Stéphen Liégeard was born in Dijon in 1830, and died in Cannes in 1925. In addition to his role as a subprefect, a high-ranking public official in France, he was also a politician, writer, and poet. He was the inspiration for the “Subprefect of the fields”, a character in Alphonse Daudet’s collection of short stories entitled Letters from My Windmill. From 1870 onwards, his considerable wealth allowed him to devote his energies almost exclusively to writing, particularly in Cannes where he spent each winter. In 1887, he penned his famous book La Côte d’Azur, from which our region takes its name. He visited the Principality on several occasions, writing magnificently that “Monaco moves in the endless blue”.
