CHAP. XXI.

——ver perpetuum atque alienis mensibus æstas.

We drove out of the western gate of Avignon, and immediately turned to the left hand. I said mentally, "Adieu, my dear son! may I and all this family be reunited to thee in a better world." During the last six weeks we had in some degree recovered from the terror and affliction of the preceding period; but a final separation from him we so tenderly and deservedly loved struck us with a feeling of depression, which we endeavoured to surmount and disguise from each other lest the grief of one should be the grief of all. "Are you well seated? do you feel any cold?" and soon after, "How far is it to the bridge of the Durance?" by such questions we tried in vain to conceal what the looks of all betrayed. It was a relief to us to arrive at a country we had not yet seen.

Antoine accompanied us: in the year 1813, the year following the campaign of Moscow, being then of the age for military service, he had been summoned to leave his native plainsof Picardy to fight under the banners of Napoleon in the campaign of Dresden. "Vous l'avez vu, l'Empereur?" he was asked. "Oui."—"Où donc?"—"Sur le champ de bataille sans doute."[87]Antoine was one of those raw recruits, who, as Napoleon declared, fought more bravely than any men he had ever seen to fight during seventeen years, that he had commanded the armies of France. After the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen, Antoine was taken prisoner by the Austrians in an affair near Dresden, and sent into the interior of their country. "Into what part of their country?" I inquired of him. "I do not know." I, in my quality of inquisitive traveller, expressed surprise at his want of curiosity, and asked the names of the principal towns he had past through. "Obliged to climb great hills, loaded like a mule, huddled with my comrades at night, into a grenier, I had something else to do than to amuse myself with inquiring the names of towns: I do, however, remember that one town we were taken to was called Pest." It may be inferred that the hills he climbed were theCarpathian mountains. If the English public should find that they are overwhelmed by "Tours," and "Travels," and "France," and "Italy," they have nothing to do but to send us all abroad with knapsacks on our backs. Fiat experimentum. Antoine was headstrong and full of jests, but faithful, honest, and attached. I think I pay him a great compliment when I say he resembled in character a Milesian Irishman.

On account of our invalid, we were to travel by easy journeys: Aix was too far off for one day. We slept at Orgon, the half-way house, an ill-built inn, where we found good fires, good cooking, and good beds. The next morning the frost had set in: I hurried the invalid into the coach, and we turned our backs on the bise. Where we stopt at mid-day my children began to show some little expansion of good spirits: it was New-year's-day, and this calculation seemed to make the day different from those that had gone before. Their attempts at renewed hilarity manifested themselves in fantastical disputes about their repast. We had taken tea and coffee in the morning: I required a repetition of it: some disliked the same thing over again; some wanted fruit and their usual mid-day dessert; others "would have a déjeunéà la fourchette." It ended by ordering all that was asked for by all.

At Orgon we passed through a room of the inn, of which the windows were broken. The door of our room could neither be shut nor opened without trouble and loss of time: such are "the miseries of human life" in a fine climate: in England these inconveniences would not be endured for an hour in the winter: the glazier would be sent for in case of a broken pane as surely as water would be called for if the house were on fire. I have been assured that, if one could be contented to pass the winter without stirring out of doors, he would feel less cold at St. Petersburgh than any where else in Europe. Where nature does least for man, man does most for himself. Ananas or pine-apples are reared at Archangel: I saw none in the south of France or Tuscany. Our anomalous repast detained us too long, and it was almost dark when we arrived, at five o'clock, at a handsome, palace-like-looking inn, on the Corso at Aix.

It is a pleasant, airy, well-built town, so surrounded by hills, that, in our walks next morning, we felt no cold. I expected to find hot baths here, but was somewhat surprised to seea great basin of hot water in the Corso, at which, as well as at other fountains in different parts of the town, the washer-women ply their trade without the expense of fuel: clean linen may here be called, by a perverted application of Burke's phrase, "the unbought grace of life." The public baths are not so convenient nor on so large a scale as I expected. We took a cursory view of Roman remains of Aquæ Sextiæ. To the cathedral, a fine old structure, is annexed a curious and perfect ancient temple which serves as the baptistery.

In the afternoon of this day we proceeded to Marseilles. I drove to the Hôtel Beauveau: they showed me two handsome salons, one of them with two beds in it: I wanted more beds in the other salon, which they promised to put up: I doubted what sort of beds these might be, and, in an unlucky moment of distrust, went away to the Hôtel des Empereurs. Every thing at the Hôtel Beauveau bespoke civility and good management; at the Hôtel des Empereurs every thing was quite the reverse. I had intended to pass a week at Marseilles: the badness of this inn determined me to stay but one whole day. That day was excessively cold; the bise had followed us, and had established itself in full force: I trembled for my invalid;he was in high spirits, and would not stay within doors; he was in the right, for it would have been impossible to make the atmosphere within doors warmer than it was without, unless we had made fires of all the fine pieces of mahogany furniture which garnished our apartment.

