? ? h)i i :^ W I 1 YS I iJNV'il s = unvDjo"^ /•iiimfk. V^,^ 35 nc riiirAn. ^\mmOjf.. ^HIBRARYQc ^\\\{UNIVEW/^ ^lOSANCElfX;* a mmyi^ :lOSANCn%. f %a3AiNn-3\^^ ^OFCAllFO/iV ^c'Aavaan^' ^OfCAllFOff^ AWFUNIVERS/a >&Aavaan# ^lOSANCFlfj^ ^J3133HVS0# ^asAiNa^v^ ^ ^^Mt•UNIVERS•/^ ^lOSANCElfj^ ^lUBRARYOc. #UBRARY(?/^, ^J*J133NVS01^ \a3AINn-3ViV^ ^^OillYD-JO'^ ^i^OJOVDJO"^ OS wiaa ^uc.iikii\/cno<^ ine.iarti tt. . rvc.rAiicnn.. .rtc.rAiicnD^. THE ALPINE CLUB GUIDE-BOOKS AND MAPS. THE ALPINE GUIDE. By JOHN BALL, M.R.I.A. Post 8vo. with Maps aud other Illustrations : — THE EASTERN ALPS, 10s. U. CENTRAL ALPS, including all the Oberland District, 7s. Qd. WESTERN ALPS, including Mont Blauc, Monte Rosa, Zermatt, &c. 6s. GtZ. THE ALPINE CLUB MAP OF SWITZERLAND AND ADJACENT COUNTRIES Engraved on the Scale of 4 Miles to the Inch. Constructed under the superintendence of the Alpine Club, and Edited hy R. C. Nichols, F.S.A. 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By E. A. Fki:kmax, 1).C.L. Crown Svo. (i.s. SAN RE MO, Cliniatically and Medically considered. By Arthur Hill Hassall, M.D. With 3i) Illustrations. Crown Svo. 5s. WINTERING IN THE RIVIERA. With Notes of Travel in Italy and Frnnco, :ir,d PracticU Hints to Travellers. By W. Miller. With 12 Illustrations. I'o.st Svo. Ts. 6d. THREE IN NORWAY. By Two op Them. With a Map and 50 Illu-strations on Wood from .Sketches by the Authors. Crown Svo. 6s. ACROSS THE PAMPAS AND THE ANDES: beino- an Account of ;in I'lxplorin;,' and Surveying Expedition across the Continent of .South America. By Robert Crameord, M..\., Professor of Civil Engineering in the University of Dublin. With a Map and Illu->tratioiis. Crown Svo. 7.<. 6d. London : LONG]\[ANS, GREEN, & CO. THE MARITIME ALPS AND THEIR SEABOARD 'I8S(I'70 I.ONDO.N : rUISTEO liY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., KEW-STUEET .SQUAKE A>M) rAlil.IAMENT STJllilCT o i « W p P3 . THE MARITIIE ALPS AND THEIR SEABOARD AUTHOR OF 'VERA- BLUE ROSES' ctr WITH ILL U8TRA TlOyS LONDON LONGMANS, G K E P: N. 1885 AND CO. All righfs reserved DEDICATED p. Y P F. II M I S S r O N HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE COMTESSE DE PARIS. A SON ALTESSE ROYALE MABIE-ISABELLE, COMTESSE DE PARIS. Vous avez daigni m'accordcr la permission, tout en IXLrcourant les cliamps ct les plages de la Provence ct en feuilletant vies livres, de penser a vous et aux enfants que vous conduisez chaque printemps jouir du soldi de ce paijs enchantenr. Je viens vous offrir ces qnclques pages. Permcttcz-moi, en les deposant entre vos mains royales, de vojis c.rprimcr vies vosux qu'ici au vioins ne s'epanoidssent pour vous que les roses sans epines. Pal ritonneur, Madame, d'etre, avec wi tres profond respect, de voire Altesse Boyale la servavtc la pAus dcvoude, VAUTEUR. Vii.i.A UrcY. Canvrs: CONTENTS. CIlAl'TER I. II. III. I\'. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. PAGE INTRODUCTION , . . . . 1 FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA . .15 THE PEOPLE . . . . . . 30 CORN, WINE, AND OIL . . . .65 ON THE FARMS . . . . . 70 GRASSE . . . . . . 82 VENCE . . . . . . 101 THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK . 122 ST. HONORAT . . . . . . 142 THE MONASTERY ON THE LERINS . . .158 NICE . . . . . . . 178 THROUGH THE COUNTY OF NICE . . .195 ST. PAUL-DU-VAR . . ... 203 Vlll COXTEXTS. CHAPTEK XIV, XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXIII. INDEX VILLEXEUVE-LOUBET JEANNE DE PROVENCE, QUEEN OF NAPLES THE TEMPLARS IN MARITIME PROVENCE OF SOME NOBLE FAMILIES THE GRIMALDI OF MONACO TWO FRENCH ADxMIRALS CANNES AS IT WAS . NAPOLEON AT CANNES OFF THE BEATEN TRACK . 1. LAGHET 2. THE CASTLE OF BEAUREGARD 3. A CELTO-LIGURIAN CAMP 4. VILLA NEVADA 5. NOTRE DAME DE GAROUBE MENTONE ... PAGE 222 236 251 266 289 302 317 327 338 338 313 351 354 362 367 381 ILLUSTEATIONS. FULL-PAGE WOODCUTS. ST. MARTIN-DE-LANTOSQUE .... Fnnitispicce (From a photograph hy II. RM. the Comte de Vuserta) IX THE FOREST OF THE ESTERELS . . . . To face JJ. 26 (From a photograph by Frith of Reigute) THE FARM . . . . . . .. Tfi THE CROISETTE . . . . ... 122 THE FORT AND PRISONS OF STE. MARGUERITE . . ,, 124 (From (I photograph by Frith of Rfigate) IX THE CASTLE OF ST. HONORAT . . . , nj^ THE GATE OF ST.-PAUL-DU-VAR . . . • ,, 212 (From a photograph by IT. Cotesicorth) IX AN OLD HOUSE . . . . . . „ 216 (From u photograph by U'. Cotesu-ortti) A STREET IN COGOLIN . . . . . . 293 (By M. Francois Vincent) ST. CLAUDE DU CANNET . . . • - „ 322 (By ili-is Helen Hawkins Dempster) SUNSET AT CANNES . . . . • „ 324 (By F. S. tie ntssilow) ILLUSTRATIONS. WEST CANNES {By Mrs. Jo/in Siniees) MEISSONIER AT ANTIBES (,Bu Miiisoniii) LA KOQUEBRUNE {Bii Sijnor Corcfli) To face J). 332 „ 365 371 WOODCUTS IN TEXT. THE AMPHITHEATRE OF FR^JUS . PAGK 1 DRAWING THE NET ..... (From a sketch done for this book by the late Hon. Henry Graves) CABRIS, AND ' LOU CABRES ' . (From a .ik''tcli done for this book by the late Hon. Henry Graves) GOCRDON ON THE LOUP .... (.By Miss Loui.sd Denixi>n) THE CLOISTERS OF ST. HONORAT THE CASTLE ON ST. HONORAT ROMAN BRIDGE OF CANNES ST.-PAUL-DU-VAR . ^ . (By the Author) VILLENEUVE-LOUBET .... ARABS AT WORK ..... MOUGINS .... (liy Mrs. Norwich Duff) THE CASTLE OF CALIAN (By Mr. James Harris, H.B.M. Consul at Nice VILLA NEVADA . . . . (tiy Admiral Sir Sj>enrer Robinson, K.C.B.) A VISTA AT MONTFLEURI CORSICA FROM MENTONE (By /i'. B. Crawley Bvvey) 38 96 HI 142 158 182 203 222 234 242 348 854 356 379 ,-ri:?-;^^;^^^*. RUINS OF FREJUS. THE MARITIME ALPS. CHAPTER I. INTRO D UCTION. ' When, however, I look over tlie hints and memorandums I liave taken down for the purpose, my heart almost fails me at finding how mj' idle humour has led me aside from the great objects studied by ever}' regular traveller who would make a book.' — Washington Irving. The carriages on tlie Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Eailway are generally crowded, and the one in wliicli we recently found ourselves was no exception to this unpleasant rule. Many persons were already on their way to the Pdviera, on different errands of business, health, or pleasure, and we were not fortunate in our company. Two French entrepreneurs talked incessantly, and ate with their clasp-knives frequently. They discussed with great animation tlie operations of tlie Societe-Fonciere-Lyonnaise in Nice and Cannes, and all 2 THE MARITIME AIPS. along a coast where fabulous prices have recently been asked and given for land in the neighbourhood of the cities of the seal)oard. Tlieir conversation succeeded in interesting a speculator of the feminine gender, a cross, old, Eussian lady, who, with her shabby companion, was bound for Monte Carlo. This quartett accord- ingly discussed gambling in all its branches, direct and