Of Perfume and Olives on France’s Cote d’Azur : From Grasse to Haut-de- Cagnes and Villefranche, tiny museums exhibit local art and history.

Most of the museums along the glittering Cote d’Azur boast a wealth of French masters: Chagalls, Renoirs, Picassos, Matisses. Paintings hang in the artists’ former studios, now open to the public; their sculptures pose in gardens and on terraces above the sea.

But a few Riviera museums have none of the above, focusing instead on local products or on the private collections of lesser-known artists in keenly dramatic settings.

In Grasse, whose name is synonymous with the perfume industry, one of the top hotels is the Best Western Hotel des Parfums. And down ancient steps from the Place Auxairs, with its carriage lamps and dripping fountains, lies the Musee International de la Parfumerie. Gleaming copper vats, with swirls of slim pipes and gauges, reminded me of a Cognac distillery that I once toured on the River Charente in the west of France. More than 225 pounds of rose petals can be steamed in one vat, a sign said.

Upstairs, there was an enormous brass picnic basket that was said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette, with chambers for silverware, china plates, goblets and crystal jars for oil, vinegar and perfume.

“In the 18th Century, Paris society went into a frenzy over perfume,” a guide was droning. “Custom dictated that all persons and objects leave a distinctive aura in their wake.”

I kept worrying about bugs at the picnic.

The museum includes bejeweled atomizers and Greek amphora, face-powder boxes of mother-of-pearl and malachite, silver combs, ivory brushes, long-handled mirrors and candlesticks for the dressing table. The most fragrant corner is the garden, where the basic ingredients grow: violets, roses, lemon verbena, jasmine, lavender.

But don’t go to Grasse expecting to buy cut-rate Oscar de la Renta or factory seconds of Chanel. The great perfume houses order the raw potions--such as eau de rose --and spirit them away to Paris to blend into top-secret formulas.

Another small Riviera museum involves a boat ride--less than a mile in length--from the golden shore at Cannes to the island of Ste.-Marguerite, where the mysterious “Man in the Iron Mask” was imprisoned in 1687. The prisoner, who eventually died in anonymity after being moved to Paris’ Bastille, was variously said to be a twin brother of King Louis XIV, who ordered him masked and locked up; an illegitimate elder brother of the king; perhaps some duke or disgraced minister of finance or military general; a page who had a liaison with Queen Maria Theresa, or an Italian count who had reneged on a signed treaty with King Louis. Some guessed that there were two successive prisoners behind the mask.

But you won’t learn the identify of the Man in the Iron Mask while visiting Ste.-Marguerite, or even see the mask itself. The only display in the prisoner’s infamous cell (which offers a terrific view of the coastline, albeit through bars) is a life-sized metal cutout that resembles Darth Vader.

One of my favorite Cote d’Azur villages is Haut-de-Cagnes, the breezy medieval upper town of Cagnes-sur-Mer. At the very top rises the crenelated stone tower of Grimaldi Castle. Inside are marble galleries, curving stairwells and Renaissance patios laced with pepper trees. In addition to frescoes and paintings (including 40 portraits of a 1920s cabaret singer, Suzy Solidor), three rooms are devoted to a Museum of the Olive. A few old-fashioned tools and presses, fanciful labels and odd-sized olive-oil bottles are displayed beneath signs, mostly in French.

A better museum--in my book--is the whole tangled town of Haut-de-Cagnes, with its wisteria-draped alcoves, cobbled squares and golden cats that preen outside a small inn called Le Cagnard.

And better olive trees can be found in the 800-year-old grove surrounding Les Collettes, the farm and studio of Pierre Auguste Renoir, open to the public at the edge of Cagnes-sur-Mer.

On the highest point of the St.-Jean-Cap-Ferrat promontory, just above the serene Hotel Bel Air, is a shocking pink villa named Ile de France, now the Ephrussi de Rothschild Museum. Baroness Ephrussi, who bought this spectacular site in 1905, collected most of these opulent 15th- to 19th-Century souvenirs in her travels: Flemish tapestries, French porcelains, lacquer screens from the Imperial Palace in Peking, a substantial collection of monkeys--in wood and Meissen china. The gardens are as eclectic as the interior: Spanish, Florentine, Japanese, English, French and Roman, plus a forest of agaves and cactus.

Not far away is the enchanting little Volti Museum, dedicated to the art of one man and tucked into a former prison within the 16th-Century walls of the fishing port of Villefranche. Gray cobblestone floors run through the cavernous rooms with their tiny, high windows--if any--and their well-spaced, bold bronze sculptures.

The sculptor, Volti, was an Italian-born citizen of Villefranche who died sometime after the museum opened in 1981. He surely picked a gorgeous place to work.