though
socially despised by the native Athenians and physically
segregated in the map of the capital city, the refugees
did manage to play a vital role as a catalyst in the newly
emerging urban cultural environment. Yet, even in the case
of a ‘traditionalist’ outlook it was a stylistic approach that
Greek architects, in Athens in particular, were primarily
concerned of. Just as it was the case with Modernism,
Tradition was in vogue in Athenian architecture only in so
far as it was a style that was marketed. No unbridgeable
chasm existed between the avant-garde/modernist- and
tradition-affiliated architects. On the contrary, there were
plenty of common denominators uniting the two, such as
their clients’ demands. Chapter Three of this book is the
place where the emblematic 4th C.I,A.M. Congress held in
Athens in 1933 is critically examined against both a Greek
version of architectural modernism and the sort of ‘Modern
Movement’ effected in central-European countries.
The term ‘Modern Movement’ started to gain currency
following Pervsner’s Pioneers of Modern Design, in 1936.
By the end of the Great War Athens had concluded its
role as the symbolic core of national palingenesis. The city
was now ready to strengthen its position in the hierarchy
of Greek urban centres and effect modernism along its
own terms and conditions. From the 1919 ‘Replanning of
Athens’ by Thomas Hayton Mawson to the covering of the
Ilissus River in 1940 by the dictatorial Greek government,
both discussed in Chapters Two and Five respectively,
the capital city of Greece concluded one full circle in
the process of urban emancipation. The march forward
started with the aesthetic prescriptions of a ‘Garden-
City’ Arcadia where, oddly enough, space was left only
for an ersatz nostalgia of the Past, and moved to a down-
to-earth technical prescription initiated by government
intervention. In between these two ‘events’ stands a fully-
fledged urban realm triggered by differentiation of class
situations and advancement of industrial production, both
motivated by the settlement of the 1922 refugees. It may
have been that during the 1920s and 1930s Athens did
not experience any chaotic urban growth so as to initiate
ambitious and large-scale urban programmes. Yet, the
discourse on the city was continuous, although devoid
of an urban pandemonium characteristic attributed to
most large metropolitan centres of the time. The need to
ameliorate infrastructure in deprived areas and to rework
the city pattern for providing proper public and civic space,
particularly where housing conditions were very poor,
were part of the municipal agenda in urban intervention.
The private sector, and landowners in particular, were
occasionally strongly supported in their speculative
intentions. This becomes clear, for instance, with the
enactment of the 1929 ‘horizontal law’ which legalized
apartment ownership, later on backed by a building heights
decree. But the public sector did not take it lying down.
Yet, even if the ‘good intentions’ of the state/governmental
interference in the production of the built environment
were detected in cases such as the blessed opening of new
roads and the paternalistic care in ameliorating sanitary
conditions, the interesting subtext of a strong relation
among private interests and state/governmental control
should not be overlooked. Both, the water-supply venture
by ‘Ulen & Co’ and the electricity plants financed by
‘Power and Traction’, of which we spoke previously, are
deeply embedded in Athens’ own prototype of interwar
capitalist development.
All in all, during the 1930s the capital city of Greece
could still be considered as a beautiful town, plainly
v
understood as a finite physical entity. At that time, the
‘violet-crowned’ city must have felt love and intimate
sympathy for its natural surroundings: the succession of
peaks of the encircling mountains, each peak commanding
its own interest, the sea to the south, and the rivers running
across the Athenian plain. Most of the streets were lined
with trees, whose branches interlaced overhead, though
dust might have been a serious problem in several roads.
People could sit out on the sidewalks and savory odors
from shops were there to greet the passer-by. The cries
of the venders and the clatter of hoofs on the pavements
were also part of a lively atmosphere evoking a sense of
neighbourhood. Most of the houses, either those of poor
families living in a very simple and frugal manner or the
two-storey stone-built houses of the well-to-do living
in accordance with European (mainly French) styles,
possessed a courtyard where a tree was planted mitigating
against the strength of the sun in summer.
*
Usually the subtitles on a book’s front cover are of much
greater significance than the titles themselves – the former
are lengthy expressions unfolding the author’s inner
thoughts, the latter are short, market- or media-oriented
statements. My previous book, published last year,
under the title Athens from 1456 to 1920 and subtitled
The town under Ottoman rule and the 19th century
capital city is indicative of the case in point. The short
title simply indicates place and time. But the subtitle is
a vast reservoir of discursive phenomena: it juxtaposes a
‘town’ and a ‘city’ (not least a ‘capital city’); it evokes a
conceptualized political transformation (Ottoman régime/
national independence); it puts under one heading the
debris of a long historical evolution; it is provocative in
so far as the metaphors and the anomalies implied by the
diegesis of a ‘Tale of Two Cities’ are invited to share in a
politically correct exposé. A year later, this present book
embarks upon a similar path. The title is once again short
– only to give a clear message that the writer is back in
the Athenian historiography (as if he were expected to
do so!), although he makes only a small step further in
time (eventually making a caricature of himself, as if the
labyrinth of almost five centuries can be transgressed by
a short trajectory of a two-decade jump). So it seems that,
again, it remains for the subtitle to clear up the situation:
‘A true and just account of how History was enveloped by
a Modern city and the Place became an Event’. Perhaps it
is worth commenting on the issue.
‘Line b’ in the figure above reveals dialectics of
historical analysis and ‘line a’ dialectics of spatial analysis.
In both cases ‘dialectics’ implies that movement along
these lines is not tied in the sense of Newtonian mechanics.
According to the latter, any one particle uniformly moves
at a fixed speed ‘v’ from point A to point B, covering
a distance ‘s’, at a time ‘t’ and according to s = v· t. If
conditions do not change the same body is expected
to move back from B to A under the same principle,
what implies that time can be reversed. But in our case
time is understood in the Bergsonian sense: it implies
vi
evolution and change, so that no reverse movement can
be accepted. In ‘line b’ mythical and fragmented ‘tesserae’
are transformed to well-shaped and recognizable forms. In
‘line a’ a cartographic entity acquires its own identity. The
modus operandi in this process is implied by two verbs:
the energetic ‘envelop’ while the passive ‘become’. In
the first instance, under the group ‘City-Envelop-History’
a deliberate and well-programmed act (to envelop)
grammatically demands a subject (City), whereas the
outcome of a process (the transformation) has to be
understood in terms of a direct object (History) affected by
the action of the verb. Accordingly, the same grammatical
order holds true under the second group: ‘Place-Become-
Event’. But in fact, in our figure there is something more
than conventional grammatical remarks. The City cannot
be conceptualized in the sense of an Hegelian subject,
which acts in a certain way. The City is rather understood
in the sense of a (back-stage) mechanism, representing a
polymorphous interplay of synergies. And in this sense,
the outcome of a non-reversible process is the ‘event’, in
this way giving meaning to ‘line b’. In the same way the
‘city’, a complex set of relationships among people and the
space they occupy, is irreversibly transformed to ‘place’,
which gives meaning to ‘line a’. ‘Event’ presupposes
that communication and exchange have been activated,
whereas ‘place’ indicates that a specific area has been
completely transformed to what it really is: itself.
In my view, the previous mosaic of subjects discussed
in the context of Athenian inter-war life embodies the
process of ‘history’ being enveloped by a modern ‘city’
and the place becoming an ‘event’. It remains for the
reader to decide whether the exposé has been ‘a true and
just account’ as the writer claims it was, or a paradigm of a
linear, one-dimensional diegesis, which he would strongly
object to.
The few people and Institutions listed below deserve
my gratitude for their assistance in the present publication,
vii
notably, Dr Maria Georgopoulou, Director of the Gennadius
Library in Athens, The Agora Excavations section of the
American School of Classical Studies at Athens and Sylvie
Dumont, the Cumbria Archive Service and Kendal Record
Office, hosting the Thomas Hayton Mawson archive, and
Francesca Halfacree in particular, the Benaki Museum
and the Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika private collection
in Athens, Gerry Brisch for going through the text and
suggesting valuable linguistic improvements. I am also
indebted to those who contributed as interlocutors and,
especially, my colleagues at the School of Architecture of
the National Technical University of Athens. As for my
students after forty (40) years (!) of teaching, discussions
with them have made me feel, to paraphrase Thomas
Mawson, old but ever young.
D.N.K.
Athens, Autumn 2015
 1
The economic, social and political context
of urban development
in Greece, 1920-1940

1
 ‘Bread!Bread!’
Greek captives, released by the Turks a year after the Smyrna catastrophe, on their way to Greece.

2
The economic level of analysis

No matter how dark and gloomy the political and social engaged in large capital investments, whereas, at the same
atmosphere in Greece during the inter-war period was, the time, technological support by the state, including proper
situation was altogether different on the economic level. In infrastructure in roads, railways, etc., still lagged behind.1
1922, the arrival in Greece of hundreds of thousands of refugees By 1930 local industrial production amounted to
from the other side of the Aegean, the majority of whom settled 58.81% of the demand for consumer industrial products, the
in the Athens-Piraeus area, allowed the Greek economy to percentage rising to 82.36% in 1936.2 Yet, the cheap labour
profit from a cheap and abundant labour force. Almost half of force provided by the destitute refugees from Asia Minor was
these refugees were employed in heavy agricultural jobs, but by no means the only factor favouring industrial production
those who settled in the urban centres either joined the unskilled – other parameters should also be taken into account, such
sectors or found their way into the manufacturing and industrial as the series of legislative protective measures taken in order
processes. All over Greece, the almost 2,800 industrial plants in to discourage the import of foreign industrial goods, factors
1920 increased to about 4,000 in 1929, those employed in the of currency devaluation, etc. To a certain extent these factors
secondary sector of the economy rising from 60,000 to 110,000 reflected the relative capacity of industrial production in
during the same period. Greece to overcome adverse conditions incurred following the
If we leave aside the hesitant steps taken by the Trikoupis 1929 crisis, retaining its leading role within the economy as a
government in the 1870s for the advancement of industrial whole. It is generally assumed that once the consequences of
activity, it was only during the 1920s that the Greek economy the 1932 crisis were absorbed, industrial production in Greece
underwent a structural transformation. Outmoded agricultural
economic patterns were left far behind – notwithstanding the Table 1
Industrial and agricultural production index in Greece, 1928-1937.
decisive measures which had been taken in the context of the
early twentieth-century agricultural reforms. Following these
Year Industrial production Agricultural production
reforms, the last remnants of feudal relations of production
were swept away and commodity production within the volume value volume value
agricultural sector was considerably increased. Yet, several 1928 100 100 100 100
important issues related to agricultural production were still 1929 102 100 97 71
lagging behind and remained to be resolved. In 1881, by the 1930 105 93 100 75
time Thessaly had been annexed to Greece, cereal production 1931 109 85 95 78
had fallen sharply, resulting in an increase of related imports,
1932 103 - 132 108
since the great landowners were reluctant to improve the means
and methods of agricultural cultivation. As it has been rightly 1933 112 120 166 122
observed, in the late nineteenth century the primary sector 1934 127 139 156 123
of the economy in Greece was still undergoing a transitional 1935 143 143 163 135
period, the basic wooden plough being still in use and the 1936 142 166 160 130
iron plough used only here and there. Therefore, the most 1937 154 194 225 177
important agricultural reform was that of 1923, in the context
of which almost 600,000 refugees were incorporated into the Source: K. Vergopoulos, Το Αγροτικό Ζήτημα στην Ελλάδα, Athens 1975, 189.
Greek agricultural sector. By that time a daring programme of 1
Cf G. Kritikos, ‘The Agricultural Settlement of Refugees: A Source of
ciftlik expropriation and re-allocation of fertile land was put Productive Work and Stability in Greece, 1923-1930’, Agricultural
into action. Even if examined under strictly defined conditions History Society, Vol. 79, No 3, 2005, 334-335.
this specific reform proved successful, commercialization of 2
Between 1917 and 1938 the number of industrial plants increased from
agricultural products was still held at a very low level. The vast 2,213 to 4,515, the number of industrial workers rose from 35,000
to 140,000 and the power capacity from 70,000 to 277,000 CV (N.
majority of small producers was discouraged from becoming Svoronos, Επισκόπηση της Νεοελληνικής Ιστορίας, Athens 1976, 130).

3
 Table 2 corresponding previous figure dropped to 77.03%. As
Greek currant exports to Great Britain (%) regards tobacco exports from Greece to Great Britain, the
1931-1937.
almost two million tons in 1919 should be compared to no
more than 204,878 kilograms in 1937. Within the broader
1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937
political context of the inter-war period, oriental tobacco
Greek currants
Total exported 58.35 61.06 50.22 56.75 51.42 54.87 43.45
went out of favour in British markets, strong preference
quantity being given to American and colonial tobacco.5
Total value of On the other side, Greek industrialists preferred to
Greek exports 91.98 73.87 84.42 89.22 77.64 83.19 77.03 give priority to light-manufacture products, investments
to the UK of foreign capital (mainly British) leading the way in the
fields of heavy industrial activity. Moreover, almost 40%
Source: Vogiatzoglou, Moskof et al., Ta Ελληνικά Καπνά, Athens 1938, 9.
of GDP serviced the debts of previous loans.
Table 3
Imports and Exports from and to the United Kingdom and Germany (%)
1929, 1933-1937.

1929 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937

Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp. Imp. Exp.
United Kingdom 12.55 11.83 14.35 18.94 16.72 17.40 15.52 12.63 16.11 12.19 10.97 9.65
Germany 9.41 23.10 10.25 17.86 14.68 22.48 18.69 29.70 22.37 36.43 27.19 30.97

Source: Vogiatzoglou, Moskof et al., Ta Ελληνικά Καπνά, Athens 1938, 8.

underwent considerable development during the following Table 4

Value of exported ores from Greece to the United Kingdom and
years.3 But if one goes carefully through the figures illustrated Germany, (in drachmas)
in Table 1 it can be seen that whereas between 1928 and 1937 1929, 1933-1937.
the volume of industrial production rose by 54%, the volume of
agricultural production rose by 12.5% during the same period. United Kingdom Germany
On the other hand, if in 1928 the value/volume relation as 1929 14,229 18,987
regards agricultural production was one (1), the specific ratio
1933 20,815 19,167
fell to 0.78 in 1937, whereas as regards industrial production
the relevant figures were 1 and 1.26. 1934 26,000 17,065
Very soon it had become clear that there was no 1935 25,723 45,837
room for further optimism. The deficit in the balance of 1936 48,731 96,340
trade had risen sharply – the value of exported products 1937 57,257 179,706
lagging behind the value of those imported. Indeed the
Greek balance of trade was running strongly negative, Source: Vogiatzoglou, Moskof et al., Ta Eλληνικά Καπνά, Athens 1938, 9.
notwithstanding the fact that between 1924 and 1927
imports of wheat decreased by 23%.4 At the same time, due The social level of analysis
to the comparative poverty of arable land in Greece, priority
was given to two luxury agricultural products, tobacco and The 1922 war with Turkey, concluded under the rising
currants, both yielding high prices in world markets. It is power of Mustafa Kemal, and the atrocities committed
worth noting that Great Britain absorbed almost half of the while the Greek population was leaving the town and,
quantity of Greek currant exports, whereas tobacco exports a few days later Smyrna itself was in flames, refer to
to the same country corresponded to almost half of the total one of the most erratic periods of the modern history of
value of Greek exports. But this export activity took place Greece. On this occasion, one is reminded of a similar
within extremely precarious conditions. In 1931, the total atrocity committed in 70 A.D.: the pillage and destruction
value of Greek currant exports to Great Britain represented of Jerusalem – an act which revealed the ‘sick face of
91.98% of the total value of exports from Greece to the what once was an all-powerful and prosperous city, the
afore-mentioned country. Six years later, in 1937, due pride of the renowned East’, as Heleazaria, the Hebrew
to the highly competitive Australian currant market, the woman, wrote in a letter to the Emperor Titus Vespasianus.
In the terrible incident of 1922, another woman, Gülfem
3
It has, however, been suggested that for a proper understanding of this
phenomenon, one has to take into account the series of cyclical recessions
Kaatçilar Iren, born in 1915, recalls: ‘I saw their dead…
of industrial production occurring in the relevant period (cf. Olga
Christodoulaki, ‘Industrial Growth in Greece between the Wars: a new 5
A. Vogiatzoglou et al.,Τα Ελληνικά Καπνά εις την Βρεττανικήν Αγοράν,
perspective’, European Review of Economic History, Vol. 5, No 1, 2001, 61). Athens 1938, 9, 13. Threads, chemical products, metals, coal and herrings
4
John Hope Simpson, ‘The Work of the Greek Refugee Settlement were the chief goods imported from Britain, yet on a declining scale. It
Commission’, Journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, is noteworthy that during the greater part of the inter-war period, import/
Vol. 8, No 6, 1929, 588. As regards cereal production (excluding maize), export activity between Greece and Germany ran on a different basis.
corn crops produced in 1923 amounted to 462,000 tons and in 1928 to Between 1929 and 1937 the volume of imported goods from Germany rose
880,000 tons (ibid., 588). by 250%, exports from Greece to Germany rising by 150%.