indirect. In the further corner of the carriage there lolled an olive-faced man who had a ticket for Grasse. He smelt of garlic, though he 'travelled hi pomatums ' ; but as he was silent, he did not add to tlie excitement of the disputants. Great was our relief when the train stopped at Carnoulles. There is a junction at that point for Aix, and the line of the Durance, and we took in a French gentleman and his daughter. We had a previous and very pleasant acquaintance with this person, whom I shall call the Comte de Thibaut, and were glad to find that he was on his way to Cannes for the winter. His son was on board the ' Colbert ' : one of the ironclads about to be sent to Golfe Jouan for the winter manoeuvres, and his daughter was delighted as each station diminished the distance between herself and Koger. She had never seen the big ships yet, she said, but cette coquine rfemarwe would no longer, she hoped, be able to rob her wholly of an only brother. M. de Thibaut said that he had only that morning left his chateau, Avhere the vint- age had been fine, and where vats of new wine were fermenting under the terrace. He spoke of his home with pleasure, and I knew tluit those lands had been Jield by the Thibauts for generations — in fact, since a INTR on UCTION 3 daiigliter of the Chancellor of Navarre brought them with her as a dowry. In all France and Navarre there was therefore no nobler blood than that which flowed in the veins of Mademoiselle Estefanette. She was a pretty and hvely girl, who might possibly in due time develop all the graces and all the worldliness of the modern Parisienne, but who in the meantime was simple, intelligent, and ready to be pleased. She had lived chiefly in Paris, but last year she had gone with her father to Baden, and she had even seen London. One of her friends — one of the best of her friends, she assured me, looking wise over her own discrimination — Avas married to the naval attache there. But a visit to them had not satisfied Estefanette. What she most ardently wished to do was to travel in Scotland, ' that charming country which Valter Scott has made so interesting to us all.' I smiled, and after expressing myself flattered by her appreciation of his genius, I said to M. de Thibaut, — ' What a pity that no French author has done for France what Scott has certainly done for us at home ! ' ' There is nothing of very great note,' he replied, ' nothing that has made its mark out of France, but as regards southern France, you w^ill find a good deal of local colour in the sketches of Dumas, in " Mise Brun," in the " Auberge des Adrets," and in " Numa Eoumestan " : they are also good as works of art. The same might be said of the " Cadet de Colobrieres," and even of the " Tamaris " of Georixe Sand. It describes that Provence inedite (if I may so term it) which lies between Toulon, Hyeres, Pierrefeu, St. Tropez, and the B 2 4 THE MARITIME ALPS. Baj^ of Griraaiid. I admit that it is not a tale which, like a novel of Scott's, could be put into every hand, while the little work of Elisee Eeclus is too technically a guide-book to be appreciated except by persons who travel, and who in travelling prefer their itinerary to be written in French.' ' Most of the books you name are unknown to the English. France itself is really unknown to us. We forget its history, and consider the country flat, though it certainly contains more ruins and mountains than are required in a search after the picturesque. Further- more I must add tliat Englishwomen are advised not to read French novels, and that they are convinced that there is no French poetry. The result of all this is that, of the thousands who yearly betake themselves to the Riviera, few know or care much about the country.' ' I must say,' cried Estefanette, ' that the history of Provence is very far away.' ' That depends on the point at which you begin,' replied her father : ' if by the past you mean Lord Brougham's visit to Cannes, or Prosper Merimee's sketches there, or the deatli of the Grand-Due Ileritier at Nice, or the holiday of the Queen of England in a chrdet at Mentone, it seems to me to be recent enough even for a big, little girl like you. Even the landing of Napoleon at Golfe Jouan is as a thing of yesterday to your elders.' ' Impossible : you are now laughing at me.' 'Not the least in the world. I have myself spoken with four persons who can remember every incident of it most distinctly, and of those four only one (the excellent INTRODUCTION. 5 mayor of Cannes, M. Eeybaud) is now dead. I am soriy, petite, til at yon can never hear him describe, as I have done, tlie cross preoccupation of Napoleon as he sat l)y the bivouac fire.' ' At least, you will admit tliat Francis the First is a very old story.' ' Certainly ; yet when you have seen Villeneuvc- Loubet, where the King lived for three weeks, where he met the Pope and where he would not meet the Emperor, I hope that you may begin to take an interest even in that old story. This country has a past, an old civilisa- tion — what do I say ? it has liad man}^ civilisations.' 'You mean,' I said, ' her Greek and Cartliaginian colonists, and her Eoman conquerors.' 'Or perhaps,' cried Estefanette, 'her best conquerors, her saints and martyrs. I mean to go and see the Lerins. You will take me, father ? ' ' Yes, petite, for those constitute part of the past of tliy native land.' And then turning to me, M. de Thibaut added, ' What do you say of the cave-men whose bones are in the caverns of Mentone and Sospello ; of the inscrip- tions in the department to eighteen Eoman emperors and to twenty-one Eoman divinities ; of the Aves said by the boatmen of Napoule to the Diana of their shore ; of the altar of Venus in the plain of Laval ; of the battle-field of Otho and Yitellius ; of the storehouses at Auribeau and Napoule ; of the Golden Gate at Frejus, and of the great Aurelian road which ran not many hundred feet from the line that we now follow? ' ' I doubt,' I replied, ' if I could interest a dozen people in these topics.' 