I endeavour to make my accounts of towns and objects of curiosity ample enough for those who are not acquainted with them, and not too long for those who are: I may fail of both the ends proposed; a common result ofmeanmeasures: but I proceed, though I well know that a writer more frequently meets with censure than indulgence: if self-love prompts him to write, woe be to the poor author. My motive for writing may perhaps by this time be guessed at, and will form an item of additional reproach.

Marseilles, except that it is built of stone, (a circumstance hardly necessary to be particularized in a country where bricks are almost unknown,) is very like Liverpool, anucleusof trade and dirt, surrounded by handsome, airy, well-built streets: it is more populous than Liverpool, but does not cover so much ground. The port is admirably secure: a few days before our arrival, a tremendous storm had committed very great ravages along the whole coast from Spainto the gulf of Spezia. The shipping in the harbour of Marseilles had continued perfectly sheltered and unhurt, while, on the Genoese coast, vessels had been driven from their anchors, and stranded. On one side of the port are lofty warehouses; on the other, rich and splendid shops. The Hôtel de Ville is a very handsome building, with a magnificent marble staircase, too grand indeed for the rooms to which it leads. The celebrated picture of the plague seems to have derived its fame from the interest excited by its subject: it is well executed, but without perspective; the people are dying all up the wall of canvass; the archbishop, M. de Belzunce, is, of course, a prominent object. His nephew, chief of the department for provisioning Paris, was, at the beginning of the revolution, the first victim of the fury of the Parisian mob, and "Belzuncer quelqu'un," was for some little time a favourite form of menace, or of boast; but the name was soon lost in a crowd of followers. They showed us, what they thought it would give us great amusement to see, the room in which is performed the civil contract of marriage before the municipality: what pleasure they expected us to derive from the sight I cannot tell. In another room is a portrait of Louis XIV at full length, in armour, with afine flowing wig: this costume did not then appear so absurd as now it does; besides his wig was, to Louis XIV, essential and individual; he never was seen without it; at night he gave it to his page, in the morning he received it from his page, through the curtains of his bed. An academy of painting and sculpture had lately been instituted, which seemed prosperous; as much so as such an institution is likely to be in any other town than the capital. More attention seems to be paid in France to the fine arts than to literature. The members of the five hundred book-clubs of England will be surprised to learn that, as far as my information reaches, no similar establishment exists in France.

We were told, as usual in such cases, of other objects of curiosity; but some were too distant. Of those which we had visited, some had not been worth the pains, and we feared that others might disappoint us equally. We had put off hunger by eating some excellent confectionary, but our dinner was ordered to be ready as soon as it should be dark, and the mistress of the Empereurs,—there is no scandal in the title; she was not such for her beauty. In plain English, our landlady, had promised us a good dinner to make amends for the bad one of the daybefore, for which she had offered an excuse, which I had rejected as unworthy of a great inn in a great city,—that she was not prepared. We now hoped to benefit by her preparations. The fish was excellent, thanks to the sea at hand: the meat, had it made part of our hesternal meal, would not have advanced so near to putridity: besides, it was raw. Say what you will, you cannot persuade a foreign cook but that the English like raw meat; so that we were obliged to accept it as a mark of deference to our national taste. The fowls—this day there had been time to search the market for the worst. A dish of douceur followed, which made me regret the batter pudding and Lincolnshire dip, composed of coarse sugar, melted butter, and vinegar, which I had enjoyed when a school-boy. The wine was sour; they told me it wasvin ordinaire; I asked for someextraordinaire; it was extraordinarily bad: it is good logic in this case, as well as in others, to argue from universals to particulars. Indeed, it is as rare to meet with good wine at an inn in France, as at an inn in England; in which latter country, as a Frenchman told me, they got drunk with "vins étrangers."[88]On this occasion, Iblinkedthe questionof English ebriety, by saying that if they got drunk with wine, they must do so with "vin étranger," as they had none of their own: but foreign wine is as much a luxury in France as if that country was not under the patronage of the jolly god.

At the Hôtel des Empereurs,—for, notwithstanding this digression, I am, to my sorrow, still there,—I asked in the evening for pen and ink: they brought me a pen and some ink in a little phial, with an intimation that it cost three sous.

My reader will, I hope, do me the justice to observe that I have arrived at the shores of the Mediterranean without having made any complaint in detail of grievances endured at any inn. I flatter myself that I am in this respect a singular instance of patience and moderation. I have been desirous of giving one example of my talent in this way, and promise henceforward to forbear. Cuges was our next sleeping place, Toulon, like Aix, being too far for a day's journey. Cuges is a little town with a tolerable inn. Here the weather changed to rain; the air became mild, and, for this season, we took leave of winter on the third of January.