4
The bay of Izmir was not cleaned for months…We came understandings of Greekness as an identity that combined
back, we were home, but for months on end from our door language and religion and the practical divergenences
in Karşiyaka we watched our soldiers pass with bayonets, from this idea on the ground’.11 As indicated in Table 5,
leading desperate Greek men…their hands tied behind, and by the end of the third decade of the twentieth century the
then shot them in the mountains. Every evening. Not just population of Greece had increased by 25% over the 1900
a day or two but for months and months’.6 The aftermath figures.
of the Smyrna catastrophe was a huge immigration Among the refugees, 52.4% were women and 47.6%
movement from the opposite Aegean coast and areas of were men. But men between 15 and 59 years old (in total
Anatolia to Greece.7 In September 1922, the refugees 321,167 people) corresponded but to a mere 30% of the
‘arrived in tens and hundreds of thousands, without food, total refugee number, due to the heavy war casualties. In
without clothes, in a state of indescribable filth, covered 1924 it was estimated that almost 47% of the refugees were
with vermin, and naturally bringing with them epidemic of agricultural background – and they had settled mainly
diseases of which the worst was typhus fever’.8 Under in the Macedonia region, replacing the departed Turks.
the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923, and the ensuing The Athens-Piraeus and the Salonica areas were among
exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, the main urban centres where the other refugees settled.
almost 1.3 million refugees settled in Greece, including The data provided by official statistics are indicative of
those who had arrived before 1922.9 At that time, the the new demographic conditions created by those forcibly
peoples exempted from national homogenization were uprooted people from Turkey.12
the Orthodox inhabitants of Istanbul, Tenedos and Imbros
islands and the Muslim inhabitants of western Thrace. The Table 5
Population of Greece and the Athens area
Peace Treaty of Lausanne had been thought to be a means 1907, 1920, 1928, 1940.
for strengthening the identity of the two neighbouring
nation-states, at least on the basis of an homogeneous ethnic Population Average yearly
population – the amelioration of relations between the two Year (in thousands) Athens/
development of
countries in the next ten years, supposedly justifying the Greece Athens
Greece %
population in Athens (%)
Treaty signed in 1923. Yet, modern political analysts move
a 1907 2,632 250 9.4
in a completely different direction, questioning the validity
of a success story often implied by the Treaty itself: ‘At 4.6
b 1920 5,022 453 9.0
(α to b)
the level of individual lives, [the Treaty] wrought – or
acquiesced in – the destruction of centuries-old homes 7.3
c 1928 6,205 802 12.9
(b to c)
and communities; it transformed identities according to
the logic of nationalism, turning Orthodox villagers from 2.8
d 1940 7,335 1,124 15.3
(c to d)
Anatolia, many of whom could not speak Greek, into
Greeks, and Muslims from Crete, many of whom were the Source: Adapted from Guy Burgel, Αθήνα, 1976, 145.
descendants of Islamized Christians, into Turks. It created
a massive problem regarding the property these refugees Table 6
left behind, which poisoned Greco-Turkish relations for Population of Greek urban centres
1920, 1928, 1940.
several years’.10 On similar grounds, it has been argued
that the enforced relocation through population exchange a b c
‘testifies to the disjunction between the 1923 official Urban Centres
1920 1928 1940
6
Leyla Neyzi, ‘Remembering Smyrna/Izmir: Shared History, Shared Athens/Piraeus 453,037 801,622 1,124,098
Trauma, History and Memory, Vol. 20, No 2, 2008, 123. This source is
Patra 56,227 67,645 69,112
indicative of ‘the changing times’ in discussing the internecine Smyrna
warfare. ‘Christian Ottoman subjects were caught between communities Hermoupolis 23,755 26,247 26,047
to which they belonged by residence and citizenship and those to which
they belonged by faith’ (ibid., 107). Kalamata 21,070 29,226 36,011
7
‘Thousands of absolutely destitute sick and unclothed refugees of all Chalkis 13,280 17,297 19,776
nationalities pouring into Greece from Asia Minor STOP. The Greek
Gvt and Greek organizations are undertaking relief…in so far as their Volos 35,025 53,941 62,433
resources of food clothing and money permits.’ (extract of a telegram, Thessaloniki 175,983 244,038 253,845
dated September 21, 1922, addressed as an ‘Appeal of the Athens Kavalla 22,645 50,065 49,826
American Relief Committee to the American People’: El. Daleziou,
‘Adjuster and Negotiator: Bert Hodge Hill and the Greek Refugee Crisis,
1918-1928’, Hesperia, Vol. 82, No 1, 2013, 55). Source: Adapted from official statistical data.
8
John Hope Simpson, ‘The Work of the Greek Refugee Settlement
Commission’, 584. During 1926-1929, Simpson was in charge of the
agricultural settlement of the refugees. 11
Olga Demetriou, ‘Streets Not Named: Discursive Dead Ends and the
9
Social inequalities were inherent in the refugee movements from Asia Politics of Orientation in Intercommunal Spatial Relations in Northern
Minor to Greece. ‘The immigrants from Eastern Thrace did not share the Greece’, Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 21, No 2, 2006, 298.
appalling economic conditions of the overwhelming majority of Greek 12
‘The number of refugees entering Greece between September 1922
Orthodox refugees from Asia Minor. They managed to bring their own and June 1923 was estimated at 1,060,000…[Of] the million odd refugees
plow animals, seed, tools…’ (Kritikos, ‘The Agricultural Settlement of who had arrived by June 1923, 730,000 were from Asia Minor’ (Μartin
Refugees’, 325-326). Hill, ‘The League of Nations and the Work of Refugee Settlement and
10
Mark Mazower, ‘Minorities and the League of Nations in Interwar Financial Reconstruction in Greece, 1922-1930’, Weltwitschaftliches
Europe’, Daedalus, Vol. 126, No 2, 1997, 48. Archiv, 34, 1931, 273).

