Four Years in France Part 18

In the afternoon of this day we proceeded to Ma.r.s.eilles. I drove to the Hotel 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 Hotel des Empereurs. Every thing at the Hotel Beauveau bespoke civility and good management; at the Hotel des Empereurs every thing was quite the reverse. I had intended to pa.s.s a week at Ma.r.s.eilles: 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 of _mean_ measures: 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.

Ma.r.s.eilles, except that it is built of stone, (a circ.u.mstance hardly necessary to be particularized in a country where bricks are almost unknown,) is very like Liverpool, a _nucleus_ of 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 Spain to the gulf of Spezia. The shipping in the harbour of Ma.r.s.eilles 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 Hotel 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 canva.s.s; 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 amus.e.m.e.nt to see, the room in which is performed the civil contract of marriage before the munic.i.p.ality: 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 a fine 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 inst.i.tuted, which seemed prosperous; as much so as such an inst.i.tution 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 t.i.tle; 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 day before, 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 coa.r.s.e sugar, melted b.u.t.ter, and vinegar, which I had enjoyed when a school-boy. The wine was sour; they told me it was _vin ordinaire_; I asked for some _extraordinaire_; 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 etrangers."[88] On this occasion, I _blinked_ the question of English ebriety, by saying that if they got drunk with wine, they must do so with "vin etranger," 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 G.o.d.

At the Hotel 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 sh.o.r.es 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, over the 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sage under rocks which, at a great height above, overhung the road and the torrent, and threatened to fall in and fill up the narrow s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sage. At last we emerged from clefts and chasms into an open s.p.a.ce, 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, surpa.s.ses 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 pa.s.sed in viewing the town and its immediate environs, and in pour-parleys about a visit to the a.r.s.enal: a ticket for this purpose was offered on condition that we should pa.s.s 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, mounted the 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 been _run up_ for 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'ingenieur donne a manger a l'inspecteur, et tout est fini."[89] At Frejus I wished to take a hasty dinner, as we had to pa.s.s the foret 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 pa.s.sing. 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 foret 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 by the 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 foret d'Estrelles, which it had taken us three hours to mount and to pa.s.s, 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 a votre aise: vous etes seul."--"Moi seul? Ai-je merite 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 proceeded to 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 abated since 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 sh.o.r.e 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?"

CHAP. XXII.

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 sh.o.r.e, and gathered sea-sh.e.l.ls. By the by, Scipio and Laelius 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 that they 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 Cure 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 age 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 the _patois_ of the several districts to have been derived from the divisions 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 p.r.o.nunciation 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,

[Greek: Oude bathurreitao mega sthenos okeanoio.].

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 the 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 t.i.tle of Emperor was not duly weighed; as it ought to have been evident, that, if not honestly recognised by his enemies, this t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 but six 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 pa.s.s. 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 pa.s.sport: 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 const.i.tuted.

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 pa.s.sed 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, decharger la voiture, faire porter les malles et mener les chevaux, et traverser a 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 our load 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 tete 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Hotel des Etrangers,--an excellent inn.

The next day I went to the police to take my carte de surete, or sejour, 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 Hotel du Gouvernement. A certain sum is allowed by the king for frais de reception. 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 with great reputation in Italy and Egypt, had lost an arm, and had been appointed commandant of Nice, where, second only to the prefet of the department, he had given fetes and b.a.l.l.s 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 etoit un crant sheneral." His conversation and anecdotes were amusing.

It was now the beginning of Carnival. Our recent 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. b.a.l.l.s 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 Cure calls the deaf.

[92] How old are you?