We were now on the road to Toulon. I have travelled over the Highlands of Scotland, overthe hills of Derbyshire, and those which separate Lancashire from the counties to the eastward of it; countries well worth visiting by those who seek for the wonders of nature further from home; but in this day's journey, all that I had before seen in the same kind was exceeded. The picturesque rises into the romantic, and the romantic into the savage. We passed through gullies, where the torrent-river that ran by the side of the road seemed not merely to have formed, but to have scooped out for itself a passage under rocks which, at a great height above, overhung the road and the torrent, and threatened to fall in and fill up the narrow space below. Day-light descended to us through an irregular ragged fissure, which seemed as if broken through expressly for the purpose, so nearly did this defile resemble an under-ground passage. At last we emerged from clefts and chasms into an open space, and had a view of Toulon before us. As we entered the town, we saw, in some sheltered spots, orange-trees, in full bearing, in the open earth: in the open air they are seen in Paris; planted in boxes, they bear fruit at Avignon; here they are children of the soil.

We were pleased with Toulon, and loitered here two whole days. The town, though a fortress,is a pretty and a cheerful-looking place. The streams of water conducted through the streets, give it an air of healthiness and cleanliness. In the evening we braved on the promenade the cannon of the fortifications, and, our love of science being equal to our courage, visited the botanical garden, very wisely provided here by the government: it is much smaller than that of Paris; but, by the help of the climate, surpasses it in the possession of rare exotics. Some traveller (I think Eustace,) says that palm-trees are not to be found in the open air any where to the north of Rome, and that at Rome there are but two, remarkably placed on a hill visible to the whole city: these two I saw not, and I saw palm-trees in the botanical garden at Toulon.

The next day was Sunday: it was passed in viewing the town and its immediate environs, and in pour-parleys about a visit to the arsenal: a ticket for this purpose was offered on condition that we should pass ourselves for French. Besides the disagreeable consequences that might justly have followed the discovery of such an imposition, the trick itself appeared to me dishonourable.

The next morning my convalescent, now rapidly recovering health and strength, mountedthe heights above Toulon, and, placing himself under the shelter of a ruined building, sketched the scene before him. The elevation gave us almost a bird's-eye view of Toulon and its ports: islands or promontories that, on account of the winding of the shore, looked like islands, were seen at a distance. Nothing ever called up to my imagination and memory such a crowd of ideas and recollections, as did the view of this great inland sea which washes the shores of Greece, into which the waters of the Nile discharge themselves, and which reposes at the foot of Lebanon and Carmel. We were at this time

Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy,

and it lay but a little on our left-hand. In a few months we shall be there.

I had purposed to visit Hyeres, about six miles distant, but was deterred by what was told me of the badness of the road: it is a winter colony planted by the English, a sort of succursal to Nice. It has not the advantage of being near the sea, but is at three miles from it. I have met with those who have wintered there with much satisfaction. Many lodging-houses had lately beenrun upfor visitants.

In the afternoon of the third day we left Toulon.The next day brought us to the point where the cross-road from Toulon joins that which leads directly from Aix to Nice. The inns were better, but the roads were still bad. "It is not for want of money," said they; "government supplies that in plenty; mais l'ingénieur donne à manger à l'inspecteur, et tout est fini."[89]At Frejus I wished to take a hasty dinner, as we had to pass the forêt d'Estrelles: they kept me waiting for it two hours and a half; in this time I might have examined the aqueducts and other antiquities, which I saw only in passing. The aqueducts seemed more ruined than those of Rome, but in other respects as like as one arch is to another arch of the same span. The forêt d'Estrelles exhibits all the grandeur of the Alps united with all the beauty of cultivation, every variety of prospect, hill and dale, and wood, and rock, and the distant sea.

So much did we enjoy the scene before and around us, that we thought but little of the danger that awaited us. A river was to be crossed before we could reach Cannes; we had received some intimation that it was probable the bridge was broken down by the swell occasioned bythe late rains: our coachman was well aware that the bridges of this country were usually insecure; "When they tumble down," said he, "they build them up again." On descending the forêt d'Estrelles, which it had taken us three hours to mount and to pass, certain information was given us, that the bridge had been carried away; "but, if your horses are stout, there will be no danger in fording the river." We had lost time at Frejus, as always happens when time is wanted, or as is always then observed to happen, and were too late by half an hour. It was so nearly dark when we arrived at the river, that the coachman, following the road, hardly perceived when he reached the place where the bridge had been; the horses stopped however of themselves.

We got out of the carriage, while it was turned off the road, towards the ford. At this moment Antoine launched some jest or other, which provoked me to say, "Vous plaisantez tout à votre aise: vous êtes seul."—"Moi seul? Ai-je mérité cela?"[90]He felt the reproach as unjust, and so did I, and made my excuses; he admitted that his pleasantry was unseasonable; and we proceededto cross the ford, having got some peasants to help us. My eldest daughter and I were in the cabriolet, the rest of the family in the coach, Antoine on the coachman's seat. The bank by which we went down into the river was not steep; but, in ascending the opposite bank, I felt the carriage to be balanced in such a way that I fully expected it to fall sideways before it could get clear out of the water; it required all the force of Antoine and the peasants, pulling at a rope tied to the carriage, to prevent this, and keep it on all its wheels. It was a fearful moment. It was not likely that any lives would be lost, so much help was at hand; but what evil might be the consequence of an overthrow in the water,—especially to one who had but just recovered from three months' illness!