5
The 1928 census informs us that 281,989 migrants settled
in Attica and the adjacent areas and another 259,708
settled to the north, in the Salonica area. The conditions
of living and the structure of the new housing areas will
be examined further on, under a separate paragraph.
In 1928, within the tertiary sector of the economy,
trade and services leading the way, the Athens-Piraeus
agglomeration ranked second (47.9% of the total active
population employed in this sector), closely followed by
employment in the industrial sector. It is also significant
that the year 1928, marks, in Greece, the passage from
a period when unproductive state-controlled urban
activities had the upper hand to a period when services
and liberal professions, both directly linked with the
circulation of commodities and capital, were the principal
sectors of employment.
The Tables indicating population in Greek urban
centres for the period between 1920 and 1940, provide
a first rough indication of the general demographic
conditions prevailing in those years. Apparently, Athens
leads the urbanization process, since already by 1928
almost 42% of the total Greek urban population was
gathered behind its walls. Yet, generally speaking, as
regards the period 1928-1940, the development of urban
centres was restricted, since urban population increased by
a mere 26% although the total increase of the population
was 18.4%. But as regards the first period, 1920-1928,
the really impressive urban development in areas such
as Athens/Piraeus and Volos (in central Greece) should
be attributed directly to the post-1922 refugee settlement.
In other towns of Greece, such as Kavalla in the north/
eastern part of the country, the refugees who settled there
constituted 58.7% of the active population engaged in
the secondary sector. In Patras, in north Peloponnese,
once the late nineteenth-century economic crisis related
to raisin production had been overcome, the secondary
sector of the economy included 32.0% of its active
population – here, as well, the contribution of refugees
towards overall development was significant. In 1928, in
the once all-powerful naval centre, Hermoupolis, capital
town of Syros island, the active population was almost
equally divided between industrial and commercial
activities (38.5% and 44.7% respectively), but migration
to Athens, a few years later, is responsible for re-defining
the role of this town in the hierarchy of Greek urban
centres. For certain small towns, such as Chalkis on
Euboea, a steady population increase followed by the rise
of the secondary-sector activities should be attributed to
the significance of their geographical position. Rates of
demographic development relevant to those detected for
Volos are also valid for the latter’s ‘rival’ town (as regards
industrial activities), Kalamata, in the south Peloponnese.
In this town, although in 1928 its population represented
12.7% of the national urban population, the respective
percentage had fallen to 10.5% in 1940.
An attempt to go through the social structure of the
1920-1940 period reveals specific characteristics of
capitalist development in Greece, at a time when the
world economic crisis was at its peak. Starting from the
6
Table 7
Development of population of Greek urban centres
1920-1940. (%)
a: 1920 b: 1928 c:1940
Urban Centres a-b b-c a-c
Athens/Piraeus 76.9 40.2 148.1
Patra 20.3 2.2 22.9
Hermoupolis 10.5 - 0.8 9.7
Kalamata 38.7 23.2 70.9
Chalkis 30.2 14.3 48.9
Volos 54.0 15.7 78.2
Thessaloniki 38.7 4.0 44.2
Kavalla 121.1 -0.5 120.0
Source:Adapted from official statistical data.
agricultural population, we take note of the 1923 agrarian
reform, which brought, as we argued before, the previous
1917 reform one step further forward. In this sector of
the economy, the last remnants of feudal relations of
production, prevailing mainly in the northern part of the
country, were swept away once and for all, whereas the
redistribution of land, following a huge expropriation
programme of the large estates, answered the settlement
demands of an excessive farm labour force.13 Apart
from the new land tenure conditions in the countryside,
farm size was of crucial importance in determining
social and political attitudes on behalf of the farmers,
and defining economic consequences arising from farm
exploitation. Indeed, following the last agrarian reform
that was implemented, the average size of the peasant
holdings was very small. Under a widespread land
fragmentation, the presence of the peasant smallholdings
was soon related to low productivity levels, to precarious
provision of even elementary agricultural goods, to a lack
of investment in sectors of the economy which might
trigger mechanization and bring about new cultivation
techniques. Therefore, the issue of peasant smallholdings
was to run alongside an innate conservatism of this social
class and an attitude determined by a lack of enthusiasm
for ameliorating the general conditions of agrarian life.14
As regards the working class and industrial workers, it
is difficult to detect a proletarian workers’ urban stratum
in Greek towns of the inter-war period, at least in the
sense that this stratum had made its appearance in the
advanced European countries of the same period. On the
other hand, in terms of numbers, it is true that in the post-
1922 period the local working class (employed mainly
in enterprises with less than 5 workers) was enhanced
by the plethora of refugees settling in Greece, the latter
being also a social stratum a rung or two down the social
ladder, close to the conditions under which the urban
13
In the late nineteenth century, even during the first decades of the
twentieth century, the direct producers were ruthlessly exploited by the
chiftlik owners. Hardly a third of the harvest was left over for the farmers,
after the latter had fulfilled their tax obligations.
14
Cf. K. Tsoukalas, H Ελληνική Τραγωδία, Athens 1974, 22 ff.
proletariat made its living. Yet, conditions did not favour
the development of class-consciousness on the part of
the migrant population. One of the reasons might be that
the refugees’ cultural background and the conditions of
their immigration hardly allowed them to become fully
aware of the difficulties they encountered in their new
homeland – namely, to overcome their erroneous belief
that the new conditions of living had an ephemeral
character. In this context, it was difficult to expect the
advancement of any close social understanding among
these two social groups, the indigenous working-class
and the refugee working-class, or the formation of large
political coalitions determining the political agenda of
the time. But even though there was little chance for an
homogeneous working class to participate in the social
antagonism, the ruling class steadily kept its eye on them.
Finally, as regards the bourgeois classes and their
relation to land ownership and the possession of the
means of production, discrimination should be established
among an arithmetically small upper-bourgeois social
stratum and the vast majority of the petty-bourgeoisie.
Ever since the late nineteenth-century, representatives
of the first category were Greek merchants trading
between Greece, Egypt, Romania and other countries.
The immense profits yielded by this trading activity
were hardly affected by the 1914-1918 Great War or the
1922 Smyrna catastrophe. As we shall see in a following
Chapter, on ideological grounds and within the borders of
the upper- and middle-bourgeois social milieu, a cultural
trend was fostered during the inter-war period declaring
a new approach to tradition. This group of intellectuals
(writers, poets, architects, musicians, etc.) proudly kept
the flag of ‘returning to the roots (of Tradition)’ flying.
It was clear that their aim was to oppose the established
ruling class assumption of a clear dichotomy between
East and West, between eastern and western life styles.
The way to overcome this nineteenth-century culturally
catastrophic belief was well laid down by their cultural
products. They did not, nevertheless, succeed in turning
this trend into a movement as they supposedly wished,
largely affecting the overall cultural development.
Throughout the 1930s they remained an hermetically
closed cultural élite. As for the vast social stratum of
the petty-bourgeoisie, the limits for establishing its own
social prestige swung between its access to small-scale
land ownership, to its degree of possession of moderate-
scale means of manufacture production, and its place
within the civil-service sector. Not surprisingly, it was
this same social stratum that the ruling political élite
could easily manipulate, considering that the former’s
class and social consciousness frequently changed from
a right/conservative stance to a left/progressive attitude.
The previously mentioned social structure in inter-
war Greece by no means implies a static social order.
On the contrary, there were periods during which the
social milieu was radically transformed, manifesting
severe tensions and violent clashes of interest among the
various groups. Several strikes broke out, mainly during
the 1930s, and mass demonstrations of both workers
and farmers took place demanding better conditions of
7
living. Reactions to the low yield of commodities, such
as tobacco and currants, due to low prices fixed in the
international markets, are also indicative of intense social
manifestations during the inter-war period. This holds
not only for the capital city but for the other major Greek
urban centres as well.
The political level of analysis
As Schumpeter put it long ago upon examining the
consequences of the First World War, ‘the loss of prestige
resulting from military defeat is one of the hardest things
for a regime to survive’.15 This assessment is all the more
valid in the case of Greece and the catastrophic war with
Turkey, in 1922, followed by the Smyrna disaster. Indeed,
shortly after those events had taken place and within a
short period of four years, between 1924 and 1928, one
of the most turbulent periods of modern Greek political
history transpired. The post of prime minister was held
by ten different politicians, one military coup broke out,
and three elections were proclaimed. However the 1922
events, no matter how important they were in themselves,
cannot be considered as the primary determinants of the
Greek political upheavals during the 1920s and the 1930s.
Indeed, the early steps of the inter-war political anomalies
in Greece should be looked for elsewhere: firstly, in the
Treaty of Sèvres (10th of August 1920) and the precarious
character of several of its articles; secondly, in the
contradictory policy adopted by the Great Powers (mainly
the United States, Great Britain, and France) – as each one
of them claimed conflict of interest as regards the activities
of the others (see, for instance, the constantly modified
relations between the Arab people and Great Britain);16 and
lastly in the fluid political scenery prescribed by the Great
October Revolution in 1917, which altogether changed the
roles of Russia and Turkey in the Balkans.17
15
J.A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London,
1974 (1943), 354.
16
An illustration on this comes from Ernst Hemingway, who was a
correspondent of the ‘Toronto Star’. Reporting from Constantinople in
late September 1922, he wrote: ‘Just now the Turkish nationalists, who
are the same as the Kemalists, are under French influence. This came
about in a perfectly simple away. About two years ago Mustapha Kemal
Pasha was denounced by the Earl of Balfour as a common bandit. He was,
speaking in the broadest sense, for sale to the highest bidder. The French
bought him. They supplied him with arms, ammunition, and money. In
return, it is rumored they received certain oil concessions in Asia Minor.’
(quoted in David Roessel, ‘The “Repeat in History”: Canto XXVI and
Greece’s Asia Minor Disaster’, Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 34,
No 2, 1988, 185. In his text, Roessel refers to a Canto by Ezra Pound,
where the fate of Constantinople is used as a precursor for the Asia Minor
disaster of 1922 – such a ‘Repeat in History’, as Pound himself entitles
his exposé, may merit the qualities of an intriguing text written by the
literati, but can by no means stand on the level of a sound, theoretical,
historical analysis. Otherwise, it is absolutely true that ‘the Asia Minor
disaster of 1922 resulted from Greek dissension and Western duplicity’,
Roessel, 184).
17
For a thorough understanding of the related issues, see Albert Howe
Lybyer, ‘Turkey under the Armistice’, The Journal of International
Relations, Vol. 12, No 4, 1922, 47-473. As mentioned, ‘At the time of
the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres, a supplementary agreement between
England, France, and Italy was published. It represented a survival of the
secret agreements of 1915 and 1916, setting off in Asia Minor within the
Turkish boundaries certain spheres of influence.’ (ibid, 469).
 On strictly political grounds there are at least two
issues which directly affected the policy exercised in inter-
war Greece. The first is related to what became known
as ‘the National Schism’, and the second is linked to the
direct involvement of the army in the sphere of politics.
The schism was the result of two diametrically opposite
political views as regards Greece taking part, or remaining
neutral, in the Great War: King Constantine was in favour
of neutrality (in fact, he was in favour of Germany) and
Prime Minister Venizelos was firm that Greece should
stand on the side of the Entente. In 1915 Venizelos had set
up a separate government in Salonica, and upon his return
to Athens in 1917 the king was exiled and Greece entered
the Great War. ‘Royalists on one side, Venizelists and Allies
on the other were on the qui vive, and the slightest move on
either side was interpreted as hostile by the other’.18 Both
opponents were fanatically loyal to their leaders, and the
ensuing polarization in the political arena soon found its
own way out through an anomaly in the political scenery:
on the 4th of August 1936, under the shadow support of
the King, a dictatorial government took over.19 Any form
of public discussion was ruthlessly rubbed out and so was
expression of individual opinion.
As for army interference in the political process,
early steps in this direction were detected in 1909, when
the Military League was formed – echoing the army’s
discontent following the humiliating defeat during 1897, in
the war with Turkey. The post-1922 army involvement in
politics started with the anti-royalist revolution of General
Plastiras, immediately after the Smyrna disaster. But in
the long run the army was represented by high-ranking
officers occasionally supporting both sides, Royalists and
Venizelists – which implied that no matter with whom
these military officers sided they were all accepted as
lawful political representatives.
The inter-war Greek political agenda was firmly
connected with the charismatic personality of Prime
Minister Eleftherios Venizelos. Although the pro-Allied
position of Venizelos was largely considered to have been
the determinant factor in the success of Greece at Versailles
and Sèvres, in the elections of 1920 the Royalists won by
a landslide. Joannes Gennadius had admired the Cretan
politician ‘for his foreign policy, which will stand out
as one of the most remarkable achievements in modern
times’.20 Commentators on the policy of Venizelos
18
Demetra Vaka, Constantine: King & Traitor, The Bodley Head,
London 1918, 20. Yet, according to an unpublished source Venizelos
is said to have declared: ‘Greece is not ready for a republic and may
not be ready for centuries. I have never believed a republic suitable as
government for Greece at this epoch of her history. I have frequently told
the king that Greece will need his family a hundred, perhaps two hundred
years longer…If there were to be a republic, I should be chosen president;
but there would be no one in the Liberal party to succeed me. Greece
would be in the position of Mexico under Porfirio Diaz. That was bad for
Mexico and it would be even worse for Greece’ (the statement is given by
Paxton Hibben, in ‘Constantine I and the Greek People’, 579, quoted in
Johannes Gennadius, ‘The Constitutional Régime in Greece’, Advocate
of Peace Through Justice, Vol. 84, No 7, July 1922, 259-260).
19
‘The Metaxas dictatorship…was an authoritarian, backward-looking
and paternalistic dictatorship, overlaid with a patina of quasi-fascist
rhetoric and style…’, R. Clogg, A Concise History of Greece, Cambridge
University Press, 2002 (1992), 115.
20
Gennadius, ‘The Constitutional Regime’, 259.
8
routinely pay obeisance to arguments such as these. But
on the other hand, one detects expedient political decisions
taken by this politician during the period 1928-1932, while
he held the office of prime minister for the last time. For
example, during these years Venizelos was successful in
establishing good relations with Greece’s neighbours in
the Balkan Peninsula, however it was in that same period
that his government passed a law ‘for the protection of the
social régime’, which allowed the police to arrest and jail
whoever raised anti-governmental demands or participated
in left-wing working-class demonstrations.21 Doubts
may be cast even on the way Venizelos manoeuvred
his opposition to the King, although specific aspects of
the policy of the Great Powers at that time resulted in
deplorable diplomatic decisions taken by them, and which
temper all previous resentments.22
All in all, during the 1920s and 1930s two factors
retained major importance within Greek political
activity. The first is the strengthening of the army’s role
in determining the outcome of political processes, high-
ranking military officials with an active political role being
recruited from a broad spectrum of the social milieu. The
second is the rising power of the working-class unions, of
the Communist Party in particular, and which led to rising
anxiety for the representatives of the bourgeois class.23 Both
factors had an immediate impact on the election results.
The same was true for whenever the normal procedure of
holding elections was suspended: e.g., when the political
authorities were overthrown by a military coup, or a king
was deposed (and retook the throne eleven years later).
By way of a closing remark, it is evident that during
the inter-war period, the administrative and statutory
21
In 1932, at the end of the four-year Venizelos’ mandate, almost 80,000
workers went on strike, 12,000 were arrested and 2,203 were imprisoned.
It is worth observing, however, that a ‘similar’ legislative background
was common for European states in the 1920s (e.g., Yugoslavia in 1921,
Germany in 1922, as well as England and France).
22
For instance, although Venizelos was considered to be a confirmed ally
and a heartfelt admirer of England, the British themselves were often
rightly accused of standing on the side of the Royalists (for the situation
in the mid 1930s cf., Sotiris Rizas, ‘Geopolitics and Domestic Politics:
Greece’s Policy Towards the Great Powers During the Unravelling of
the Inter-War Order, 1934-1936’, Contemporary European History, Vol.
20, Issue 2, 2011, 149, 153). Although in the mid 1930s Venizelos was
no longer in power, his attachment to the British sphere of influence was
still as committed as it was in the 1910s and 1920s (see, for example,
his insistence on Mawson being engaged in the Athens and the Salonica
plans, described in Chapter Two of the present book). The notable thing
is that Great Britain pretended to be offended whenever a Royalist
expressed admiration for her! Perhaps this was because the Royalist view
of Great Britain was the one expressed by the Russian Prince Gortchakov
to the British Ambassador, when England denied help to the small and
helpless state of Denmark, in 1864, while the latter was being opposed
by Germany. The Russian Prince said: ‘Then milord, I can put aside the
supposition that England will ever make war for a question of honour.’
(Vaka, Constantine, 278-279). Speaking of questionable European
diplomacy, one might just as easily recall the Entente, and Germany
bargaining with Italy, or the latter’s vision of an hegemonic role in the
Mediterranean, strictly defined according to her own terms.
23
On the basis of political realism, one might recall how Lloyd George
warned the House of Commons on the 3rd of March 1919 on this issue:
‘In a short time we might have three quarters of Europe converted to
Bolshevism…Great Britain would hold out, but only if the people were
given a sense of confidence…We had promised them reforms time and
time again but little has been done…Even if it cost a hundred million
pounds, what was that compared to the stability of the State?’ (quoted in
P. Ambrose, Urban Process and Power, Routledge, London 1994, 105).
organization of a centralized state was firmly established was perhaps right to consider herself a modern state. But
in Greece, and all major socio-economic and political Athens, in addition, sided with modernism – and this
readjustments necessary for the manipulation of the social will be a challenging perspective in the pages that are to
classes were concluded.24 From this point of view, Greece follow.

24
Cf. Stathis Damianos, Ήθος και Πολιτισμός των Επικίνδυνων Τάξεων
στην Ελλάδα, Athens 2005, 77ff.

9
 1
Illustrations

11
 Fig. 1.1. Active urban population in 1928 – industrial employment.
Tobacco-producing towns, such as Kavalla, Xanthi (dark-shaded circles to the north) and Agrinio (to the west) head the hierarchical
order (the relevant percentages ranging between 42.7 and 58.7 of the total active population), whereas the Athens-Piraeus area
was close to 33.1% (services coming second in the employment table). It should be noted that, generally speaking, Greek inter-war
industrial activity was closer to a light-industrial/manufacturing economic process, indicating a low rate of employees within each
productive unit.

12
 Fig. 1.2. An un-named refugee worker (somewhere in Greece in the 1930s).
In the late 1910s, political instability in Greece was accompanied by serious political upheavals. On the working-class level, in
several commercial and industrial centres all over the country, such as Volos or Kavalla, mass strikes and rallies called in protest of
the levels of wages, or food prices, ended in waves of labour unrest. In the early 1920s, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution
and the German working-class insurrections of 1918-1923, the local bourgeois ruling class, represented by Venizelos and the Liberal
Party, adopted a strong anti-communist stance. When refugees came into the market and sided with the native working class, it
was feared that the former social group might be influenced by communist dogma – which, in the end, did not occur. On the other
hand, the cheap labour provided by the refugee working class allowed for a significant decrease in production costs. This factor was
key to advancing Greek economic development in general and industrial production in particular, even though this was a short-lived
advantage.

13
 Fig. 1.3. Active urban population in 1928 – agricultural employment.
The fact that 35 out of 44 Greek towns show employment within the primary sector of the economy, which equals, or even exceeds
the national average rate (11.1%), is due to the fact that during the 1920s and 1930s densely populated agricultural settlements were
gradually assimilated within the expanding neighbouring towns.

14
 Fig. 1.4. Raw material for cigarettes.
Tobacco and currants were the two luxury agricultural products in inter-war Greece. Great Britain absorbed almost half of the
quantity of Greek currant exports, whereas tobacco exports to the same country corresponded to almost half of the total value of
Greek exports. For a certain period these Greek products yielded high prices in the world markets. Things changed for the worst
when Australian currants became highly competitive, and, when ‘oriental’ tobacco fell out of favour within the British market and
preference was given to American (Virginia type) and colonial tobacco. In the above photograph a group of refugees, in the 1950s,
sorts tobacco in northern Greece. Presumably the young man on the left was born after the refugee migration, whereas the other
three must have been very young when they first settled there, after 1922.

15
 Fig. 1.5. Smyrna – the cosmopolitan city on the Ionian land.
When Chateaubriand visited Smyrna in 1806, he spoke of ‘a cultural oasis, a Palmyra in the middle of a desert’. Ever since the
middle of the 19th century, the value of exports from this city was almost double the value of imports. The old Frank Street, or
European Street led to the Greek quarter in the southwest part of the Frankish mahalle. Further to the south, the Jewish quarter
embraced the area where bezestens were located, while to the east of the Greek quarter lay the Armenian neighbourhood with its
own cathedral church, St. Stephen. In the Anatolian-style kafé-aman in the centre of the city and in the European bourgeois-style
theatres along the seaside, both frequented by people of all races, Eastern and Western cultural idioms intermingled. It was an almost
mythical city, just as Jerusalem had been several centuries earlier. Indeed, when Chateaubriand disembarked in Smyrna, he was on
his way to Jerusalem.

16
 Fig. 1.6. August/September 1922 – the disaster.
Top: Smyrna, the ‘Quai’ – personal belongings of those who managed to flee lying along the quay – Turkish troops marching on
the quay, in front of the urban sea-front – a few people looking at them in bewilderment – note the scene of the Smyrna disaster, to
be concluded a few hours later by the great fire (bottom).

17
 Fig. 1.7. Development of population in Greek urban centres between 1920 and 1928.
Indications in the circles refer to the rate (%) of population increase (according to the key in bottom left). Only two small towns in
north-western Greece (Ioannina and Florina) experienced negative development.

18
 Fig. 1.8. Development of population in Greek urban centres between 1928 and 1940.
There was an almost 40% increase in the population of the Athens-Piraeus agglomeration during this period, while the capital city
of Greece strengthened its hegemonic role within the hierarchy of urban centres, comprising within its borders 46.5% of the national
urban population. It must be noted that, during this period, there are more towns which experienced negative development than
what was the case during 1920-1928.

19
 Fig. 1.9. Play the Game.
Although this table-game, which appeared in Greece during the Balkan Wars, 1912-1913, was apparently intended for children, it
was only adults, soldiers in particular, who could comply with the terms (and conditions?) set for playing it.