6 THE MARITIME AIFS. M. (le Tliibaut "ave liis shoulders a sbriii?. ' But why ? ' asked Estefanette. ' ])ecause people will auswer, just as you did a little while ago, tliat these are such very old stories : be- cause the English prefer to meet English joeople and to read English books, and to talk of their ailments, hotel bills, and lawn-tennis parties, to say nothing of their charities, picnics, and quarrels.' Estefanette laughed. ' Is it true,' slie asked, ' tliat the two colonies, the French and the English, see very little of each other ? ' ' Every year less, as far as Cannes is concerned. The French do not need strangers, and the English do not readily make themselves ties in a foreign land. They seem numerous enough to depend on themselves. Eut if they cannot get over their two great stumbling- blocks, a foreign language and a different Church, they have at least admitted to tlieir sympathies the insects and the flowers.' ' You are much better gardeners than we are,' said M. de Thibaut, ' for noildng will make a Provencal tidy in his work, or methodical in his care of anything.' ' I hear that the English go out with butterfly-nets,' said Estefanette ; ' I shall do so too.' ' Yes, and w^e take an interest in sea- anemones, in trap-door spiders, in the praying Mantis, and the bury- ing beetle.' ' Those creatures, besides the notice witfi Avhich you lioiioiir them, are so typical that they deserve all the respect I can show them,' said M. de Tliibaut, laughing. ' Why, f^ither ? ' INTRODUCTION. 7 ' At Nice and Monte Carlo I dare say there are not many persons as devout as the praying Mantis ; no : that poor Httle creature often prays ahine, but at Cannes we shall meet with many specimens of the gentleman with the trap-door ; excellent persons, who shut out all strange impressions and new ideas.' ' You are satirical, M. le Comte.' ' Not at all ; for let me ask you, do we not all do with the past what the beetle does : hury it ? ' At this moment the train stopped at Frejus. It is the residence of tlie Bishop of Frejus-and- Toulon, but it is none the less a forlorn and deserted place, where the waves have receded nearly a mile from the port of the Ca3sars, and where the broken aqueducts may be seen stretching away through the bean-fields and the weedy drills of corn. ' How dismal it looks ! ' I exclaimed. ' Yes, here indeed a whole civilisation is buried ; here is a past that can never live again. The harbour is dried up, the sailors have departed, so that to think of the fleet of Actium rockinir where these vines and lettuces grow seems like a fable. And no one cares about its past, unless it be some canon of that melancholy little cathedral who may have a taste for archaiology. All that the present landowner asks is that the Fonciere should take a fancy to his lettuce-bed, and buy it of him, at sixty francs a metre. This suburb of Saint Eaphael has a certain success as a bathing-place, but as it catches a contagious sadness from Frejus I must say that it does not attract me.' ' Alphonse Karr can generally make me in love 8 THE MARITIME ALPS. ^vitli any beach that lie describes, but were I condemned to live on this side of the Esterels I think I should fix u])on Valescure, and bargain that its pines should not all be cut down by people who build what is called a " health resort." It is the first thing that they set themselves to do, and the most silly, since an invalid can have few better neighbours than a pine tree.' ' I wonder,' said Estefanette, ' what the Eonians of whom 3^011 spoke would think if they could see this coast all dotted with white houses, and the sea ploughed by ironclads ? ' ' Some of the old traders had a very fair aptitude for gain,' replied her father. ' Commerce creates ad- venture, and Narl)onne was once as full of Jews as Marseilles is now full of foreign merchants.' After shooting through a tunnel we found ourselves in the forest of the Esterels. ' If,' said M. de Tliibaut, ' you are in search of an historic site or theme, there is the Tour Drammont,^ where they say that Jeanne, who was Countess of Provence as well as Queen of Naples, spent her last night in Provence.' 'You mean Jeanne with tlie four husbands ? ' cried Estefanette. ' ^yell, it appears that our liege lady of Pro- vence, besides being a droll mixture of wit and wickedness, of devotion and indecorum, was also a woman of much experience as far as mati'imony Avas concerned. Slie was however near the end of lier ' Or (rAnnont. INTRODUCTION. 9 experiences when slie fled to the Tou]" Drannnont, and took sliip from Agay.' ' To go and be smothered at Naples,' added Este- fanette, as she looked at the sliell of the castle where Jeanne sheltered herself from the wrath of her barons. The wild scenery of the short mountain range of the Esterels never looked more beautiful than at this moment. The purple heath was in flower, and the arbutus displayed both the scarlet of its berries and the beauty of its pale, wax-like flowers. Against the dusky, red rocks of this little roadstead of Agay broke the trans- lucent waves, and down every little valley there hurried a rill, making the solitary places glad with its tinkle, or washing the myrtles to a brighter green. 'The forest is beautiful to-day,' I cried, 'not sombre or solitary, but yet more fit for the flying feet of some mountain nymph than for the robber bands of Gaspard de Besse, or for the march of a guilty queen.' ' The ancients thought so too. They dedicated the whole region to Diana, the huntress sister of Apollo, and this forest had its especial nymph, its Oreade^ the fairy Estrella.' ' Oh ! I should like to see her,' cried Estefanette. ' I do not know that she ever appeared to little maidens like you. She bestowed fertility on motliers, but especially favoured the noble sex. Yet woe betide the shepherd who met and kissed her in some fold of the hills ! ' ' Ah : what did she do to him ? turn into a wolf, and eat him ? ' ' No, she did nothing to him, but after kissing her lo THE MARITIME A IPS. lie ceased to behave like other people. He went mad. He had made himself her victim : in fact, there are people one knows wdio have met and kissed Estrella — lives fatally devoted to one idea.' We were silent, till as the train ran past the mouths of the Siagne, and the wooded hills of the Tanneron came in sight, M. de Thibaut sat back in the carriage, and repeated to himself De Musset's lines : — Regrettez-vous le temps, ou le ciel sur la terre, Marcliait et respirait dans un pcuple de dieux ; Ou Venus- Astarte, fille de I'onde amere, Secouait, vierge encore, les larmes de sa mere Et fecondait le monde en tordant ses cheveux ; Ou, du nord au midi, sur la creation Hercule promenait I'eternelle justice, Sous son manteau sanglant, taillc dans un lion ; Oil les Sylvains moqueurs, dans I'ecorce des clienes, Avec les rameaux verts se balan9aient au vent, Et sifflaient dans I'echo le chant du passant ; Ou tout 6tait divin, jusqu'aux douleurs humaines ; Ou le monde adorait ce qu'il tue aujourd'liui ; Oia quatre mille dieux n'avaient pas un athee % ****** A few days later, when recalling this conversation, I said to myself, ' I w^ill try to interest visitors in this beautiful country : in the history of the Maritime Alps and their seaboard. Such a book will certainly bore some people ; but then they need not do more than look at the pictures. Others, on the contrary, may be pleased to fuid that there is really something to know. Tliey will then set to work for themselves, and in looking around them will find the famous "sermons in stones, and good in everything." ' For some invahds on this coast the ])resent must INTR OD UCTION. 