When we had got on solid ground and reached the road again, we found large blocks of stone, for the reparation of the bridge, lying in the way: we were again obliged to dismount and thread our way through the midst of these as well as we could, while the carriage went over uneven ground by the side of the road. The moon rose as we reached the inn at Cannes, thankful to that good Providence which had delivered us from danger. This danger was not in crossing the stream, for the waters had abatedsince they had carried away the bridge, and did not come up to the bottom of the coach: the bed of the river too was good road; a cart came across just before we went in; but in climbing the steep bank, had not Antoine, who had leaped from his seat over the horses' backs, and the peasants who had waded through the river, held the rope very steadily in the direction opposite to that to which the coach inclined, it must inevitably have fallen. When the fore-wheels got on the bank, I was so satisfied, though still alarmed, that I would almost have compounded for an overturn on dry land; the coachman, however, who conducted himself perfectly well, "as a man and a minister," had the pleasure of saving from scaith and harm both his fare and equipage.

The sea dashed on the shore close under the windows of our apartment at Cannes; we saw the reflection of the moon-light on the rippling waves; the climate seemed still to improve; after mutual congratulation, and a cheerful meal, we retired contentedly to rest.

FOOTNOTES:[87]"Have you seen the Emperor?"—"Yes."—"Where?"—"On the field of battle, of course."[88]Foreign wines.[89]But the engineer gives a dinner to the inspector, and all is ended.[90]"You are joking very composedly; you are alone."—"Me alone? have I deserved that?"

[87]"Have you seen the Emperor?"—"Yes."—"Where?"—"On the field of battle, of course."

[88]Foreign wines.

[89]But the engineer gives a dinner to the inspector, and all is ended.

[90]"You are joking very composedly; you are alone."—"Me alone? have I deserved that?"

It had been my plan to make this journey resemble as much as possible an excursion of pleasure and curiosity, in the hope of doing away the melancholy impression of our sufferings and prison at Avignon. I said to my family at Cannes, "It is ten leagues to Nice, but we will not make a toil of it; we will divide the rest of our journey into two days, taking an airing of fifteen miles each day before dinner." My agreement with my coachman admitted of this arrangement; I was to pay him thirty francs a day for each day of journey; eighteen francs for a day of rest; and twenty-five francs a day for the six days required for his own return, by the direct road to Avignon. He agreed to consider the two days to be employed in going ten leagues, as one day of advance and one of repose.

After breakfast we basked on the sunny sandbank that rises from the shore, and gathered sea-shells. By the by, Scipio and Lælius must have had very bad sport in this way; for the Mediterranean, having no tide, brings up very few of these pretty baubles; no wonder thatthey took to ducks and drakes, as a supplementary recreation. We went to the little town of Cannes, and saw a rope tied to the bell in the tower of the church, and, most commodiously for the priest, conducted into his house close by: "With that," said Antoine, "M. le Curé sonne les sourds."[91]I met a very old man who asked for alms; I was in a disposition, not only to grant his request, but to enter into conversation with him, and inquired of him how old he was: "Quel âge avez-vous?"[92]The words were perfectly unintelligible to him. A lad of twelve years old, who had heard the question, volunteered as interpreter: "Quanti anni ai?" said he to the old man; and yet we were not in Italy. I have had frequent occasion to remark that the language of France, as that country draws near to Germany, Italy, or Spain, is shadowed off into the dialect of those three great limitrophe nations: on the frontiers of every continental nation, the same gradual melting of the languages of neighbouring people into each other must necessarily take place. In England, I believe thepatoisof the several districts to have been derived from thedivisions of the Saxon Heptarchy; the midland counties, or kingdom of Mercia, have nearly the same dialect; but the language of Oxfordshire begins to resemble that of the west; while that of Lincolnshire, (a proof of my skill in which I have already given,) is like that of Yorkshire, except in the pronunciation of the vowels. We set off at mid-day.

Our road lay on a low cliff near the sea. Antoine, who had crossed the Rhine, the Elbe, the Danube, and the Rhone, had never seen the sea till he came on this journey: he persisted in calling it the Rhone, and "this Rhone," said he, "goes to England." "Yes," said I, "and to the other side of France: you may embark on this Rhone, and land at Calais in Picardy, your own country." He called it the Rhone, by the name of the last great river he had seen; as I have read somewhere that the dispersed tribes after the Deluge called every great river they came to, "Phraat," "Euphrates." I know not what idea was working in Antoine's mind: perhaps it is natural to man to regard the sea as a river: it is to be presumed that Homer so considered it, since, after mentioning the names of a few of the great rivers known in his limited geography, he adds,

Ουδε βαθυρρειταο μεγα σθενος ωκεανοιο.