20
 Fig. 1.10. Conceptualizing the map of Greece in 1920.
The map was published in the aftermath of the Treaty of Sèvres, signed in 1920. Following the new boundaries set for Greece, the
national territory rose from 120,000 sq. km (1913) to 173,000 sq. km (1920), whereas the population amounted to more than 7,000,000
(leaving aside Constantinople and its surrounding area that were set under a distinct political status). But that was a mixed blessing.
Only two years later, Greece was trapped into the whirlpool of the antagonism among the Great European Powers, whereas the
Greek army marching to Ankara was opposed by Kemal Ataturk’s offensive counter attack – which resulted in the Smyrna catastrophe,
with tens of thousands being killed and the burning down of the once glorious city of Ionia and the huge migration movement to the
mainland. Throughout modern European history, mainly of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, drawing borders on maps was
almost always combined with a hideous gamble in terms of human lives, consciousness and dignity – at seemingly any cost.

21
 Fig. 1.11. Smyrna, the ‘unbroken wall of fire’.
Extract from a Daily Mail dispatch, on 16th of September 1922:
‘What I see as I stand on the deck of the Iron Duke is an unbroken wall of fire, two miles long in which twenty distinct volcanoes of
raging flames are throwing up jagged, writhing tongues to a height of a hundred feet…The sea glows a deep copper-red, and worst of
all, from the densely packed mob of many thousand refugees huddled on the narrow quay, between the advancing fiery death behind
and the deep water in front, comes continuously frantic screaming of sheer terror as can be heard miles away.’

22
 2
The construction of a modern city:
‘L’ Athènes de l’Avenir’,
by Th. H. Mawson