1 1 perforce be colourless : clays of tedium succeeding to nights of pain. Perhaps these pages may please them — may people the sick-room with brave men and fair women, or perfume it with the breath of the hill- flowers. There are also spirits cruelly in want of rest, and of the soothing to be derived from a complete change of scene. Will they go out with me to the river or the beach ? or can I tempt them to give an hour of thought to a past which is not their own? It may not be their own in one sense, but in another sense how real is our possession of the past ! Does there not rise from it a strange hum of dead voices, telling how others before us have toiled all the night, and taken notliing ? Patience is the great lesson of history, for history convinces us of the slow growth of truth, and of the rejection, by prejudice, of much that ought ere noAV to have become the heirlooms of the world. Error only is longlived, and so far is the race from being adjudged to the swift that the strong powers of ennui^ mediocrity, and envy often make us despair of progress in a world where grace, catholicity, and generosity leave but little mark on the shifting sands of society. Here under our feet many old civili- sations lie buried. They can never come again in their good or in their evil, because ' tongues ' cease, and because manners also die, like men. Some of the new developments are good, yet the past has its charms, and this Provencal past will prove to be a treasure-heap. Under the white ashes that cover it we shall find the fire of old loves and hates, bones of old systems, frag- ments of the history of the human heart. Nor will 12 THE MARITIME ALPS. novels and romances be needed wlien we have once come to know the actors in these Provencal dramas, so full of the ceaseless toil and endeavour of humanity, of its agitations, its passions, its controversies, its struggles for freedom, its increase of knowledge, its sorrows, its great men and its greater errors, and its constant succession of hnmble and unnoticed lives. 13 CHAPTER II. FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. ' Here the spring is longest, summer borrows months beyond her own : Twice the teeming flocks are fruitful, twice the laden orchards groan : Hail, thon fair and fruitful mother, thus I dure to wake the tale, Of thine ancient laud and honour. . . .' — II. Georgic. < Point de longs fleuves ni de grandes plaines. Qa et \k une ville en tas sur une montagne, sorte de mole arrondi, est un ornement du paysage comma on en trouve dans les tableaux de Pous&in et de Claude : des valines limitees, de nobles formes, beaucoup de roc, et beaucoup de soleil, les elements et les sensations correspondantes : combien de traits de I'individu et de I'histoire imprimes par ce caractere.' — H. Taine. As an introduction to a history one ought not to over- look at starting the influence which is both stronger and more enduring than that of any human system. It is the one which shapes, and, as it were, predestinates the fate of a country — I mean its geographical position, and the unalterable features of its physical geography. Lying on the high road to Italy the district which we call Provence was trodden by every foot. It Avas the path alike of the foreign invader who aimed a blow at Eome, and of the conquering soldier who had dared to cross his Eubicon. Along the sliore of Maritime Provence, or across the passages of her Alps, poured Celts and Goths, Burgundians, Franks, Vandals, Huns, and Berbers. And the tribes who 14 THE MARITIME ALPS. came to rrovcnce seldom left it. Every wanderer or marauder found here what he most sought, or what he most regretted. The Greeks, if they had to import the olives of Pallas, found here fair skies, pale marbles, violets fit for Hylas, and roses of which Alcibiades might have made his wreath : to say nothing of a sea as ' deeply, darkly, beautifully blue ' as that which breaks round the Leucadian headland. The Jews, who drifted hither, first after the persecution of Titus, and again in 1492, after their expulsion from Spain, found here the corn and wine and oil of promise, with terraces, not unlike those of Judea, surrounding ' cities that had foundations' in the sunny hills. The Moors were soon at home in the dusty, Wady-X^kQ ravines : the crags, the sunshine, and the palms of Provence leaving them but little to regret. For the Phoenician traders there were safe harbours ; for the Aragonese a dialect not unlike their own [Catalan) ; Florentines, red-handed from the strife of Guelf and Ghibelhne in the Lily City, made themselves new counting-houses in Provence ; while the Lombard and Genoese traders found in the Phone valley a highway for their commerce. These influences procured for the district of the Maritime Alps a rich and a varied i)ast, and in the same manner the exceptional climate and the unique position of the country now ensure for it a future of ailluence. Fashions change, and it may happen that for a quarter of a century some one of the cities of Provence will enjoy a greater reputation, or a greater influx of strangers, tlian another ; but it is certain that what the one loses the other gains, tliat railways will continue to FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 15 bring invMlids and pleasure-seekers and artists to tlie Eiviera, and that from the Itlione to tlie Arno one winter city will succeed to tlie other till the Kiviera is one long line of health-resorts. At the present moment the department of the Maritime Alps bears the bell. And no wonder. A rampart of limestone mountains, rising tier above tier, shelters it from tlie north, while the chain of the Esterels screens its western border. Such a screen is needed, for the Rhone valley, acting- like a funnel, permits a constant rush of cold air to- wards the sun-heated coast. Thus the sweeping mistral is formed. There used to be an old sajang that Parliament, mistral, and Durance Were the three scourges of Provence — and no doubt the third day of a howling mistral is a trial to most people. The cypress hedges are bent down, almost to the earth which they are unable to protect, every window shakes, and all night long, across every bar and through every keyhole, this wild wind discourses. Its medley of raving, wdiining and bellowing is very annoying — and as for the dust, that is everywhere ! it is in your eyes and in your hair, in your dress, in your ink-bottle, and between the leaves of your books. Meantime your pens split, your shutters crack, your hat flies away, and your hair turns grey ; but your spirits are unaccountably buoyant, and