I remember mentioning this opinion of Homer to Archdeacon Paley. "Why," said he, "that is the modern theory of the tides; that the ocean is nothing else but a great river, and that the tides are the current of this river, which, having no where else to flow, flows into and upon itself."—"Strange," said I, "that the extremes of ignorance and science should thus meet!" I made an objection to the theory on account of the increase and decrease of the tides according to the age of the moon: I forget his reply: he had not proposed the notion as his own, and had no need to defend it as such.

After proceeding about two miles, we perceived a large stone reared upright on the beach: this rude pillar marked the landing-place of Napoleon from Elba.

I care nothing about politics: I am of the opinion of Plato, that mankind are not worthy that a wise man, (meaning himself or me,) should meddle with their affairs: the history of the last war I read with theΟυδε βαθυρρειταο μεγα σθενος ωκεανοιο.Ουδε βαθυρρειταο μεγ same temper as I should read that of the three Punic or the Peloponnesian: I will remark only that, if Napoleon was not to be trusted, it was very silly to leave him at Elba; and, if he was to be trusted, he should have been treated as trust-worthy,and every vestige of resentment against him effaced, and nothing done that would make him feel as if relegated into a little island, or give him reason to dread further restraint: that the importance of leaving to him the title of Emperor was not duly weighed; as it ought to have been evident, that, if not honestly recognised by his enemies, this title would serve as a sign of rallying to his friends.

This Emperor on landing summoned the fortress of Antibes: the officer commanding the garrison for the time, in the absence of his superior, returned an answer that he had received no orders. I was personally acquainted with this officer; he was the general commanding the department of Vaucluse during the former part of my residence at Avignon. Failing in this attempt on Antibes, Napoleon immediately struck into the country over the hills covered with olive trees, the high land that rises above the beach. We proceeded to Antibes, which opened its gate to us without any difficulty. We found a good inn, walked on the fortifications and about the town till sunset, and, after an English breakfast the next morning, (for we carried tea with us,) on the thirteenth day after our departure from Avignon, set off for Nice: we passed through a pleasant country,and soon arrived at the right bank of the Var, the political, but not the natural limit of France.

I had some thoughts of making an apology for calling my book a narrative of four years residence in France, when four months of that time were to be passed out of that kingdom; but any one who will give himself the trouble of coming to the banks of the Var, will see that all explanation on this head is superfluous: or, if he does not like so much personal fatigue, let him place himself there in imagination: he will see the stony bed of a torrent half a mile broad, not a twentieth part of which bed is covered with water. At two thirds of the distance from the right bank he will see a stream large enough to be called a river, of no great depth, but of great force and violence. Immediately beyond the left bank he will see a fertile country resembling that he has just past, and uniting with it but for the expanse of white stones. Let him then cast his eyes on the awful, frowning barrier of Italy,—those Alps with their rugged sides and lofty snow-covered tops, a barrier to all appearance impervious to any thing but the flight of an eagle; he will allow that it would be as easy to bring the Alps themselves to the left bank of the Var, which, though they are butsix miles off, would be an enterprise of toil, as to imagine that he had left France on entering the county of Nice.

We had time given to us to enjoy this magnificent spectacle, and to feast our minds with the expectation of what we should see beyond those "perpetual hills," those "everlasting mountains," which we already wished to pass. We waited for the douanier, the custom-house officer, a civil and intelligent man, who had nothing to do with us but to countersign our passport: the more we took out of France, the better for its manufacturers. It would not be difficult to prove,—Adam Smith has proved it,—that it would be as wise to permit unrestricted, I do not say untaxed, importation as exportation, nor to show that the prohibition of it is an act of injustice towards the community at large; but governments are balloted about by contending interests, and compelled to interfere in things out of their province, alien from those objects for which they are constituted.

While the French were in possession of the Department des Alpes Maritimes, they began a stone bridge over the Var. The wall from which the first arch was to spring is seen on their bank, and bears testimony to their zeal for improvement. We went on the wooden bridge,and passed a pallisade guarded by French sentinels.

We were now in the dominions of the King of Sardinia. The first man I met was an intendant or surveyor of the carpenters, whom I saw in great numbers at work on the bridge. He accosted me: "Monsieur, il faut descendre de voiture, décharger la voiture, faire porter les malles et mener les chevaux, et traverser à pied le pont; il est en l'air, suspendu par des cordes."[93]The invitation, though very civilly given, and with due regard to our safety as well as that of the bridge, was somewhat alarming. The fact was that the storm of the twenty-seventh of December had come in time to make us regret that the bridge of stone, undertaken by the French had been left incomplete. This storm had broken the wooden bridge, the parts of which were now tied together by cords while undergoing reparation; so that it was necessary to divide and lighten as much as possible the weight of our carriage. This was done; and, with this measure of precaution, each portion of ourload got well over: yet I cannot help, in defiance of the proverb, speaking ill of the bridge. The Var is not a military barrier: why do not the two governments revive the abandoned enterprise of a stone bridge with a tête de pont and toll at each end?