23
Early inter-war Athenian boulevards suggested by T. H. Mawson.

24
The planning context in Athens
during the 1920s
The major physical changes that took place in Athens
during the first two decades of the twentieth century
were the parallel steep population increase and the rise in
housing density – the latter due to the fact that the official
city plan was, as a rule, always lagging behind in extending
its borders so as to incorporate the newly developed areas.
Newcomers to the city, land speculation, political unrest,
housing shortages, every ingredient synonymous with
modern urban life was there. Over time, Athens gave the
impression that the battle fought with her own past was
won, and the city believed that any new problems she faced
were analogous to those encountered by almost any other
European city in those years. Therefore, and although there
was no sign of any serious planning strategy laid down in
anticipation of future growth, an atmosphere of optimism
pervaded, augmented by an upturn in the economic climate.
This siding with modernism was superficially reflected in
architectural flourishes in all manner of eclectic styles and
forms, in flirtations with German Art Nouveau and French
Rococo down to imitations of Robert Adam’s historicism –
all competing with the austere classicism of the preceding
decades.
There were many other indicators – some more
significant than others – of Athens having become a
modern ‘European’ city by 1900. The First International
Archaeological Conference, which was organized in Athens
in April 1905, was an event of major cultural significance.
The official opening took place in the Parthenon itself,
and the Parisian art revue Le Musée urged its readers, in
particular the distinguished archaeologists all over the
world, to become aware of provocative issues regarding the
restoration of that unique monument of classical antiquity and
the related controversial suggestions.25 Still on the cultural
front, the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt appeared
25
Cf. F. Mallouchou-Tufano, Η Αναστήλωση των αρχαίων μνημείων στην
Ελλάδα, Athens 1998, 110-111.
25
on stage in the Athens Municipal Theatre (designed by E.
Ziller). Athenian architecture of the 1900s, in conformity to
European trends, introduced a new architectural life-style
of an almost unbridled eclecticism, celebrating a mood of
exaltation and a taste of the spectacular. Strict neo-classical
expressions, even the 1880s amalgams of classicism and
romanticism, were left far behind. If we put culture aside and
focus on the functional level and everyday life, electricity,
thanks to the Belgian company Thomson Houston de la
Mediterranée, was soon powering the former gaslights of
the capital city’s streets and squares; by that time, most of
the principal thoroughfares had been asphalted (the work
was done by The London Asphalt Co.); and in 1908 the Post
Office building had two Ericsson telephone exchanges to
service its first 800 subscribers. And although only a few cars
puffed and banged around the capital, Athens was mindful
of sending a delegation to the 1909 Paris international
congress on the problems arising from this new means of
motorized transport!
But not all was modernized and Athens could be both a
modern and a traditional city. In the early twentieth century
no building in the capital city exceeded three storeys in
height – the French immeuble de rapport was unknown in
the Greek capital. The typical housing unit was a detached
one- or two-storey building, usually attached to a small
garden or paved court with a few fruit-bearing trees. The
three-storey building, housing three separate families, each
of them having its own entrance and staircase, was rare. It
was not until the inter-war period that larger, multi-storey
housing units were first built in Athens, very much in the
style of European Bauhaus modernism. (It was only in 1929
that it became legally possible to own a flat in a multi-storey
building; in this case horizontal arrangement of separate
properties becoming effective.) To her credit, Athens could
claim that the majority of the city’s low-income districts,
no matter how poor or densely built, or overcrowded or
ill-provided with social infrastructure, were, nevertheless,
sufficiently provided with all basic living standards in
terms of the most elementary urban parameters, such as
requirements for sun and air in the streets – such a luxury, of
course, was seldom the case in the corresponding housing
environments within large European cities of the same
period.
During the first decade of the twentieth century cultural
life in Athens retained a rather provincial character, as
if the city were hesitant to come into direct contact with
broader cultural trends of the period. Political circumstances
favoured such a self-centred attitude. A few years only
had elapsed since the catastrophic war with Turkey, and
an introverted social feeling prevailed. In the light of the
opportunistic position of certain European states against
the rights claimed by the Greeks, and as a backdrop to the
military movement of 1909, conditions favoured demands
for a re-affirmation of national consciousness. The ensuing
1912-13 Balkan Wars proved that this attitude became the
presupposition for the resurrection of the nineteenth-century
Grande Idée. This more militant stance explains, perhaps,
the absence of new artistic expressions in Athens, imported
or of a domestic character, at a time when pioneering cultural
movements were flourishing in most European countries.
In early twentieth-century Athens, within the wider
social sphere, the swing between tradition and modernity,
was, by and large, once more epitomized by periods of
backwardness and progress. The quasi-cosmopolitan
character of daily life in the capital city was undeniable,
as is easily seen reflected in the fashions of the time. The
comprador bourgeoisie of the last quarter of the nineteenth
century were replaced by a new moneyed-class supporting
(and supported by) the 1909 military movement. But
Athens and Greece lagged well behind economic and social
integration, especially if judged against European capitalist
development, and the ensuing consolidation of a typical
social structure defined on the basis of the relation of a social
class with the means of production. At all events, a case may
be made for claiming that Athens was only then starting
its slow process of attaining political and social maturity,
a maturity that did not come full-circle before the 1920s.
These economic and social parameters directly affected
the degree to which Athens, around the beginning of the
twentieth century, could boast of progress and modernism,
as she had begun to fend for herself.
But was it really so in the urban planning sphere as
well? The answer is no. Even considered as a provincial,
low-profile urban centre, early twentieth-century Athens did
intersect with modern European cultural trends originating
in the field of urban planning. Curiously enough, it remains
still widely unknown that certain European-educated
architects and engineers, such as Ernest Hébrard, Desiré
Matton, Ludwig Hoffmann and Thomas Mawson, upon
the initiative of the Greek government, took active part in
the elaboration of plans and the concomitant supervision
of projects referring to technical public infrastructure,
such practices being carried out all over Greece. Although
the contribution made by E. Hébrard on the 1917
Haussmannian plan of Salonica, elaborated following the
catastrophic fire in that city the same year – a plan which
26
was astonishingly quickly implemented within only a few
years – is common knowledge, a less well-known fact is that
one of the co-authors (and not just member of the project-
team) of that plan was Thomas Mawson from Lancaster,
a leading British landscape architect, who drew up, in the
same period, an exemplary extension plan for Athens.26 This
detailed plan has received scant attention and well merits
fuller commentary, which will be done in the following
paragraphs of the present book.
In 1918 Hébrard, who was supported by the Liberal
Party and Prime Minister Venizelos himself, was assigned
professorship at the Athens School of Architecture. He
was also appointed head of the Supreme State Technical
Council, a newly-founded Institution. In 1920, he addressed
this Council informing its members on what he thought
were the primary planning problems of the capital city at the
time. But he did that not by presenting them a triumphant
or plan in the grand manner, as had been the case with
Salonica, but with a detailed written report including top-
priority planning issues. But, in the electoral campaign
of 1920, Venizelos did not succeed in rallying public
opinion to his side. In the context of the ensuing turbulent
political atmosphere, Hébrard was deprived of his official
engagements and left Greece for Vietnam.27 Therefore, as
regards foreign specialists’ participation in the re-planning
process of the capital city of Greece, it remains to discuss
Hoffmann’s and Mawson’s planning proposals – the former
by means of a short comment, the latter more extensively.
Ludwig Hoffmann visited Athens in May 1909 and
was invited by the Athens Municipal authorities, to draw
a new structural plan for the growing capital. Just as was
the case with the authors of the first Athens plan, Kleanthes
and Schaubert, Hoffmann had also been educated at the
Bauakademie in Berlin. In 1896 became ‘Stadtbaurat’ –
director of urban planning and construction for Berlin,
where he served for no less than 28 years. As city architect
of Berlin, he had authority over all types of public
buildings there. Strongly influenced by Schinkel’s classicist
approach, but without his flair for richness and diversity of
architectural expression, Hoffmann assigned to urban issues
the same decorative approach he attributed to architectural
elements. His plans for Athens and his drawings of public
buildings have a strong sense of the spirit of German
order and rationalism, as often exemplified in the time of
Emperor William II. The Greek authorities turned down
Hoffmann’s suggestions, although these were never given
any publicity.28 In fact, his suggestions included at least
three interesting, provoking one might say, urban proposals.
The first was the importance attributed to the new railway
station, although the civic arrangement he proposed was not
as inventive as in the Mawson plan, as we shall see in the
analysis that follows (turning in greater depth to Mawson
and his work). The second proposal envisaged a rather
26
For a detailed analysis of the planning procedure followed in Salonica
after the 1917 fire, see Alexandra Yerolympos, The Replanning of
Thessaloniki after the Fire of 1917, Thessaloniki, 1985.
27
Cf H. Yakoumis, A. Yerolympos, Ernest Hébrard, 1875-1933, Athens
2001, 59.
28
His drawings still await a proper and detailed analysis, which they
undoubtedly deserve.
clumsy opening of a new curvilinear street in the centre of
the city, intended to bring into closer contact the Acropolis
and the modern town. Clumsy though the drawing was,
the idea behind it was nevertheless daring in its intentions
when viewed as a design gesture intended to highlight the
contrapuntal relationship between a disordered, medieval
urban fabric and an ordered modern urban development.
The third proposal in Hoffmann’s plan, of some real merit,
was the introduction of a ring around the Athens central
area, the thought being that, operating as a peripheral artery,
it might in the future alleviate traffic problems originating
from the radio-concentric street pattern.
As regards Hoffmann’s second proposal in particular,
namely the link between the Acropolis and the centre of
modern Athens, it might be interesting to remark that the
Berlin’s Stadtbaurat suggestion came only a year after a
similar suggestion had been advanced by a Greek architect,
Αθανάσιος Γεωργιάδης (Athanassios Georgiades), as
seen in the respective plans further on. But there is one
significant difference between the two approaches to the
same issue. In Hoffmann’s view, the curvilinear street is
directed to the Acropolis’ peripheral road by avoiding the
two most emblematic sites in the city’s fabric: the public
square at the crossing of Hermou and Athenas streets
(Monastiraki Square), on one side, and the archaeological
sites of the Roman Agora and Hadrian’s Library, on the
other. In the Greek architect’s approach, on the contrary,
the street leading the pedestrian from the Hansen Trilogy to
the Acropolis goes by, or through, the two previous public
areas.
Thomas Mawson, however, sought solutions elsewhere
and the aim and scope of his planning interventions clearly
ran in a different direction, as it becomes apparent when
looking at his involvement in the 1910-1920 discussions
that took place for the future of Athens.29 Typically, it was
the municipality of Athens that expected both Hoffmann
and Mawson to give their advice on the future development
of the capital – and both plans were subsequently turned
down. Any opportunity for providing a suitable plan to foster
future urban growth was lost at that time. The post of mayor
of Athens in those years was held by Spiro Mercouris, who
seems to have been well intentioned, intelligent and public-
spirited, as were also others who had held the same post
before him.30 Yet, it seems that they all lacked the technical
competence necessary for understanding projects on such a
large scale, although this must have been a secondary reason
for turning down planning proposals. One should not forget
the realities of politics and the economy.
29
On Thomas Mawson’s personality and design activity one has to rely
heavily on the thorough analysis by Janet Waymark (Thomas Mawson:
Life, gardens and landscapes, Frances Lincoln, 2009). My own
comments on Mawson emphasize on the urban planning aspect of his
work rather than on the landscape architecture field of his activity, even
though in the 1910s and 1920s ‘urban planning’ and ‘civic betterment’
were synonymous.
30
One is reminded that in the context of the Tanzimat Reforms introduced
in the Ottoman administration after 1840, it was precisely the enactment
of municipal authority, around 1870, in those Greek territories still under
Turkish control that had proved to be the principal factor for effectively
propelling urban development, putting an end to various negative
interventions from central government.
27
The Salonica project favours such a view. If the so-
called ‘1917 Hébrard Plan’, which had daringly advanced
a complete urban restructuring of the fire ravaged city,
was prepared in such a short period and had been fully
implemented within only several months, it was exactly
because of the full support given by the government to
the local authority – in fact, a support that took the form
of a quasi-dictatorial intervention, with the prime minister
himself having the final word. In the second decade of
the twentieth century, it was evident that Athens would
soon face the real dilemma of uncontrolled and unplanned
growth. The statistical records were clear on that. Between
1880 and 1907 the population had risen by 159% whereas
the density had fallen by 29.4%, simply because ample
planning extensions had taken place during that period.
But it was evident that should the population keep rising,
as in fact it did, new planning measures would need to be
promptly taken. However this did not happen. In 1920 the
population had risen from 169,749 to 297,176, whereas the
density had now risen from 83.6 inhabitants per hectare
to 143.3 – a situation synonymous with an acute housing
situation, ruthless land speculation, and a worsening of living
conditions. It seems that the Greek government, unwilling
or unprepared to cooperate with the municipal authorities
on the matter, failed to realise that the situation in Athens
was as serious as it was in Salonica after the fire. This is
also true for the municipality of Athens, which adopted an
apathetic stance as regards planning intervention (contrary
to the impression of concern given by inviting renowned
specialists to give their advice). Reluctance on both sides to
intervene in the planning process has to be explained.
The 1919-1920 planning conditions in Athens reflected
a situation that, in the long run, would favour a specific
social group – from the significant profits this group might
amass from land speculation. Urban restrictions would be
imposed in time. Why is that? Urban land is an inelastic
commodity and any restriction imposed upon the supply
of this commodity affects its value. The more the demand
for urban land increases the more the prices soar, to the
benefit of landowners and property holders. Restrictions
on a scarce resource such as urban land can be understood
at least in two ways: either by official plans not allowing
the additional areas suitable for particular uses, even though
there is increased demand for that purpose, or by imposing
mandatory regulations on the use of available land. In this
latter case, any objective (above suspicion) to be achieved,
presented either in terms referring to public interest and
social welfare, or referring to pragmatic issues, such as
securing hygienic living conditions or improving traffic
and pedestrian movement, conveniently served the purpose
of asserting land use regulations. The Liberal Party, then
in power (until 1920), and Prime Minister E. Venizelos
himself, relied heavily for support on that sector of the
bourgeoisie who profited most from specific land allocation
and control. After all, during the troubled period of the Great
War there were few opportunities for profitable investments
other than in land speculation and the real estate market.
This explains the reluctance of the government to intervene
in the planning affairs of the capital when conditions were
still favourable for such an intervention. The more urban
conditions became worse the more it was difficult for a strict
urban policy to be implemented.
Looking closer at governmental planning involvement,
Haussmann’s expropriation procedures and the radio-
concentric plan for Paris, with its wide boulevards, were
echoed a few decades later in the post-1917 new plan
for Salonica, drawn by a team of architects headed by E.
Hébrard. Both procedures resulted in the dispersal of a
large number of poorer, local inhabitants from their ‘own’
areas, and to the implementation of a new urban pattern in
direct antithesis to the previous one. Although carried out
under different political administrations, both procedures
had their own powerful political lobbies. As the twentieth
century progressed, more and more urban planning issues
swung between laissez-faire liberalism and major state
intervention.31 Only six years after the Salonica plan, in
the course of the Congrès International d’Urbanisme held
in Strasbourg in 1923, organised by the Société Française
des Urbanistes, Le Corbusier presented an outline of his
provocative Plan Voisin. Although this plan received
enormous publicity, few know that throughout his most
productive years the Swiss modernist architect was busy
searching for an authority willing to support his views for
introducing ordonnance where chaos prevailed. ‘On attend
un oui d’une autorité qui veuille et qui veille…un geste de
l’autorité instituerait le bonheur humain dans les villes’ – in
his own words.32 Even less well known was his affiliation,
from the age of 39, with the fascist section of G. Valois and
his sympathy for the Italian regime, extending to a wish to
lecture in the presence of Mussolini.33 In a caption under an
engraving depicting ‘Louis XIV ordonnant la construction
des Invalides’, included in his Urbanisme, one can read:
‘Hommage à un grand urbaniste. Ce despote conçut des
choses immenses et il les réalisa. Le rayonnement de sa
gloire est sur tout le pays, partout. Il avait su dire: “Je veux!”
ou “tel est mon bon plaisir”’. Of course these are altogether
disappointing remarks, but they outline the political and
intellectual-cultural context within which Urbanisme,
the nascent science, made its first steps in the early years
of the twentieth century. They also outline the underlying
character of coherent urbanism, whose essential condition
of existence seemed to be effective state direction. It is time
to return to the vision of re-planning Athens by Thomas
31
The post-1917 re-planning of Salonica provides a unique experience of
strong state intervention in implementing a modern plan, by breaking
through all traditional patterns. On this occasion, an acerbic remark states:
‘The old pattern of ethnic-religious spatial segregation vanished; and the
Greek, Jewish and Muslim neighbourhoods, with the living communities
that animated them, were turned into low, middle and high income group
districts. The multiple nuclei of social activity were replaced by a single
administrative and economic centre, which had the function of directly
organizing socio-economic life and expressing the unitary authority
of the state.’ (Alexandra Yerolympos, Urban Transformations in the
Balkans (1820-1920), University Studio Press, Thessaloniki, 1996, 104).
32
Quoted in Ricardo Mariani, ‘L’Architecte est Nu’, Faces, Journal
d’Architectures, No. 5/6, 1987, 34-48.
33
Letter to Bardi (19 June 1934), ibid. 44. On another occasion Le
Corbusier wrote: ‘Je pense que ma présence à Rome aura pour but
également certains entretiens avec diverses personnalités designées
pour prendre des responsabilités relatives à l’avenir de l’architecture et
de l’urbanisme en Italie…il me semblerait du plus haut intérêt si une
entrevue pouvait être ménagée sur ce thème avec S. Ex. B. Mussolini.’
(Ibid. 42).
28
Mawson, a venture which, in his own words, ‘seemed to
many as out of place as the revision of the Bible did to our
fathers when it was suggested’.34
By the time Thomas Hayton Mawson (1861-1933) was
invited to Athens he was already a leading landscape architect
of the Edwardian era, president of the Town Planning Institute
and of the newly formed Institute of Landscape Architects.
In 1908 he had won the competition for the design of the
gardens of the Peace Palace in The Hague.35 Since 1910 he
had been lecturing frequently at the School of Civic Design
at Liverpool University.36 His contribution to civic arts and
his seminal role in developing English urban design were
based on the dedicated integration of landscape architecture
into town planning.37 These credentials on their own hardly
seem to explain why the king of Greece, the prime minister,
and so many officials and foreign representatives attended
an exhibition of Mawson’s drawings for The Replanning
of Athens that took place in Athens in February 1918. It
probably had more to do with his biggest British patron,
the powerful industrialist William, Lord Leverhulme,
benefactor of the working-class community at Port Sunlight.
The Greek (Liberal) government of the day was highly
influenced by Great Britain and it seems to have indicated
to the municipality of Athens that if the city was in urgent
need of a planning reform, as seems to have been the case
following Hoffmann’s invitation to present a plan, Thomas
Mawson should also be given the opportunity to advance
his ideas. Mawson hints at a similar procedure having taken
place on another occasion, believing that Hébrard, his rival
in Greek planning matters, had been assigned the drafting
of the new plan for Salonica in 1917 upon a suggestion
made by the French military authorities to the Greek
government.38 John Gennadius, a wealthy and senior Greek
diplomat based in London during the same period, and with
strong ties to the head of the Greek government, might also
have intervened on Mawson’s behalf.39 This is assumed by
a letter Mawson addressed to Gennadius dated 8April 1918
34
T. H. Mawson, ‘The Replanning of Athens’, The Architectural Review,
1919, 48.
35
E. W. Leeuwin, ‘The Arts of Peace: Thomas H. Mawson’s Gardens at
the Peace Palace, The Hague’, Garden History, Vol. 28 (2), 2000, 262.
36
Mawson lectured frequently and his ideas on landscape design were
compiled in his book Civic Art: Studies in Town Planning, Parks,
Boulevards and Open Spaces (London 1912).
37
L. Csepely-Knorr, ‘The Birth of the Theory of Urban Green Systems in
Britain and Hungary’, Agriculture and Environment Supplement, 2011, 47.
38
Th. Mawson, The Life and Work of an English Landscape Architect,
London 1927, 278. It seems that the involvement of a British and a
French architect in the early twentieth-century planning affairs of Greece,
not least the assignment of the Salonica plan to a Frenchman, should
be considered against the turbulent political climate of the country,
mainly between 1914 and 1918. Clearly, both the British and French
governments were deeply involved with the ‘National Schism’: the
dispute between the prime minister (supporting military involvement on
the Allied side) and the King (demanding a neutral stance). In December
1916 the British and French landed troops at Piraeus and put Greece
under a blockade, supposedly to force Greece to enter the war. Earlier
that year the French commander in Salonica, General Maurice Serrail,
had taken strong political initiatives in the same direction. The fact that
Hébrard was a military engineer may not have been a coincidence. Nor
should the presence of a leading British architect, availing himself of
close relationships with both palace and prime minister, be considered
solely on the basis of his competence.
39
Greek ambassador to Great Britain until 1917 and benefactor of the
Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens that still
bears his name.
and accompanied by his own portrait dedicated ‘with the
obligated acknowledgments’.40 In London Gennadius had
established the Greek Committee as long ago as 1870, and it
numbered among its members several leading figures in the
British Liberal Party. William Gladstone, party leader, seems
to have sympathized with the objectives of the Committee,
as an article written in June 1879, entitled ‘Greece and the
Treaty of Berlin’, infers. Gennadius’ own words, taken from
his Autobiographical Notes (1902), leave little doubt: ‘From
the very outset of my mission to England, I had endeavoured
to draw toward Greece Englishmen of every class and every