the sky, from side to side, is of the palest blue. The sea, on the other hand, looks dark ; there is a fringe of surf round the shore, the horizon line is a broken one, and the water is of every shade imaginable, from a deep 1 6 THE MARITIME ALPS. liyacintli-like purple to a greenisli turquoise. This much-abused mistral has been christened by the know- ing peasantry ' lou bon vent.'' It really is a public bene- factor, for this ' prince of the power ' of the air clears the country from damp and miasma, and is therefore one of the great sanitary features of the seaboard. The streams of a coast which slopes so directly to the sea must run from north to south. They have their sources among the everlasting snows, but their outfall is amono- the sun-dried sands. It is the incessant currents of air, all these angels of the winds, ascending and descending the valleys and river-beds of Provence, that make and keep the country healthy. Thanks to them we have here no Maremraa with its fatal beauty of midsummer, and no Pontine marshes, Avith their fevers and agues. The southern exposure of this beach causes an almost daily phenomenon in the matter of the wind. Towards the dawn a tramontana, which the boatmen call ' lou vent de la neige,' rises, and they may then be seen hugging the land, while in the same way if the wind sets due south they will run close in shore, to catch a ricochet off lulls which deflect the wind enough to give it a slight change of direction. These experienced judges are of opinion that it is the SE. wind, ' lou vent de nier,' which brings the finest weather, particularly if, turning to ' vent de soleu^' it goes round all day with the sun. They also denominate this veering wind ' lou vent dou nial- hourouSj because their sails are like the pockets of an uiihicky man, empty after having been full. The SSE. wind, tlic SIroc, l)lows in tlie upper regions of the air. It FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 17 gives a pale steel-grey hue to the sky ; clouds accumu- late, but uo raiu falls on the south side of the mountains, and the temperature becomes peculiarly trying to nervous people. It has happened to us to leave this coast after weeks of such weather, and to cross the ridges of the hills on the way to Grenoble and Lyons. No sooner had we exchanged the southern for the northern slopes than we found that the clouds and vapours had all condensed in the colder atmosphere, and that torrents of rain had magnified every streamlet into a river. As a rule the winds of this coast only blow with violence while the sun is high. As soon as he sets, the invisible vapours uniting condense, and drop on the parched shores of Provence the dews that keep its vegetation alive. When in 1882, only four showers of rain fell between the 4th of January and the 5th of April, the dripping grass reminded one irresistibly of the sunshine of Eden, when the ' days ' were ' seven,' and when as yet the earth was only watered by such bounteous dews. Provence is separated by the chains of the Maritime Alps both from Piedmont and from that Genoese terri- tory to which the name of Liguria was anciently given. The Yar was long the boundary of this the most eastern province of France ; but in 1860, the county of Nice (with the exception of the cantons of Tende and La Brigue) was ceded to the Emperor, who also purchased Mentone and Eoquebrune from the Prince of Monaco. In this way the French frontier has been pushed on to the torrent of St. Louis, almost to Ventimiglia, whereby the c 1 8 THE MARITIME A IPS. harbour of Villefranche, and many other sources of com- mercial and mineral wealth have been secured to France. There is little level land in the department. One range of hills rises beyond and behind the other : first the wooded liillocks where the hyacinths lurk, then the slopes, so gay with heatli and myrtle and arbutus and prickly broom, next the bare limestone ledges, and, last of all, the peaks where the snow-wreaths and glaciers hang, and which, as they meet the clouds, assume the hues and imitate all the aspects of cloudland. Of the Alps the most northern mass belongs to the Gelas, to that majestic system of upheaval from which the Apennines depend. The first chain, running in the direction of Bordighera, gives rise to the great torrent of the Roya. To the second belongs the fantastic Tete- de-Chien, above Monaco, and the scathed and peeled crags of Eza. These rocks not only come close to the beach, but they rise from the sea in almost perpendicular masses, and are of the most glowing hues above the beach gardens of Beaulieu and of la petite Afrique. The third chain or system, running east and west, goes to join the mountains in the department of the Basses Alpes. Its best-known feature is the Saut-du-Loup, backed as that is by the Cheiron range, of which the head is distant about thirty kilometres from the sea. The greatest altitude here is, however, very humble when compared with the Pic du Prats (2,438 metres above the sea), or with the elevation of the two highest glaciers which can be seen from Antibes, viz. the Glacier dc Mercantour (3,1 G7 metres), and that of the grand Mont Clapier (3,340 metres). FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 19 Tlie principal artery of tliis department is the Var. It receives many affluents, and tlie space that Hes be- tween it and the Siagne (which once formed tlie ancient viguerie of Grasse) is watered by many lesser streams. These are the Cagnette, the Malvans, the Lubiane, the Loup, the Brague, the Bouillede, the Foux, the Chatai- gnier, the Eiou, the Siagne, the Mourachone, and the Argentiere. Beyond tlie Var you cross first the Magnan, and then the Paillon, that torrent which divides old Nice from her modern faubourgs ; and, lastly, you meet the Eoya, with its fourteen affluents which make such wild work in winter of both roads and bridges. These rivers nearly all possess the same features. First you have the sources, high up among the secret places of the mountains, where little streamlets either break out suddenly through the ledges, as the overflow^ of some hidden reservoir, or go oozing slowly through the snows of the highest levels. They next make their way downward in half- thawed ripples, till they gather volume enough to cleave themselves a passage through the barriers of the rocks. They then emerge, green splashing torrents, glittering among the uplands, to collect themselves into pools in the fragrant, bosky dells. After this they may meet with the weir of a mill, or with a bridge or two, but then come their two last, their sober stages, the gliding through meadows all pied with daffodils, and finally the slow creeping througli the sands out to the salt and restless sea. These torrents can be