The approach to Nice on this side is through a quarter consisting almost entirely of villas or country-houses let to visitants. The quarter is called "de la Croix de Marbre," from a large marble crucifix placed at the side of the road about a mile from Nice: it is situated lower, and is, in consequence, warmer than the town; but the ground floors of the houses are sometimes flooded by rains. Here we began to see all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of an English watering-place;—carriages open and close; ladies riding on donkies; parties on foot and on horseback; footmen lounging at the doors of the houses; and grooms dressing horses at the doors of the stables. We saw also orange trees laden with fruit. We arrived at a bridge over another white and stony bed of a torrent, in which we could hardly perceive any water; there was a stream however over which people on foot were crossing by stepping-stones. We were set down at the Hôtel des Etrangers,—an excellent inn.

The next day I went to the police to take my carte de sureté, or séjour, and was informed that there were at this time at Nice seventy foreign families, of which forty families were English. I left my card at the commandant's: he returned his card with a note, containing an invitation to a weekly ball at the Hôtel du Gouvernement. A certain sum is allowed by the king for frais de réception. The acts of the government are in the Italian language; but French is universally spoken, not only in society, but in the shops and in the streets. In truth, I did not hear a word of Italian spoken while I was at Nice, except by my children's Italian master. The people have a patois, not quite such pure Italian as I heard at Cannes.

Not liking the quarter of the Croix de Marbre on account of its distance from the town, I took a house in an airy situation, looking towards the sea, and into the great square, at one time called Place Napoleon, but now Place Victor. The usual price for a house or lodging for a large family for the whole of the season, from the first of November to the first of May, is a hundred louis. I agreed to pay for mine twelve hundred francs from the sixteenth of January to the end of the season. Its proprietor was a French general, who had served withgreat reputation in Italy and Egypt, had lost an arm, and had been appointed commandant of Nice, where, second only to the préfet of the department, he had given fêtes and balls in this house, which he now found it convenient to let, and live in a small one by the side of it. When the French troops evacuated Nice, a party of them wanted to pillage the town; he had prevented this evil, and, as a reward for the service thus rendered, the King of Sardinia had permitted him to live in the city, when other French officers were, of course, obliged to leave it. He told me, "I am not ashamed to say, that all that I have gained, I have gained on the field of battle." That all was not much,—his half-pay as general, and the appointment annexed to the cross of the legion of honour. When colonel, he had received a sabre d'honneur, to which a pension of six thousand francs was attached; but the pension had been withdrawn. He still was able to show the sabre; it was an ordinary arm, with an inscription on it. He was an Alsatian by birth, and talked with the accent of his country, saying of his former commander, whom he enthusiastically admired, "Ponaparte étoit un crant shénéral." His conversation and anecdotes were amusing.

It was now the beginning of Carnival. Ourrecent loss left us no disposition, and our mourning dress made it unsuitable for us, to appear in large societies. I used to go, without any of my family, and stay for about an hour at those parties to which we were invited, that I might not be wanting to attentions thus paid us. Promenades in the delightful environs of Nice, lessons in music and Italian, and small companies in the evening, occupied and amused us till the beginning of Lent. Balls were then succeeded by concerts: even the gay were serious, and sadness might partake of the sober diversions then going forwards. The daily improving health and increasing strength of our convalescent gave us continual satisfaction; and, though our abode at Nice was as dull as a sojourn under such a sky can be supposed to be, yet we were contented to perceive that we did not fail of the main purpose for which we had fled the rough blasts of the north, and sought the soft breezes of this sheltered situation and genial climate.

FOOTNOTES:[91]With that M. le Curé calls the deaf.[92]How old are you?[93]Sir, you must all leave the carriage, unload it, and go over on foot; your trunks must be carried over after you; and the horses will be led gently across: the bridge is suspended in the air by cords.

[91]With that M. le Curé calls the deaf.

[92]How old are you?

[93]Sir, you must all leave the carriage, unload it, and go over on foot; your trunks must be carried over after you; and the horses will be led gently across: the bridge is suspended in the air by cords.

The town of Nice is in the form of a triangle, of which the base rests on the sea; one of its sides is a rampart or raised road against the Paion, the other is a road from Place Victor to the Port. One side of Place Victor forms part of the line of the third side of this triangle; but the Place itself is an excrescence from it: it is a large handsome square with arcades. Within this triangle, to the south-east corner, is a high rocky hill, fortified and commanding the port and town; commanding also, what interested me more than its artillery, most superb points of view. Here my landlord, the general, had a garden to which he climbed daily; and I used to see him coming down the steep with lettuces in his only remaining hand, and his cane suspended to the button of his coat.