calling, especially men of letters and politicians’.41
In the poorly documented Greek bibliographical
references on Mawson, it is commonly held that the mayor
of Athens assigned the British architect the request to draw
a new plan for Athens in 1914, on the eve of the Great
War. This might be only partly true for two reasons: first,
as regards who invited the British Landscape architect, the
truth is that while the latter had finished working on Calgary
and intended to move on to Australia, ‘he was summoned by
cable by Contsantine (1868-1923), the new King of Greece,
to come to Athens to discuss work for the palace gardens and
a park system; in addition Mawson was to be asked to create
a new city plan’.42 On the 21st of February 1914, a telegram
was sent by Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph from
London to the New York Times, published in the newspaper
the following day, stating: ‘Thomas H. Mawson, special
lecturer on landscape design at the University of Liverpool,
has been selected on the personal recommendation of the
King and Queen of Greece to prepare a comprehensive plan
for remodelling and beautifying Athens’.43 This document
seems to have been overlooked. Second, as regards the date
of the invitation, because Mawson’s involvement in a plan
for Athens may have started earlier. Mawson’s hand-written
note clearly suggests that he must have been in contact, or
was intent on so doing, with the Athens municipal authorities
as early as 1909, apparently in the hope of receiving an
official commission.44 This might seem a minor detail,
but it is interesting to note that 1909 was also the year that
Ludwig Hoffmann came to Athens, having been assigned
by the municipality of Athens the preparation of a new
plan. Perhaps, therefore, it was during the early years of the
second decade of the nineteenth century that the way was
paved for Mawson’s involvement in Greek planning affairs,
40
The letter is included in the volume mentioned in the next footnote.
41
John Gennadius, ‘Autobiographical Notes’, The New Griffon, The
Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies, No. 4, Athens
2001, 28.
42
Waymark, Thomas Mawson: Life, gardens and landscapes, 167.
Waymark provides lengthy explanations as to how the English landscape
architect was connected with the Greek royal family, although, in my
view, Mawson’s own personality indicates a broad social circle in the
context of which invitation to visit was effected.
43
The article in the newspaper was entitled ‘To Remodel Athens. English
Artist Chosen to Direct Beautifying of Ancient City’. The reader should
pay attention to three words: ‘artist’, ‘beautifying’ and ‘ancient’. We
believe that their true content and their meaning is explained in the
analysis following in the text.
44
Mawson’s hand-written note appears on one of the coloured-ink
drawings contained in a leather-bound volume entitled Athènes de
l’avenir and preserved in the Gennadius Library, Athens. It seems the
drawing in question, a somewhat clumsy urban-design approach to the
area around the Acropolis, must have been prepared by the municipality
itself and given to Mawson as a ‘guide’ for his new project.
29
not only in Athens (where Hoffmann’s failure, between
times, favoured Mawson) but in Salonica too, where around
1917 he was a leading member of the planning team under
E. Hébrard. The 1912-13 Balkan Wars and the outbreak
of the Great War in 1914 must have delayed all relevant
planning procedures. The new Mawson plan and drawings
for Athens first appeared, not in Greece but in London, in
1916, at an exhibition at the Royal Academy.45 Yet, two
years earlier, Mawson had sent to the mayor of Athens a
type-written report, entitled Athènes, Rapport Préliminaire
pour la Ville de l’Avenir. A copy of this report, of which
apparently no more than three or four copies seem to have
been produced, is now in a private collection in Greece. The
text starts with the phrase: ‘Conformément aux instructions
que vous m’avez données…’ and the address given at the
end is ‘28 Conduit Street, Londres, W., Août 1914’.46
Notwithstanding the great publicity given to Mawson’s
project for Athens, the official exhibition of his drawings in
1918, the prestigious receptions in the presence of the king
and the prime minister, etc., his plans for the city were very
badly received by the Greek press. His plan was greeted with
abuse, and ridicule – at best visionary, but mostly absurd.
But the quality of the work was anything but. What lay at
the heart of the criticism was bad timing (right at the end of
the Great War, when the inevitable social distress diverted
public interest away from anything not directly related to
the immediate consequences of the war), and the fact that
the proposal was advanced by the authorities without any
prior elaboration of the true planning problems the capital
was having to confront and without the public having been
presented with the advantages that systematic planning
guidance would bring in the years to follow. Of course,
the citizens themselves were well aware of the problems in
the built environment – bad housing conditions, shortage
of housing, extremely inadequate infrastructure in terms
of sewage and water supply, etc. But, nevertheless, the
city’s inhabitants needed to be persuaded that the planning
exhibition opened to the public was more than just a social
event, or, at least, something worth drawing the public’s
attention to – apart from stressing the need of conducting
proper archaeological excavations: hardly a pressing matter
at the time for the average man or woman in the street! There
was little optimism in the air: until then, Athenians had
been shown little, or no, consideration by the municipal or
state authorities regarding systematic renewal of residential
districts or improvements in the quality of everyday life. It
must, therefore, have been very difficult for them to believe
that all those elegant drawings could provide a solution to
the many deficiencies of the social and physical fabric of
their city.
Attention is commanded as regards the way architectural
drawings have been included in Mawson’s portfolio and the
way his urban planning project was enhanced by drawings of
45
The Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts (Architectural Drawings
and Models Nos. 1621-23), London 1916.
46
This extremely rare document contains 69 typewritten pages, 27 x
35cm, on the standard thin and yellowish typing paper of the time; and it
has been handsomely paper-bound. The cover and inside front page are
hand-written in an elaborate style. The volume includes four photographs
of drawings and plans for the city of Athens.
different scales. Mawson’s drawings included several plans,
each indicating, under separate topics, the redesign of the
developed districts and layouts for the areas to be extended,
which were to accommodate an additional population of
nearly 200,000.47 His reformed Athens plan appeared with
reference to specific issues, separately presented: land-use
patterns, university campus, central government buildings,
industrial areas, markets, working-class housing, etc. He also
prepared a series of architectural drawings with reference to
specific public buildings and housing units. Among the first
were drawings for the new railway station and government
buildings, followed by designs, sections and elevations
for the working-class quarters. These last drawings, in
particular, include plans, sections and elevations of different
types of working-class housing units, all drawn to scales
affording the greatest detail as regards an understanding
of the accommodation (structural characteristics, layouts,
room arrangements, etc.). His suggestions were further
supported by carefully designed panoramic views of whole
building complexes, such as the Governmental Centre, and
were further exemplified by small-scale, detailed designs,
such as numerous cross-sections of the different categories
of streets (indicating such details as the width of pavements,
trees to be planted, carriage and tramway tracks, etc.). Taken
as a whole, his drawings included all the different scales of
design, indicating an understanding of the subject that was
fully consistent with contemporary architectural approaches
to urban problems.
While not attempting here to assess the efficiency
of the architectural composition, or analyze in detail
the form and styles of the buildings, it can be said that
Mawson’s architecture was faithful to a confirmed
eclecticism, including strong elements of late nineteenth-
century classicism, even allowing for a discreet echo of
romanticism. To put it in another way, one can only be a
reserved admirer of his architecture. If one compares Tony
Garnier’s drawings of his railway station building and the
housing units, prepared almost at the same period for his
Cité Industrielle, with Mawson’s corresponding drawings
for Athens, it becomes evident that the latter was assured
in his neoclassicism and unwilling to experiment with new
materials and construction techniques, or change his attitude
towards established architectural forms. On the contrary,
Garnier, before Mawson, had tried to experiment with
architectural forms and building techniques, both related
within the technical realm of reinforced concrete, recently
introduced at that time.
Delving deeper into the texts that Mawson attaches
in support of his drawings, it becomes evident that the
reasoning behind his proposals rested on equally secure
planning footings, echoing his professional and academic
involvement in a discipline which, at that time, was a
nascent science in Europe. As a landscape architect,
Mawson considered himself fully competent to plan a city.
In an article supporting the formation of a Society of Civic
Design, he wrote: ‘Who shall plan the cities, towns, villages,
and suburbs of the future?’ He answers a few lines further on:
47
Mawson’s project was published in The Architectural Review, Vol.
XLV (March), 1919, 48-52.
30
‘the Landscape Architect’.48 A year earlier he had postulated
that ‘Landscape Architecture…is more concerned with
works of a public nature, including…the planning of cities’,
and that a landscape architect is ‘able to make bird’s-eye
views of the whole city…showing a masterly grasp of the
treatment of broad areas in mass’.49
At this point we believe that it is worth quoting, word by
word, what Mawson said in an interview in the Manchester
Guardian, explaining his vision of Athens. The interview
text was faithfully reproduced in the telegram published in
the New York Times.50
‘One of the most immediate necessities of the city is
to provide a site for the new union railway station, which
will form a worthy portal to modern Athens. This great
scheme is necessitated largely by the fact that within fifteen
months there will be direct communication with Paris, and
it is necessarily the time for considering one of the railway
problems as it affects Athens. The next work, which will
be carried out in harmony with the views of the British,
German, and American Schools of Archaeology, will be the
clearing away of the accretions of the hovel shanties which
have grown up around the Acropolis and the ancient ruins
of Athens. Some of these hovels date back almost to the
time of the Turkish occupation. They are of no architectural
interest whatever, and it has always been a matter of grief to
archaeologists that such magnificent ruins should be littered
up with such unworthy modern erections. A careful survey
will be made over the areas where future excavations may
be conducted. Other removals will probably be the buildings
which have grown up between the temple of Theseus and
the market place of ancient Athens, and a great road will
be constructed between Constitution Square and Zippeion
[note: he means Zappeion] Gardens to the Acropolis and
around the base of the ancient ruins. Athens is growing at a
great rate: 500,000 souls were added to the population this
year. The reason is that every Greek feels Greece should
have a revival. The war brought out an enormous sense of
patriotism. Rich Greeks the world over are going back to
the ancient city, and many are building beautiful residences.
Great extensions will have to be planned in the ancient city
and a great royal processional road will also be constructed
between Athens and Piraeus. Sites must be found for new
Government buildings, such as the law courts. A great
water scheme is planned for Athens, by which water will
be brought to the city. In four years the provision of the new
water supply will afford the opportunity for placing many
fountains and the formation of ornamental waterways and
lakes – all of which will add to the city’s beauty. One point
on which their Majesties are more anxious than any other
is the creation of a great public park and gardens and a
boulevard system. Anyone who knows Athens will realize
that this is a prime necessity. Already the King and Queen
have done a considerable amount of planting. Some of the
hills surrounding the city are completely covered with new
growth of native pines and cypresses. The work will be
48
T.H. Mawson, ‘The Position and Prospects of Landscape Architecture
in England II’, The Town Planning Review, Vol. 2 (4), 1912, 305.
49
T.H. Mawson, ‘The Position and Prospects of Landscape Architecture
in England’, The Town Planning Review, Vol. 2 (3), 1911, 226, 227.
50
New York Times, 21 February, 1914.
extended in all directions. Experimental gardens will be laid
out, in which trials of all the native trees and shrubs will be
attempted’.51
In one way or another all previously mentioned subjects
will be discussed in our text which follows, even the Marathon
dam (‘a great water scheme is planned for Athens’), the
laying down of Syngrou avenue (‘a great royal processional
road’) and the archaeological excavations (‘other removals
will probably be the buildings…between the temple of
Theseus and the market place of ancient Athens). But before
we proceed to the analysis of Mawson’s plan, it is worth
sparing a few words on the broader intellectual environment
within which ‘town planning’, a new (scientific? artistic?)
discipline was trying to define its own subject-matter in the
early years of the twentieth century.
In France, members of the Musée Social founded the
Société Française des Urbanistes in 1913. The former was a
social coalition, begun in 1894, whose aims were to gather
information on social questions and to work towards social
peace.52 It was thanks to the Musée Social, among whose
members figured Ernest Hébrard, that modern urbanisme
was spearheaded in France. The new Société argued that
the role of the new discipline of urbanisme (a term wrongly
thought to have been coined by H. Prost, but first mentioned
by I. Cerda in 1867)53 was to manage the arrangements,
the transformations and the extensions of towns. In Great
Britain, the 1909 Housing and Town Planning Act was
concerned with ‘providing discretionary powers that enabled
local authorities to regulate new development in such a
way as to secure proper sanitary conditions, amenity and
convenience.’54 Mawson correspondingly remarked that ‘a
town planning scheme is first of all a policy for controlling
public expenditure in the interests of the community’,
considering that in his own plan ‘there will be numerous
small public lots…where workmen may rest in comfort’.55
He singled out that, in Athens, ‘housing has been managed
by a build-as-you-please policy’,56 clearly alluding to the
appealing, as he must have thought, aspect of a master plan
at the outset. He astutely understood changes taking place
in the economic geography of Greece, and, on the basis that
‘the city of Athens will be only sixty hours from Paris after
the Balkan War’, as well as that there will be a ‘growing
importance of the Piraeus, as a port for the overland traffic
across the continent’, he shrewdly perceived that Athens
(and Greece) demanded ‘a more imposing Government
centre…’57
51
At the end of the telegram the New York Times reporter has added the
following for the information of his readers: ‘The completed scheme will
include several areas devoted to housing the working classes’.
52
P. Rabinow, French Modern, Chicago 1989, 182.
53
Ibid. 235.
54
Simmie, Citizens in Conflict, 76.
55
T.H. Mawson, The Replanning of Athens, 51.
56
Ibid. 48.
57
Ibid. 51.
31
Mawson’s Plan Préliminaire pour le Développement et
l’Extension de la Ville, was a plan in the grand or heroic manner,
expressing a unique atmosphere of mellowed classicism. The
general layout of the streets skilfully distorted the tradition of the
grid in order to integrate natural features and parks, thus mixing
regularity and the picturesque. A centroidal design appeared
that focused on civic buildings, and which also included a new
straight axis to the train station. The implacable geometry of the
grid was softened and a curvilinear system adopted, better to
provide, in the mind of the planner, a transition to the perceived
benefits of the countryside. In some parts of the city, however,
a rectilinear system did appear, but even then a seamless
transition from one system to the other was envisaged. Here
there is an interesting similarity between Mawson’s plan and
the extension plan for Stuttgart which had been prepared by
Theodor Fischer in 1902.58 Planning analogies may be claimed
for other German towns too, such as the extension plan for
Iena, designed by Karl Henrici in 1903, and the 1902 extension
for Gruenstadt, showing how ‘the existing pattern of urbanism
is extended into the landscape, so that the city grows while
retaining its character’,59 a design element very characteristic
of Mawson’s plan.
Whether or not the British landscape architect and planner
was aware of these latter schemes, Mawson’s devotion to
landscape architecture must not be overlooked, expressed later
in his admiration for the ‘Garden City’ principles, conceived a
few years previously by Ebenezer Howard. The integration of
geometric concepts and nature is evident in most districts of
Mawson’s plan for Athens, as well as in the variety of ways he
defines the thoroughfares in the topography. It has been rightly
noted that an architectonic, garden-style character, implemented
under the influence of the Arts & Crafts movement of the
1890s, can be detected in some of Mawson’s designs.60 It is
more than likely that the same design principles were part of
the architectural lexicon used in his Athens plan: the ‘Garden
City’ sensitivity to people’s needs, as individuals and social
beings, would have been in line with the architect’s cultural
and social awareness. A further likely influence on Mawson’s
design philosophy must surely have been the development
of Lord Lever’s Port Sunlight venture, given the professional
relationship between the two men, as mentioned previously,
and the rural atmosphere of the cottages and village-greens
provided for factory workers there in 1888. The model village
consisted of ‘most pleasant cottages with small back gardens,
open front gardens and allotments in the centre of housing
blocks’.61
58
Cf. A. Duany and E. Plater-Zyberk, The New Civic Art, 56.
59
Ibid. 56, 57.
60
Leeuwin, ‘The Arts of Peace’, 264. Mawson’s comment on the plan of
Chicago relates to this issue: ‘The design is based on a system of diagonal
avenues with concentric, encircling, bow-shaped boulevards’ (‘The
Design of Public Parks and Gardens’, The Town Planning Review, Vol. 1
(3), 1910, 208).
61 J. Ratcliffe, Town and Country Planning, London 1974, 29.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
n’importe où vous voudrez, à Beuzeval !… Grimpons sur la falaise !
Mais pour l’amour du ciel, bougeons, bougeons !…
— Guillemette !… vous êtes pareille au salpêtre, quand vous
vous y mettez !… Il ne vous suffit pas d’avoir été trempée tantôt et
d’avoir fait tremper Mlles de Mussy ?
Un sourire malicieux retrousse les lèvres de Guillemette.
— Pauvre savante Louise ! Elle n’aime pas l’eau… Ni son
humeur ni ses cheveux ne s’en accommodent !… Mais ça, c’est une
réflexion inutile et stupide ! Mon oncle, venez sur la plage… Vous
voulez bien, dites ?
Elle demande cela avec cette grâce jeune et câline qui lui donne
tant de séduction. Et René, faisant comme les autres, ne lui résiste
pas, tout en se demandant s’il est bien correct qu’il sorte ainsi, seul,
avec sa jeune nièce…
Elle n’a pas soupçon d’un pareil scrupule et grimpe joyeusement
vers les hauteurs de la falaise, par la belle route en corniche qui
monte au bois de sapins couronnant Houlgate. Une saute du vent a
balayé les nuées maussades et l’horizon flamboie, splendide, au
couchant qui éveille des visions d’un royaume du feu. Sur le sable,
des nappes d’eau semblent des petits lacs d’or étincelant. La mer
monte, striée, à l’infini, de coulées lumineuses… Au large, les
barques découpent, sur le ciel de flamme, des formes aiguës et
noires.
Guillemette s’est arrêtée et regarde. Avec une sorte de ferveur,
elle dit, un peu bas :
— C’est beau !… Comme c’est beau ! n’est-ce pas ? mon oncle.
Elle ne tourne pas la tête vers lui. Il voit seulement le profil
expressif, où les cils tracent une ligne sombre sur les joues, si
fraîches sous la brise qui enroule étroitement la robe autour du corps
svelte. Et, brusquement, il se souvient — comme il s’est souvenu
souvent depuis une semaine…
Combien de fois, durant l’été inoubliable, il a ainsi contemplé le
coucher du soleil, auprès de Nicole !… L’écho des souvenirs morts
tressaille en lui. Sans en avoir conscience, il écoute leur murmure
confus.
Des minutes et des minutes passent.
Guillemette regarde toujours l’horizon dont l’embrasement pâlit,
atteint par la cendre du crépuscule ; et, volontiers, elle aurait le geste
instinctif d’un enfant pour retarder la fin d’un spectacle qui
l’enchante.
Mais la féerie est achevée. Une brume violette se déploie
grandissante, pareille à un voile infini, sous lequel meurent, peu à
peu, contours, formes, lumières, engloutis par l’ombre victorieuse.
Les dernières nuées s’éteignent. Le ciel apparaît terne, d’un bleu
obscur, où tremble, solitaire, le feu d’une étoile.
Alors, rejetée hors du rêve, Guillemette reprend conscience de la
présence de René. Comme il a l’air grave !… A quoi peut-il bien
songer pour que ses traits prennent cette régularité sévère de
médaille, — qui lui va très bien d’ailleurs… Et spontanée elle
s’écrie :
— Oncle, vous avez l’air « tout chose » !… Vous ne pensez pas à
me donner Louise de Mussy pour tante ?
Il a un imperceptible sursaut de créature réveillée et, comme elle
se remet à marcher, il la suit, interrogeant, la pensée encore
distraite :
— Elle ne vous plairait pas ?
— Oh ! pas du tout !
L’aveu se fait avec un accent dont la conviction est expressive.
— … Elle est bien trop pontifiante, d’une science trop écrasante
et trop… en dehors… Et puis, elle reçoit si mal les averses !… C’est
que, dans la vie, il faut en recevoir souvent. Et de toute sorte !
— Guillemette, vous parlez comme l’Expérience elle-même ! Mais
si Mlle de Mussy que je trouve, moi, remplie de mérite, vous paraît à
ce point déplaisante, pourquoi voulez-vous qu’elle m’ait induit en la
tentation d’en faire un jour ma femme ?…
 — Oh ! mon oncle, parce que vous aimez les jeunes filles
savantes, correctes, religieuses, utiles à leurs semblables, etc.,
etc. !… Des jeunes filles de tout repos, enfin !
Sans savoir pourquoi, René a envie de regimber devant ce
jugement.
— Mais où prenez-vous tout ce que vous racontez ici ? jeune fille.
— Mais dans vos conversations avec maman !… Aussi, l’autre
soir, quand vous énumériez…, — comme la Raison elle-même ! —
les qualités qui vous paraissent nécessaires à une femme, je
pensais que j’aurais vraiment, sans chercher loin, à vous offrir la
fiancée de vos goûts !
— Ah ! vraiment ? fait René interrogateur. Depuis une semaine
qu’il vit près de sa nièce, il a pu constater qu’elle avait une pensée
fourmillante d’imprévus et qu’il pouvait s’attendre, de sa part, aux
confidences les plus diverses ; car elle a des lubies de gamine et
des réflexions de femme de cœur, amalgamées à des audaces
d’opinion, de pensée, de goûts, qui le désorientent, le choquent,
l’irritent même, mais l’intéressent et l’amusent. Ah ! ce n’est pas, il
doit le reconnaître, une personne banale que sa jeune nièce !
— Donc, vous avez une fiancée à me présenter ?
— Oui !… Puisque vous êtes un monsieur très sérieux, puisque
vous vous mariez sans emballement, pour avoir une compagne
agréable, bonne maîtresse de maison, instruite, vertueuse, vous
devriez épouser M’selle !
René est si surpris qu’il s’arrête court, un peu choqué.
— Guillemette, vous poussez vraiment trop loin la plaisanterie !
— Mais, mon oncle, je ne plaisante pas du tout !
— Ah !… Et d’où vous est venue cette lumineuse idée ?
— De la conviction que vous feriez ainsi, pour votre bonheur, une
œuvre méritoire ! Mademoiselle n’est pas riche. Elle se tourmente
beaucoup parce qu’elle a sa mère à soutenir et elle se fatigue tant !
Alors, mon oncle, comme vous êtes bon, que vous n’avez pas l’air
de tenir à l’argent, que vous aimez les femmes sérieuses, je trouve
qu’elle pourrait bien réaliser votre idéal…
— Je ne le crois pas, Guillemette, dit René si posément que
Guillemette est un peu saisie.
Tout en trottant, car l’heure du dîner les presse maintenant, elle
lève vers lui sa jolie tête et le regarde, envahie par une vague
inquiétude. Est-il fâché ?…
— Mon oncle, vous trouvez, dites, que je me mêle de ce qui ne
me regarde pas ? C’est que je plains tellement la pauvre M’selle
depuis que j’ai entrevu ce qu’est la vie pour elle… Chaque fois que
j’y pense, j’ai honte de moi !
René ne comprend pas bien :
— Puis-je, sans indiscrétion, Guillemette, vous demander
pourquoi vous êtes si sévère à votre égard ?
— Oh ! vous le pouvez, il n’y a pas de mystère !… C’est parce
que je constate alors à quel point je suis toujours occupée de vivre le
plus agréablement possible, quand il y a tant de femmes, même de
jeunes filles ! qui peinent — non par goût, certes !… Oh ! mon oncle,
vous ne trouvez pas qu’il y a des moments où cela devient une vraie
souffrance, quand on jouit de tout, de penser à toutes les misères
auxquelles on ne peut rien ?…
Ici, l’oncle René pardonne à Guillemette son idée saugrenue, de
lui offrir Mademoiselle comme fiancée.
 VI