very terrible. Take the Brague for an example. As it comes creeping througli c 2 20 THE MARITIME ALPS. its flowery banks, it looks so passive and sluggish that one can hardly realise the catastrophe of January, 1872. Very heavy rains fell then with little intermission during sixteen days, and the swollen river ended in forming a lake of two kilometres in length inside the railway embankment, outside of which there unluckily beat a very heavy surf. These waves, and their shingle, pre- vented the river from having a clear waterway at its mouth, while most fatally close to that mouth stood the railway bridge. It was supported on one pier, round which swirled the angry eddies, and close up to which splashed the encroaching waves. The line was in danger ! The station-master at Antibes telegraphed to Nice to stop the 5 r.M. fast train. But the gale had disturbed the instruments, and his message was not transmitted. Suspecting something of the sort, he next sent off a man on horseback to ford the Brague, and to take the warning to the next station at Cagnes, But neither man nor horse could stem sucli a torrent, it spread so wide, and it ran so strong. The messenger therefore had to make a detour by Biot : so long a one that he was all too late. Meantime the darkness fell. From Antibes tlie officials could watch the lights of the advancing train as it steamed along through the rain and the tempest. Suddenly the front lamps disap- peared, like sparks in the dark. The engine had gone down head-foremost, through the bridge with its broken ])ier ; two carriages fell piled on top of it, until a coupling snapped, then some carriages rolled off on the sea-side of tlie emljankment, and, finally, with a terrible shock, the train came to a stand. How many lives FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 21 were lost that night lias remamed a mystery, but tlie next day's s])ectacle was terribly suggestive. There was still a lake of water inside the embankment ; the rails were snapped and twisted ; two carriages witli their sides stove in, and which had been in the sea, were now beached on the shingle, and the engine, fast bedded in sand, lay deep in the yawning fissure whicli showed where the bridge had been. Of the pier no vestige remained, and the eddies of the Brague were swirling among the wreck. A good deal of that wreck must have gone out to sea, but a company of infantry, summoned from Antibes (its men firmly lashed together with ropes), groped about, in a torrent which reached to their waists, to find more bodies, or more means of identifying the survivors. All who had money or friends had already been removed, but in a carter's inn, about eight minutes' drive from the broken bridge, there lay two friendless, penniless, and unclaimed women, and one man so dread- fully injured that the surgeons had been obhged to trepan him on the spot. He was a musician, and I am told that he idtimately recovered, but his screams were most heartrendini? as I followed one of the Dames Trinitaires up to the long, low room under the rafters where the so-called ' English ' patient lay. In the first bed, near the door, there was a pretty Pied- montese girl of about thirteen, whose black curls were full of sand. Her face was flushed, and her breathing was hard ; she had got a congestion of the lungs. Then came the stranger, who turned out to be no Enghshwoman, but only a poor German outcast. She 2 2 THE MARITIME A IPS. moaned and screamed when she reacted in her dehriuni the terrible struggle in the water. I undeceived the Mere Urbain as to lier nationality, but we agreed to say nothing about it ; for those were still early days after the war, the peasants might have shown ill-will, and at Antibes, in the big Hospital where she ruled, the Mere Urbain had plenty of w^ounded soldiers who would look askance at a German patient. As for this extemporised hospital, I never saw a sadder sight. The house, to begin with, was filthy be- yond description, and the staircase, so dark as to be dangerous, was littered with sacks of grain and bundles of wool. The latter belonged no doubt to the bedding of the past, or of the future, and they were, as became their nature, full of fleas. An unkempt, ill-looking couple kept tliis alhergo di squalor, and made a harvest by showing to visitors the surgeons' basin, and other ghastly tokens of the wreck. I shall never forget my disgust, or the wrath of the Mere Urbain, when I drew her attention to a human hand left lying alone in one of those shallow baskets which are used for keeping lemons ! I had to return to this doleful place on the next, and upon many following days, taking it in turns with a Eussian Maid-of-honour to visit the poor German girl, who, as long as her delirium and her great prostra- tion lasted, could only hold intercourse with those who spoke or prayed with her in her own tongue, but the Mere Urbain, as may be supposed, soon reduced the deplorable sick-room to order, and she also swept off all tlie relics of tlie wreck, for Christian burial at Antibes. I remember further that the little ' FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 23 Pieclmontese, after crying ])iteoiis]y for ' Mamma ! J\Jamma ! ' for some days, made a good recovery. As for the poor German, she had a long and tedious ill- ness, but one which afforded her time for salutary teaching. The last time that we heard of her, after Olga S — and I had sent her back to lier liome near Strasburg, she was respectably married, and she has had every reason to bless that sudden bath in the swollen Brague. The great Hood in the chamiel of the Foux, in October 1882, was another specimen of what these streams can do. In the space of an hour all the low-lying ground of the Boulevard du Cannet was flooded, mucli property de- stroyed, and eiglit lives lost. The funeral cortege of these eight victims, who were buried at the expense of the town, was a very curious and most touching sight. They were followed to the cemetery on the Grasse road by over 5,500 persons, and mourned for there, in their big common grave, with the loudest sobs and cries. These catastrophes, though they may make a strong impression on the mind, do but little, however, towards altering the face of the country. It is the slow, con- tinued action of natural forces that is truly irresistible : it is what Schiller terms the laying of ' sand-grain upon sand-grain' that is truly creative, and now, as in the becfinnincf it is tlie work of the mormng and of the evening that leave an enduring mark upon the globe that we inhabit, A river is an engineering force constantly thougli irregularly at work, but it must be remembered that 24 THE MARITIME AIPS. the sea wliicli meets its stream is another and an oppos- ing force. The