Many improvements were at this time carrying on at Nice: a new bridge was building over the Paion, the torrent river, which, though I never saw it fuller of water than I have at first described, bears with it the "horned flood" on the melting of the snows and the descending ofthe rain from the Alps. The galley slaves were employed in blowing up the bottom of the rock on its east and south sides to obtain space for continuing the line of houses from Place Victor to the port, and from the port to the Corso. This Corso is a short, dark, damp promenade, from which the view and the air of the sea are excluded by the terrace. The terrace is nothing more than a flat roof of a line of shops and stables, on which you may walk, at the height of about fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, exposed to the heat of the sun, which, even in winter, is too powerful to be agreeable, and blinded by the reflection of its rays from the sea. In the evenings of winter it is too cold to walk on this terrace: in the evenings of summer, that is, in April, it is pleasant, but not so pleasant as would be a gravel walk on the beach, which will, I hope, in due time replace it. By taking away the terrace, the value of the houses on the Corso would be doubled: en attendant, you have the choice of walking on the Corso without sea air, or on the terrace without shade.

I have spoken at some length on the subject of this terrace, because I know it to be much admired. I am always most happy to be of the same opinion as the "enlightened public," when I think this public to be in the right, and inthis, as in other cases, hold myself bound to give my reasons for differing from it.

The centre of Nice consists of very narrow streets and very lofty houses. The square of St. Dominique however is large and handsome, and there are some good, well-built streets in its neighbourhood.

From the side or from the end of very many of the best houses of Nice jut forth little square buildings at the height of the several stories: these buildings would seem as if suspended in the air, but that the fourth side of each is formed by that of the house itself; and in this fourth side, that is, in the wall of the house, there is, no doubt, a door of communication with these cabinets: from the bottom of each of these closets proceeds a tunnel or pipe, which is attached to the side or inserted into the wall of the house, and so conducted to a reservoir below. These reservoirs are small, and, by consequence, must be frequently opened: their contents form an article of precious and of tasteful commerce to the gardeners of Nice. The word "tasteful" is not to be understood in a metaphorical sense; as I was assured by an eye-witness of the fact that he had seen a gardener put his finger first into the article offered for sale, and then into his mouth, that a third of his five senses might bearwitness to its strength, in addition to the testimony of his eyes and nose. The gardeners of Nice, to their credit be it spoken, are so profuse in the dispersion of this fertilizing substance, that some sensitive English, who remained there during the summer, complained of the odour as an intolerable nuisance.

The Nissard plan for having these conveniences at once within and without the house, and for giving to each story or flat, as it is called in Edinburgh,—a city to which one's thoughts cannot but revert while engaged on this subject,—the Nissard plan, is ingenious enough: there is nothing against it but the look of the thing: and qu'est ce que cela fait?[94]All the world knows, both in France and England, that such things must be; the only difference is, that in England nobody allows it, while in France nobody denies it. The French seem to me in this respect to be the nicer people of the two. An English friend told me that, being at Toulon, after breakfast he inquired of the femme de chambre, (for in France no one scruples mentioning such things to a female,) the way to No. 100. She told him there was none in the house; "Mais dans la rue là, vis-à-vis, près du port il y a unecommodité: cela vous coûtera un sous: mais si vous resterez ici quelque tems, on peut s'abonner."[95]

Strange that none of the great cities of civilized Europe have yet adopted the plan of Pekin, which probably is also that of other cities of China! One cannot wonder that the proportion of mortality between the town and the country is as seven to six; the wonder is that it is not greater: for every twentieth inhabitant of a great town, the calculation is moderate; a reservoir, perpetually to be supplied, must be provided. Fifty thousand for London! At Pekin the treasures of each day are carried away early in the morning of the day following, by carts that come from the country for that purpose; and the valet-de-chambre of the Mandarin and the Mandariness's lady's-maid quarrel for the perquisite, while the skill of the Chinese artisan is taxed to the utmost to make close stools, nay, very close stools.

I hope it will be granted that I have acquitted myself in this delicate investigation with all possible decorum, and that Dean Swift himself could not have done better. His affectednaiveté and matter-of-fact simplicity, in telling of the labour of the Lilliputians, in carrying away the ordure of Quinbus Flestrin, and numberless passages of his works, show how little he prized "the drapery furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns and the understanding ratifies as necessary to cover the nakedness of our weak shivering nature, and raise it to dignity in its own estimation."

I am well aware, as well as any one who may reproach me therewith, that my book contains many thingsdisparate; but such is the real history of human life: by this reality I am justified: and, in discussing this last subject, I have endeavoured to preserve decency, while avoiding fastidiousness.

The English have a notion that the Carnival in catholic countries is instituted to make amends, by anticipation, for the austerities of Lent: it is no institution; it is merely that season of the year in which society can most conveniently be reunited; and, as this season is interrupted and curtailed by Lent, parties, and balls, and fêtes come more nearly on each other than they need do in countries where Lent is but little observed. In France, the Carnival makes very little difference in the amusements of the common people: at Nice they parade thestreets in masks, with music, and dance, and play fools' tricks. I was looking at a party of these: an Anglican clergyman stood near me, and took occasion to observe, "This does no great honour to the catholic religion." I replied, "It has no more to do with the catholic religion, than with the discovery of the longitude." These people were all sober, and each one was diverting himself innocently, for the same cause that induced Lady A. to go to Naples at a certain season; that is, because others did so at that time.