Il est arrivé aux Passiflores une première série d’invités, conviés

par la politesse, la sympathie, par le sentiment familial et autres
motifs variés.
Et d’abord, une respectable cousine de Mme Seyntis, la
chanoinesse de Thorigny-Bergues, laide, spirituelle, masculine
d’allures et d’idées, la parole mordante. Puis un jeune ménage, très
chic et très amoureux, les de Coriolis. Monsieur est un camarade de
René Carrère, fraîchement marié ; et quoique Mme Seyntis juge que
le voisinage des jeunes époux n’a rien de bon pour une fille de l’âge
de Guillemette, elle a cependant invité les de Coriolis par sollicitude
fraternelle, dans l’espoir que le spectacle de leur félicité conjugale
mettrait René en goût.
Du côté masculin, deux célibataires, hôtes particuliers de
Raymond Seyntis : un peintre américain, Hawford, dont l’exposition
a été, à Paris, le succès artistique du printemps ; et un séduisant
vieux garçon, très admirateur des femmes dont il se fait volontiers le
directeur laïque ; ce qui lui fournit de précieux documents pour les
Revues qu’il donne dans les Cercles. Enfin Nicole de Miolan est
arrivée sous l’égide de ses père et mère.
Et tous ces hôtes, installés en des chambres confortables et
souriantes, ouvertes sur l’horizon de la mer, les odorants parterres
du jardin, ou les lointains verdoyants des coteaux, tous, en leurs
domiciles nouveaux, se préparent pour le dîner dont le premier coup
ne tardera pas à sonner.
Le seul habitant peut-être des Passiflores qui soit indifférent à
cette perspective, c’est M. Seyntis, qui, dans son cabinet, achève de
rédiger des ordres, des réponses aux lettres, billets, télégrammes,
accumulés comme chaque jour, — même à Houlgate, — sur son
bureau. Un pli barre son front. Il a cette physionomie absorbée et
lasse des hommes brûlés par le souci fiévreux d’affaires lourdes de
responsabilités ; car des fortunes sont engagées dans les parties.
Il ne ressemble guère, en ce moment, au brillant Raymond
Seyntis que connaît le monde.
Cependant sa femme, sereine dans un luxe qu’il lui paraît aussi
naturel de posséder que l’air pour respirer, donne, attentive
maîtresse de maison, ses derniers ordres au maître d’hôtel, pour la
rédaction des menus et le placement des invités selon une
impeccable hiérarchie.
Guillemette, pour sa part, s’applique de son mieux à sa toilette du
soir. Pas un atome de poudre sur son visage, c’est sa coquetterie ;
les cheveux relevés avec de jolies ondulations molles, dues à la
seule nature, et tordus en un nœud capricieux, qui dégage bien la
nuque ; sous l’étoffe légère du corsage, la taille libre, dressée
comme le jet souple d’une jeune plante.
Certes, ce n’est pas tous les jours que Guillemette s’habille avec
un entier détachement de l’effet à produire. Mais ce soir, en
particulier, elle est stimulée par le désir très vif, peu noble, elle ne se
le dissimule pas, de n’être pas éclipsée ; ni par la jeune baronne de
Coriolis, ni surtout par Nicole, la savoureuse Nicole, comme l’appelle
son père. Chose bizarre, c’est, avant tout, aux yeux de l’oncle René
qu’elle souhaite pouvoir soutenir la comparaison.
Il a beau n’être, pour elle, qu’un homme très sérieux qu’elle
considère un peu comme un dieu protecteur, perché sur un piédestal
fait de sagesse et de raison… Tout de même, elle tient, en sa petite
vanité féminine, à ce que, près de Nicole, il ne la juge pas
dépourvue quant aux avantages périssables…
 Sa pensée est fourmillante de points d’interrogation à son égard
et à celui de la jeune femme ; car le roman de jadis intéresse
prodigieusement sa jeune cervelle qui ignore, pressent, réfléchit…
— Peut-être, songe-t-elle, sceptique autant qu’un vieux moraliste,
sa passion pour elle a été une simple crise !… Tous les hommes
jeunes doivent passer par là, comme les petits enfants ont la
rougeole ! Il a l’air tellement guéri ! Et il est si peu romanesque !…
C’est triste qu’on puisse ainsi aimer et oublier…
C’est tout en inspectant l’ondulation de ses cheveux que
Guillemette agite ce problème sentimental.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
René Carrère est-il vraiment guéri comme le croit Guillemette,
comme il le croit lui-même ?
Ayant déjà revêtu sa tenue du soir, il est debout devant la porte-
fenêtre de son balcon ; et, avec des yeux qui ne voient rien des
choses extérieures, il contemple obstinément un bouquet d’arbres
dressé derrière la pelouse.
Il pense que, dans quelques instants, il va se retrouver devant la
femme qui a été la folie de sa jeunesse et il éprouve une sorte
d’orgueilleuse satisfaction parce qu’il lui semble être sincèrement
calme. Le temps a fait son œuvre. Où est la vague de passion qui,
jadis, l’a soulevé au-dessus de lui-même ?… Tout au plus, il peut
noter en lui une naturelle curiosité de savoir ce qu’elle est devenue.
Il ne l’a pas encore revue puisqu’il n’était pas à la gare pour son
arrivée. Une petite lâcheté, cela, dont il s’irrite maintenant. Pourquoi
avoir retardé une rencontre qui lui est pénible, parce que,
fatalement, elle fera tressaillir le fantôme du passé ?
— Eh bien, soit. C’est un moment difficile à accepter : voilà
tout !… J’en ai vu bien d’autres ! murmure-t-il avec un haussement
d’épaules.
Oui, il en a connu d’autres qui demeurent son secret… D’abord,
dans ces mêmes Passiflores, des heures folles de passion, de
révolte, de désespoir, — dont il a eu honte plus tard, — quand, après
l’avoir enivré et torturé de sa beauté qui culbutait en lui toute
sagesse, elle a répondu, à son aveu, suppliant comme une prière,
qu’elle en aimait un autre.
Ah ! qu’il l’a revue longtemps, telle qu’elle était en cette minute,
un soir, sur la terrasse des Passiflores !… De ses doigts nus, elle
déchiquetait une rose, tout en parlant. Dans la pénombre, il
distinguait son regard velouté qui ne voyait que l’absent, la fleur
vivante de sa bouche dont il appelait le baiser.
Oui, il a fallu des mois et encore des mois pour que la vision
s’effaçât comme l’exigeait sa volonté, impérieuse d’autant plus que
Nicole devenait la femme de l’autre…
Mais de ce jour, vraiment, elle a été une morte pour lui. Ainsi le
commandait sa conscience, rigoureusement scrupuleuse, quant au
respect du bien d’autrui.
Alors pourquoi redoute-t-il de la voir ?
C’est une inconnue que cette Nicole échappée, frémissante, au
lien conjugal, passionnément voulu, et qu’elle prétend achever de
rompre par le divorce… Résolution qui froisse en lui ses vieux
instincts héréditaires de catholique convaincu, fidèle au respect du
serment reçu par le prêtre.
Oh ! non, Nicole de Miolan n’a plus rien de commun avec la
jeune fille qu’il a adorée, à laquelle il songe dans le beau crépuscule
d’août, ainsi que l’on songe aux morts infiniment chers…
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
A travers la cloison, sonne un éclat de rire, jailli de la grande
chambre aux tentures pékinées où vient d’être installé le jeune
ménage de Coriolis. Si les yeux de René Carrère pouvaient percer la
muraille, ils verraient son ami nonchalamment allongé dans un
confortable fauteuil, la cigarette aux lèvres, suivant d’un œil
amoureux tous les mouvements de sa blonde petite femme qui
trottine du cabinet de toilette à la chambre, peu enveloppée par son
peignoir de linon, ouvragé de dentelle.
 Au passage, il saisit la main qui fait un choix dans le coffret à
bijoux et attire vers lui la jeune femme. Elle proteste, — sans
conviction, d’ailleurs.
— Oh ! Georges, voyons, sois sérieux !… Laisse-moi m’habiller…
Je serai en retard et ce sera une catastrophe !… Que dira Mme
Seyntis ?… Pour la première fois que je suis reçue chez elle !… Tu
n’as vraiment pas l’air de te douter que nous sommes dans une
maison convenable !
— Hum, en ce qui concerne Raymond Seyntis…
Et il soulève les dentelles de la manche large. Sa bouche erre,
gourmande, sur la peau qui embaume l’iris.
Elle ne se défend pas du tout et s’écrie seulement, avec une
drôle de petite moue :
— Georges, tu es un monstre de volupté !
— Oh ! oh ! madame, quel grand mot !… Ce me semble qu’il y a
des heures où vous ne vous plaignez pas de cette qualité de votre
mari.
Elle se met à rire et riposte :
— Mon Dieu, mon amour, que tu fais donc des réflexions
absurdes !
— Madame, le ciel en soit témoin ! vous manquez de respect à
votre époux… Venez implorer votre pardon.
Il la met sur ses genoux. Elle proteste encore, mais très mal :
— Georges ! Georges ! tu vas me décoiffer !… Et mes cheveux
étaient si bien arrangés.
— Je vous recoifferai, ma petite femme.
Et il glisse ses doigts dans la soie blonde des cheveux qui
semblent faits de lumière.
Elle bondit à terre, la mine fâchée — et tendre :
— Georges, tu es insupportable ! Je serai ce soir comme un
chien fou… Ce sera de ta faute… Et tout le monde se demandera
comment tu as pu épouser une si laide femme…
 — Un monstre de volupté, peut-être, glisse-t-il malicieusement.
— Bon, bon, monsieur… On se souviendra comme vous jugez
votre femme ! Maintenant, laisse-moi m’habiller, mon chéri. Tu es
horripilant, mais je t’adore !
Il n’est pas sûr qu’il lui rendrait sa liberté si un choc discret ne
heurtait la porte. C’est la camériste de Madame qui revient pour
l’habiller.
Madame, aussitôt, est à l’autre bout de la chambre — dans la
partie solitaire ! — et, d’un ton détaché, crie :
— Entrez.
Elle est plus que rose. Toutefois la camériste est trop occupée du
vaporeux nuage qu’elle apporte avec soin, pour se permettre aucune
réflexion intempestive :
— Madame veut-elle que je la chausse d’abord ?
— Oui, je préfère.
Quelques minutes plus tard. Madame, en petits souliers, est
debout devant sa glace, les épaules nues sous le ruban de la
chemise, mince dans le soyeux jupon ; et elle est tout absorbée par
le souci de faire disparaître sur sa nuque la trace des doigts trop
caressants de Monsieur ; lequel, sans enthousiasme, a quitté son
excellent fauteuil et sa cigarette pour endosser enfin l’habit de
rigueur.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pendant que se déroulent ces menus épisodes, dans la petite
chambre qui est son home, Mademoiselle, attendant le deuxième
coup de cloche, relit encore une fois les lignes, reçues le matin, qui
lui apportent le parfum de la « maison ».
« … Oui, ma chère petite fille, comme toi, nous aspirons, ta sœur
et moi, à la fin de notre séparation et nous voudrions bien que ce fût
fini de t’aimer de loin…
« Oui, je comprends qu’il te soit triste de vivre parmi des
étrangers, même très aimables pour toi… Et pourtant, mon enfant
chérie, pourtant, je ne puis regretter que tu aies eu le courage de
partir, de nous laisser !… D’abord, parce que je pense que ce séjour
au bord de la mer sera fortifiant pour toi, après ta dure année de
travail ; bien meilleur que les mois de vacances dans la petite
fournaise qui nous sert de gîte, où la température se fait vite
étouffante malgré nos persiennes closes dès que le soleil vient nous
brûler…
« Et puis, ma Jeanne, il était raisonnable, sage, de ne pas
négliger cette occasion de te faire connaître dans un milieu fortuné
où tu peux trouver des leçons, peut-être, dans l’avenir.
« Car, en effet, plus que jamais, ma bien-aimée, il nous faut
penser à l’exiguité de notre budget et ne négliger aucune chance de
l’assurer un peu. J’aime mieux te l’avouer, pour que l’idée d’être le
soutien de ta pauvre vieille maman te rende vaillante, les démarches
de ta sœur pour arriver au poste d’inspectrice que tu sais ont
définitivement échoué. Les candidates sont légion, toutes pourvues
de titres sérieux, bien autrement recommandées que ta sœur !… et
les places vacantes se présentent comme des exceptions…
« Ta sœur a été très aimablement reçue par le secrétaire général
qui a cru préférable de lui ôter tout espoir, avec preuves à l’appui,
afin qu’elle ne se leurre pas inutilement. Antoinette est donc revenue
très découragée de cette visite, chaque jour lui montrant davantage,
hélas ! combien il est difficile à une femme de gagner sa vie. Mais tu
connais son énergie. Déjà, elle cherche une autre voie.
« Ah ! ma petite fille, confions-nous à Dieu qui, bien mieux que
nous, sait ce qui nous convient. Acceptons bravement ce qu’il veut
pour nous, et notre épreuve nous semblera bien moins lourde… Je
te le dis, chérie, comme je l’ai senti bien des fois ; et c’est mon cœur
même de maman qui te le murmure avec toute sa tendresse pour
que tu espères malgré tout… ainsi que je le fais… Soyons
courageuses, heureuses de vivre les unes pour les autres, toutes
trois… »
Mademoiselle devine plus qu’elle ne lit les dernières lignes parce
que le jour se meurt, surtout parce que de grosses larmes brouillent
son regard… Alors, elle se penche sur la chère écriture et y dépose
un baiser fervent.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Deux portes plus loin, chez les parents de Nicole, l’humeur n’est
pas très souriante du côté de Monsieur, qui est un homme
d’habitudes, vite nerveux, pour peu qu’il ne trouve pas ses affaires
disposées dans leur ordre coutumier. Or, étant aux Passiflores
depuis deux heures à peine, il traverse la période d’installation, ce
qui influe fâcheusement sur son humeur et le fait saupoudrer de
conseils, questions, voire même reproches, non seulement la femme
de chambre, mais encore sa dévouée épouse. Il est, en effet, de ces
hommes excellents — et terribles ! — qui ne peuvent se tenir de
donner leur avis sur toute chose, petite ou grande, et s’étonnent
ensuite avec simplicité de voir les gens continuer à agir suivant leur
propre guise.
Tout en parcourant un journal, il monologue sur les sujets les plus
étrangers à la politique.
— Je trouve l’air fatigué et soucieux à Seyntis. C’est un joueur un
peu trop audacieux, je le crains. Je le lui ai dit… Mais c’est un
garçon qui n’a confiance qu’en lui-même ! Ta cousine, elle, est
toujours fraîche et sereine, et Guillemette a encore embelli !
Il est interrompu dans ses réflexions par le bruit d’un carton que
Mme d’Harbourg a laissé tomber ; malgré sa corpulence elle est très
active et aime à ranger par elle-même.
— Mon Dieu, Pauline, comme tu t’agites ! Laisse donc faire la
femme de chambre… Sais-tu où elle a mis mes cravates ?… Je ne
les retrouvais pas tout à l’heure.
M. d’Harbourg est plutôt coquet. Il a été très joli homme et il est
encore un beau gentilhomme frais et rose sous ses cheveux blancs,
coupés en brosse.
— Mon ami, elles sont dans le tiroir de la commode.
— Elles auraient été beaucoup mieux dans l’armoire à glace. Je
les aurais choisies bien plus facilement.
 — Si tu le désires, mon ami, je dirai à Céline de les y remettre
demain.
— Oh ! puisque la maladresse est commise, ne changeons rien.
Tu mets cette robe-là, ce soir ?… Une robe noire !… C’est bien
foncé. Tu sais pourtant que je préfère les robes de couleur !
— Mais, Charles, ma robe est toute perlée de jais… Elle n’est
pas sombre !
— Bien… bien, ma bonne amie. Habille-toi comme tu l’entends.
Je n’y connais rien. C’est convenu !
Un silence. Mme d’Harbourg sort quelques bibelots de son sac.
La pendule sonne la demie de six heures. M. d’Harbourg rejette son
journal.
— Eh ! Eh ! si tard déjà ? Il faut que je m’habille. Pauline, ma
chère amie, veux-tu bien sonner Alfred pour qu’il m’apporte mes
souliers vernis.
— Charles, ils sont là, près de toi.
— S’ils y étaient, je ne les demanderais pas. Je ne suis pas un
idiot !
Sans relever cette imprudente déclaration, Mme d’Harbourg se
penche et prend les escarpins à côté du fauteuil de Monsieur, qui ne
dit mot, ne pouvant ni ne voulant se tenir pour « un idiot ».
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Nicole de Miolan, elle, n’est occupée ni de rangements, ni de
toilette. Les coudes sur l’appui de la fenêtre, le visage sur ses mains
jointes, elle songe, insouciante des minutes qui fuient…
Elle aussi pense à la rencontre qu’elle va faire ; et une curiosité
un peu perverse la distrait d’elle-même, du souvenir de son passé
d’épouse qui la hante, l’enveloppant comme un douloureux cilice.
Elle n’a jamais eu pour son cousin René Carrère plus qu’une
sincère amitié et beaucoup d’estime. Tel qu’elle le connaît, — s’il n’a
pas changé… — il est revenu de son exil volontaire parce qu’il
jugeait pouvoir la retrouver, sans craindre de faiblir devant le devoir
strict qui est son maître, — aujourd’hui, sans doute, comme
autrefois. Pour elle, il est à peine plus qu’un indifférent. Pourtant,
dans son âme désemparée, il y aura, elle le sait, un bizarre regret,
s’il est vraiment guéri tout à fait, et une tentation mauvaise de raviver
la flamme éteinte, — par vanité féminine, par besoin instinctif d’être
aimée. Elle est de celles qui ne peuvent vivre sans les caresses d’un
cœur où elles sont souveraines… Puis, en elle, il y a si vive une soif
d’oubli et aussi de vengeance pour celui qui l’avait prise toute :
corps, âme, pensée…
Il était, comme elle, ardent, passionné, volontaire et jaloux…
Combien ils se sont adorés, puis heurtés, — heurtés à se briser le
cœur !… Quelles scènes affreuses, elle a dans le souvenir…
Ah ! heureusement, tout cela, c’est le passé, maintenant ! En
février dernier, la rupture a été consommée entre eux et elle est
partie pour Paris, résolue au divorce. S’il a souhaité une
réconciliation, elle a refusé de le savoir, n’ouvrant pas les quelques
lettres qui, après un silence de plusieurs mois, lui sont arrivées de
Constantinople ! Il l’a trahie. Il l’a faussement soupçonnée. L’un
comme l’autre, ils se sont torturés. C’est fini entre eux, fini, fini ! Que
chacun donc recommence sa vie comme il l’entendra, s’il le peut…
Pourquoi donc y a-t-il encore des minutes où il se dresse en son
souvenir, pareil à un fantôme qui veut la reprendre.
— Ah ! je vous hais, autant que je vous ai adoré, murmure-t-elle,
les dents serrées, le regard perdu vers la mer, frémissante comme
son pauvre être… Je vous ai tout donné de moi, et vous m’avez
enlevé le bonheur, l’espoir, le respect de moi-même… Vous avez fait
de moi une épave qui va… je ne sais où… Oh ! oui, je vous hais ! Je
ferai tout, vous entendez, tout ! pour avoir l’oubli et la belle vie
d’amour que je veux, à n’importe quel prix !…
Vraiment, elle lui parle, comme s’il pouvait encore l’entendre, les
yeux sans larmes, les mains serrées par l’angoisse qui la meurtrit.
Ses joues sont brûlantes, et elle se penche instinctivement sur le
rebord de la fenêtre pour sentir la fraîcheur du vent qui fouette
l’écume des vagues.
 Pourquoi donc, ce soir, pense-t-elle ainsi à toutes ces choses qui
lui font tant de mal ? Est-ce la rencontre de René qui réveille le
passé ? Ah ! certes, près de lui, la vie n’eût pas été d’abord un
tourbillon d’ivresse, de bonheur, intense à certaines heures jusqu’à
en devenir une souffrance, puis une tempête où les nuées sombres,
parfois, laissaient encore jaillir un éblouissant rayon.
Lui, René, l’aurait aimée d’un amour grave et paisible, tel lui-
même.
— Ce n’est pas ainsi que je voulais l’être, murmure-t-elle encore,
sans remuer à peine les lèvres. N’a-t-elle pas toujours souhaité se
perdre dans l’amour comme dans un océan, pour s’y abîmer
divinement et follement !
Une cloche tinte.
— Madame entend-elle ? C’est le premier coup. Madame ne va
pas être habillée. Quelle robe madame a-t-elle décidé de mettre ?
Elle a un tressaillement. A peine, elle a entendu le son de la voix.
Mais, cessant de regarder la mer, elle aperçoit, devant elle, sa
femme de chambre qui l’attend, anxieuse par amour-propre
professionnel.
Elle répète machinalement :
— Quelle robe ?… La rose. Aline, je suis à vous.
Aline est adroite et vive. Quand éclate la sonnerie du deuxième
coup, Nicole est toute prête, merveilleusement habillée par le souple
crêpe de Chine qui s’enroule à sa forme parfaite.
Son âme et sa pensée sont redevenues closes pour tous. De
l’émotion qui l’a bouleversée un moment plus tôt, il ne reste d’autre
trace que l’éclat plus vif des joues et une lueur brûlante dans ses
beaux yeux passionnés. Elle glisse quelques fleurs dans la dentelle
de son corsage, décolleté sur la nuque et l’attache des épaules,
prend ses gants et descend.
Dans le salon, où errent capricieusement les dernières lueurs du
couchant, presque tous les hôtes des Passiflores se trouvent déjà
réunis. Auprès du fauteuil de Mme Seyntis, sont Mme d’Harbourg et
la chanoinesse. Celle-ci, laide, la lèvre duvetée, la voix haute, éveille
une surprise un peu effarée chez Mademoiselle qui, trompée par son
titre, s’attendait à voir en elle une sorte de nonne, pieusement
austère. Du coin du salon, où elle est assise à l’écart, Mademoiselle
en revient toujours à l’observer, quand elle ne croit pas devoir
surveiller Mad qui tourbillonne de la terrasse au salon, le nez au
vent, les yeux fureteurs sous la toison dorée de ses cheveux.
Et aussi, Mademoiselle est distraite du spectacle de la
chanoinesse, par l’entrée, dans le salon, de Guillemette qui a l’air
d’une aurore, pense-t-elle poétiquement. Puis, c’est l’apparition de la
jeune baronne de Coriolis ressemblant, elle, à un Watteau. Et une
fois de plus, Mademoiselle se sent très loin de ces élégantes
personnes dont les robes fragiles coûtent, pour le moins, ce qu’elle
gagne en un mois de labeur. Mais dans son âme, il n’y a pas un
atome d’envie ; seulement beaucoup d’humilité et une naïve
admiration pour ces créatures de luxe.
Et voici qu’à son tour, Nicole fait son entrée, longue, fine,
onduleuse dans la gaine de sa robe, les prunelles veloutées et
sombres sous les cheveux clairs qui ont l’éclat des feuilles brûlées
par l’automne. Ainsi, elle éveille la vision de quelque belle nymphe
d’un dieu d’amour.
Francis Hawford, le peintre, dresse la tête à son entrée et
murmure, l’enveloppant d’un regard d’artiste et d’homme :
— Diable ! la splendide créature !
Et ce doit être aussi l’opinion de Raymond Seyntis, car il a un
singulier accent pour lui dire, après avoir baisé sa main dégantée :
— Vous êtes toujours terriblement séduisante, ma nièce.
— Heureusement pour moi, mon oncle.
— Et pour nous !
L’un comme l’autre, ils savent très bien les pensées qui flottent
en leurs deux cerveaux. Pour un homme, sensible comme lui à la
beauté, elle a une saveur irritante : et si elle était une étrangère, il
succomberait à la tentation de goûter cette saveur. Mais la pensée
qu’il l’appelle « ma nièce » l’arrête dans les limites d’une galanterie
discrète, — imperceptiblement équivoque.
Elle fait encore quelques pas dans le salon. Puis elle s’arrête de
nouveau. Cette fois, c’est René Carrère qui la salue.
— Ah ! bonjour, René ! dit-elle de sa voix chaude, un peu
assourdie.
Ils sont face à face et se regardent. Au fond de leurs âmes, frémit
l’ombre du passé. Mais eux seuls le savent, — et Guillemette dont
les larges prunelles s’attachent à eux avec une expression profonde
et attentive.
Nicole pense qu’il a peu changé ; ses traits nettement découpés
ont toujours la même expression de volonté mâle et sereine. Ses
yeux ont gardé leur regard clair qui jamais n’a dû connaître le
mensonge, — et en ce moment, est presque dur.
Mais pour lui, elle est une autre femme, — tout à fait différente de
la jeune fille de jadis. Elle a le même délicieux visage où semble
palpiter le reflet de quelque mystérieuse flamme, la même bouche
affolante par sa fraîcheur, la grâce indéfinissable, ironique et
caressante du sourire… Pourtant cette Nicole-là n’est pas celle qu’il
a quittée, il y a quatre ans. Il s’est fait en elle une sorte
d’épanouissement superbe qui doit griser les hommes et effaroucher
les très honnêtes et très candides femmes comme Mme Seyntis.
Elle fait songer à quelque fleur magnifique dont le parfum serait
dangereusement capiteux.
Entre eux, il y a un silence de quelques secondes. Puis,
correctement, il articule, s’inclinant sur la main nue qu’elle lui a
donnée :
— Madame, je vous présente mes hommages.
— Pourquoi ? « madame… » Nous sommes toujours cousins,
que je sache !
— C’est vrai… Vous avez raison… Bonjour, Nicole.
— A la bonne heure, ainsi.
 Mais toute conversation est interrompue car le maître d’hôtel
annonce que le dîner est servi.
 VII