waves collect and roll back part of the sediment which the river lays down, and thus, tideless as the Mediterranean may be, it presents the spectacle of several sea margins, the cordons littoraux of the French engineers. Such tiny terraces serve to heighten a beach of which, in vulgar parlance, you hear it said that it is rishhj. This is not the fact, but where the mouth of a stream is turned aside, or dammed back by the action of the waves, it often happens that a chain of brackish lagunes is formed. These in time dry up : evaporation and the growth and decay of weeds ensuring the gradual formation of a soil more or less spongy. At the mouths of the Yar, of the Siagne, and of the Brague, the ground thus gained from the sea may be counted by many hundreds of metres. It was in this way that the great plain below Pegomas was laid down, and had the coast of Eastern Provence, from Marseilles to Yentimiglia, been all as sloping as the shore beyond the mouths of the Ehone, the district would by this time have possessed neither ports nor trade. At Frejus, this really has occurred, for tliere is no outfall, the quays of the Ccesars are now 1,600 metres distant from the waves, and it would have fared with the whole of the eastern towns as it has fared with Aiguesmortes and Narbonne, places once rich and flourishing, but of which tlie salt and stagnant lagunes are not navicfable. There the domain of the mariner has long since ceased, l)ut tlie domain of the husbandman has not yet begun, so tliat the towns sleep, emphatically dead cities beside a dead sea. FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 25 Eastern rrovcnce, on the contrary, lias harbours of great deptli, and some of tlic outhncs of her bold coast liave not altered for many millions of years. The abrupt headlands driven out into the Mediterranean are unchanged ; off them the water measures many fathoms, and between them there are bays of the greatest beauty. Agay, at the foot of the red escarpments of the Mornes, is a harbour of refuge among the Esterels, and the bay so-called of Grimaud can hold vessels of considerable burthen. Cannes, like the Golfe Jouan, has its roadstead sheltered by the fnie natural breakwater of the Lerins islands. At Villefranche the depth varies from ten to twenty-five metres, so that three or four ironclads may be seen lying so close in shore that their topgallants seem to mix witli the palms, olives, and carouba trees that frino:e this the most beautiful little harbour in the world. Modern roads and villas have hardly been able to ruin the beauty of Villefranche, which, with its minia- ture fort, its Admiralty Pier, and lazaretto, is as perfect a toy specimen of a harbour as St. Paul-du-Var is of a media3val strong place. It is rich in colouring as well as perfect in outline, the prickly pear and the aloe fringe its red rocks, and down under the shadow of its belfry and its sunburnt walls you can fancy, if not the landing of the Tyrian Hercules, at least the arrival of popes and of emperors. In the spring of 1866, the corpse of the Tzarevitch Nicholas- Alexandrovitch was embarked here. Every angle or coign of vantage w^as croAvded with spectators when, with slow-chanted psalms, the heavy barge made its way from the pier out to the frigate (the Alexander-Newsky) destined to receive the sorrowful 26 THE MARITIME ALTS. freight. The bells tolled, guns fired at intervals, and soon, with a great trail of smoke streaming behind them like mourning pennons, the frigates stood out between the headlands, and the bay of Villefranche was left emjDty. 1 used to think that this mixture of tall masts and waving trees must be unique, but I found in an old-fashioned poem by Orinda ^ the following description of a voyage from Tenby to Bristol, in 1G52, which so recalls Villefranche that I will copy it here : — ■ But what most pleased my mind upon the way Was the ships' posture that in harbour lay : Which to the rocky grove so close was fixed That the trees' branches with the tackling mixed. One might have thought it was, as then it stood, A growing navy, or a floating wood. Though the chain of the Esterels forms rather the boundary of the Maritime Alps than any portion of the department, I will not leave the subject of the moun- tains and the sea without giving a page to the physical geography of the country beyond the Siagne. ' C'est la region du feu,' says a French geologist in speaking of this district, where the crystalline rocks show all their most rugged features and their most beautiful hues.''^ It is a very wild country, where the tourist may easily lose [em- hoKscar) himself in the pathless ravines, and where many a ])retty young pedestrian, who reckons on a walk of five miles, may have to make one of fifteen before she gets ' Mrs. Philips. 2 I have to thank Messrs. Frith, of Reigate, for allowing me to use three of their very successful photographs. FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 27 to the stations of Trayas or Agay. Tlie population, it must be added, is exceedingly rougli, and not always disposed to be civil to strangers. They are the descen- dants of the free peasants to whom ' la reino Jeanno,' as they still call Petrarch's beautiful Queen of Naples, gave a right to cultivate the little dells in this the greatest forest of Provence. Tliey did not all live by honest labour either, and even in the beginning of tlie eighteenth century so full were these dense woods of thieves and marauders that a band of ground on each side of the high road Avas ordered to be kept clear in case of ambushes. Then what a road ! with no inns for man and beast but that Logis de I'Esterel which Mise Brun's misadventures have immortalised ! The present gendarmerie guarantees the safety of the modern tourist, but the visitor cannot fail to be struck by the miserable lives of the few peasants whom he meets. They seem to spend their time in dragging out the half-charred wood which the fires of every summer leave in the forest, and for which they find a sale in the streets of Cannes. Yet the country possesses considerable mineral wealth. There are, to begin with, the splendid porphyry quarries of Boulouris, where the blocks prepared by the Komans may still be seen ; there are amethysts, and veins of a serpentine so beautiful that in the Middle Ages none but the barons might use it for tlie adornment of their houses. There is an iron mine at Aga}", and in the valley of the Argentiere some sulphate of lead is dug for the factories at Vallauris. Since 1777, a coal-basin has been known to exist in the Esterels, and the mines of Auriosque, Eeyran, and Bozon send both coal and 28 THE MARITIME ALPS. petroleum to Cannes and Toulon. Unluckily the coal is dirty, and in burning gives out such