Here first I saw Franciscans and other religious, walking about in their proper habits. I had seen but one in France, a Carthusian or Trappist, at the house of the bishop of Avignon: he was taking leave as I entered. The bishop, an old man of fourscore and four years old, said to him pleasantly, "Je vous souhaite beaucoup de richesses."—"Monseigneur vous souhaite," said I, "ce que vous ne souhaitez pas pour vous-même."—"Ah, non,"[96]said he, with an air of placid and unaffected content. I judged him to be full of pious resignation to the austerities of his state.

Devotional exercises are appointed on each of the five Sundays of Lent, at different churches, within a short distance from Nice, which are called, for the occasion, stations: people of all ranks resort thither in crowds: fruit, wine, and provisions, are exposed to sale, and the scene has the appearance of what would be called in England a pleasure fair: but the church of the station is filled during the whole time by a succession of those whom one of our tourists would assuredly represent as mere revellers. I know that it is not superfluous to observe, that the Sundays of Lent are not reckoned in the forty days of that season. One of these stations is at the Croix de Marbre, to the great entertainment of the residents in that quarter. Another, is at the convent of Simia: no description can give an idea of the varied beauties of the site of this convent, and of the view which it commands. Another station is held at a convent four miles from Nice, situated on a fine and lofty elevation. A Nissard of our acquaintance had a villa or country-house a little above the convent: we called on him to take refreshments, and afterwards walked in his garden. The very handsome façade of this villa looks to the south; the garden is laid out in terraces lined with orangetrees, bearing, at this time, both blossom and fruit.

The blossom of the orange is a valuable part of the produce of the tree; it is sold to those who make of it orange-flower water. The blossoms, according to the usual prodigality of nature, are in such profusion, that, were all to be allowed to become oranges, the tree would be unable to support them. Another thinning takes place of the oranges themselves: if all were to be allowed to ripen, the tree would be exhausted: most of them are cropped at different stages of maturity, and made into conserves: this is the case indeed even with those oranges that are suffered to stay on the tree till fully ripe: they are not good enough to be exported in their natural state: even in the market of their own country they find rivals in the oranges of Naples and Majorca, sweeter, heavier, and thinner of skin.

The protestant English at Nice, with the permission of the government, had caused to be erected for themselves a chapel, or, as it was here called, a temple; but, as they had been unable to settle among themselves what mode of faith should be admitted as orthodox, and preached in this place of worship,—it was supposedthat the undertaking would of necessity be abandoned, and that the banker who had advanced the funds on the security of the ground and building, would be obliged to foreclose the mortgage, to save himself from the loss of his principal and interest. According to some interpreters, the Tower of Babel was abandoned for the same reason; the settlers of Sennaar had fallen into the worship of the material agents of nature; their "tops to the heavens," were to have been a temple or temples to the host of heaven; and the confusion of tongues was nothing else but a dispute concerning their confession of faith.

The port of Nice has a handsome and strong pier, but is small and shallow. On the other side of a promontory, about two miles distant by land, is Villefranche, a commodious harbour, in which large vessels remain, and send goods in boats to Nice. A party, in which my family was included, took a pleasure-boat with a tent or awning to shade us from the sun in March, which, though not engendering agues, as Shakspeare says it does in that month, would have very much annoyed us: we doubled the cape, and landed at Villefranche, saw the galley of the King of Sardinia, and conversed with some of the galériens, one of whom was within eightdays of the termination of his ten years of service, and seemed but moderately delighted with his approaching liberation. We then dined on the beach under the shade of olive trees, and enjoyed the vernal breeze, and afterwards, having nothing else to do, returned, having duly complied with all that constitutes a party of pleasure.

The cathedral and several other churches of Nice are handsome and spacious; the appearance of the town is, on the whole, rich and busy and cheerful: it might be a good place for sea-bathing in the summer, if accommodations were provided. I described to a person whom such an undertaking might suit, the bathing machines used at Weymouth and Brighton: he said it would be necessary to have the permission of the government;—the permission of the government for two cart wheels to go ten yards into the sea, and out again! No doubt the permission of the government would be granted, but it seemed to me strange that it should be wanted: it is lucky that governments leave us the independent enjoyment of the non-naturals. I had thoughts of spending the summer here, but impatience to see Italy prevailed: the last day of my abode at Nice was the fifth of May, on which day my departed son would have completed histwenty-first year: on the morrow we set off for the Col de Tende.

Nice is called, in Italian,Nizza maritima, to distinguish it from other towns of the same name:νιχη,victory, was a name of good augury for a city. Massena, the "enfant gaté de la victoire," was born at Nice: I saw the house and shop in which he employed his youth in the useful art of making and retailing vermicelli.

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