Le repas les a séparés. Ils ont rempli, envers leurs voisins

respectifs, les menus devoirs imposés par la politesse. Mais ils se
sont observés avec une attention aiguë et discrète.
Lui, a été très courtois pour la chanoinesse qui l’accaparait sans
merci. Elle, Nicole, a causé tout le temps du repas avec Francis
Hawford dont le masque violent avait une expression d’admiration
avide quand il arrêtait sur elle des yeux de conquérant.
René n’a pu entendre que des bribes de leur conversation ; mais
il a vu que Nicole était amusée, intéressée par l’exotisme des idées
de Hawford ; que le peintre se laissait envoûter par la grâce
française.
Et — complexité de l’âme ! — cette constatation lui a été plutôt
désagréable, si détaché qu’il fût — ou crût être — de Mme de
Miolan. Alors, résolu à oublier sa présence, il s’est pris à regarder
autour de lui. Il a trouvé apaisante la vue de Mademoiselle, avec son
air d’humble vierge. Il a aperçu Guillemette, déjà tentatrice, les
lèvres savoureuses, ses yeux de sombres violettes où la jeunesse
rit, étincelant d’inconscientes promesses.
En elle, y aurait-il une future Nicole ?
Cette pensée effleure l’esprit de René et le révolte aussitôt
comme une sorte de profanation. Pourquoi douter de cette enfant
parce qu’elle a reçu, elle aussi, le don redoutable de la séduction ?
 Évidemment, les femmes telles que la chanoinesse ne
connaissent ni ne suscitent pareils dangers. Et, sagement, pour
rétablir l’équilibre serein de sa pensée, René se remet à causer avec
elle qui, d’ailleurs, a l’esprit fertile en boutades originales.
M. d’Harbourg lui donne la réplique avec une courtoisie
cérémonieuse. Sa femme est prodigue d’aimables sourires et de
silences. La petite de Coriolis soupire, en son for intérieur, de n’être
pas placée auprès de son époux et trouve sans attrait les madrigaux
longs et surannés de M. de Harbourg, charmé par sa jolie tête de
pastel blond.
Et Mme Seyntis est la parfaite maîtresse de maison qui s’efface
devant ses hôtes et trouve toujours le mot à dire pour garder à la
conversation l’allure très correcte qu’elle juge indispensable.
Le dîner fini, c’est l’exode vers la terrasse et même le jardin où la
nuit est tiède. Dans les allées que le clair de lune sable d’argent, les
hommes fument ; et la petite flamme des cigares pique l’obscurité de
courtes lueurs.
Les personnes d’âge se sont groupées sur la terrasse et devisent
paisiblement. La petite de Coriolis a disparu, glissée au bras de son
mari, dans une allée bien sombre. Et Guillemette retenue par la
chanoinesse piétinerait volontiers d’impatience.
Nicole, elle, après avoir un instant causé avec sa mère et Mme
Seyntis, a descendu les marches de la terrasse. Elle s’assied dans
l’ombre et demeure immobile. Les paupières à demi closes, les
mains abandonnées sur ses genoux, elle songe. Que cherchent
donc dans la nuit ses yeux qui rêvent ?
Un promeneur solitaire passe devant elle sans l’apercevoir. Son
pas est lent et distrait. Lui aussi songe. Elle l’a entendu. Son beau
visage prend une bizarre expression et elle appelle :
— René ?… C’est vous, n’est-ce pas ?… Venez donc un peu… Il
fait bon ici…
Malgré la nuit, elle a vu qu’il tressaillait.