unpleasant gases that it has been found impossible to go on using it for the perfume factories of Grasse. As the crystalline rocks contain felspar in large quantities they weather very readily, and their decompo- sition furnishes soil for the pine, cork, and holly woods, and for a vegetation which must be seen to be believed. Hence the rounded forms of these hillsides, on which there is a perennial carpet of heath, cistus, and arbutus. At one time of year you have the snowy and mauve flowers of the cistus, at another the silver spikes of the tall, branched asphodel, while at another the rosy clusters of the oleanders drop upon a mossy couch, fit either for the sleep of Endymion, or for Diana's urgent feet. The Mont Vinaigre is the highest point of the range (616 metres), but by far the most marked feature is the headland of the Cap Eoux. Its colour and its outline are both remarkable, affording endless studies for the artist and the photographer. It is distant from the Cap dAntibes twenty-two kilometres, and forms the western side of the great curve in which lie the bay of Cannes and the Golfe Jouan. Close within its shelter are Gardane and Theoule. To l^oth of those places ex- peditions can be made by boat. There is a quiet anchor- age at Theoule, just below the little, crumbling battery which Eichelieu ordered to be built for the protection of tlie bay. The place is one whicli may readily rise to im- portance, for its climate is delightful ; invalids can fmd there the ]iine woods which are disappearing from the FROM THE MOUNTAINS TO THE SEA. 29 environs of Cannes, and the soil is well adapted for market-gardening. The cultivation of priiiieims would answer all the better liere because Theoule lies as close to the modern railway as it once did to what the peasants still call ' lou Camin Aureliaii ' : to that great coast road which the Romans cut through its thickets of myrtle and its gorges of porphyry. 30 THE MARITIME ALPS. CHAPTER III. THE PEOPLE. ' The true antiquities, those onlj^ worthy of our attention, are the slight but visible traces of ancient speech, of ancient race, of ancient feelings and of manners, to which human tenacity has clung through ages of vicissitudes, which barbarism, a new faith, and a new civilisation have not effaced from the land.'— J. Kavanagh. From the terrace of our villa on the Grasse road the red roofs of the old town of Cannes are visible. Behind them rises the Mont Chevalier, crowned by the parish church and belfry, by the half-ruined castle, and by the 'ht long; be seen sunninj^ itself on the ter- O O CD races of Cannet. We christened those poor, old women the Fates, but labour in the sun is so hard, and profit on lettuces is so small, that perhaps Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos were not really as old as they looked. In bad weather the men wear the long, striped homespun cloak which Diodorus Siculus described, but on festive THE PEOPLE. 41 occasions tliey wear waistcoats cut open to tlic waist, knee-breeches, and a cloak folded over the left slioulder. In Mougins there is a good deal of beauty, but it is rare in the Maritime Alps, except among the peasants of La Brigue, where it is the rule rather than the exception. The Briguegasque women are neither tall nor short, but have erect figures, and a beauty which, but for the early loss of their teeth, would last beyond the period of the classical heaute du (liable. In trutli we have noticed among them, not only curly, picturesque heads, but love- liness sucli as Correggio would not have despised in a model. The liair, rippled or curly, is caught back, and covered Avith a broad black velvet ribbon tliat forms a pretty and even a dignified liead-dress. A short blue or green petticoat lined witli scarlet, a chirk bodice, and a coloured kercliief folded in two narrow bands across the bosom, complete the costume. These semi-Italian peasants are generally rich, comfortable people, Avho keep dairies in Nice and Cannes in the winter, but who during tlie summer return to their mountain farms. There is an odd community of wages in a family, and all the families are connected by marriage, but the women do not marry very early. They arc quiet and affectionate, often remaining eight or ten years in the same English family : in fact I prefer them as servants, since among the real natives of Nice and Cannes it is very rare to find qualities suited for domestic ser- vice. The marriages of the peasantry and of the middle class are arranged here either under settlements or under the system of community of goods. By a remnant of 42 THE MARITIME ALPS. Orientalism wliicli lingej's in Provence, tJie women of the family do not expect to eat at table along with the lords of the creation, and if they are present it is (houglit good manners for them to sit together and as it were ' below the salt.' But they all sup togetlier on feast-days — for example, on Christmas Eve, to eat the jpan doa Calende, a thick cake stained with saffron, and which from its huge, round disc w^as probably made and eaten in honour of Diana, long before the Christian era. The village Hotnerage, or wake, is also a time of eating and drinking, of dancing and gossiping, in the open air. It is on that day that the best costumes and earrings make their appearance, and that the galouhet and the tambouiin are heard. The latter is a long, narrow drum, about a foot in width, and two feet and a half in height, which the player holds between his knees. I have heard a man play on this instrument old airs of which one would like to discover the names and the authorship, but of the dances which they provoke the clergy do not approve, the times of Roinerage awakening old habits and pagan allusions more honoured in the breach than in tlie observance. The })easants of the arrondissements of Grasse, of Nice, and even of Puget Theniers, are rich. To hnd very poor villages, you must go up to the little pays on the Esteron and the Tinee ; but, whether rich or poor, this population does not care to work for strangers. All kinds of alcoholic drinks are now in fashion, and as wine becomes daily more scarce, the population, both male and female, is markedly less abstemious than of yore. The savinirs bank is, however, the good angel THE PEOPLE. 43 of tlic district, and the promise, as it were, of a new and better day for a people who once knew no otlier friend tlian tlie Moitt de Piete. Tlie savings bank of Grasse lias twenty thousand liurets, and this is the moi-e credit- able, because, though factory workers and tlieir wages increase, landed property diminishes in value. The arrondissement of Grasse has in ten years lost forty thousand francs by the ruin of its olive-trees, nor is it likely to recover this loss. The little oil that is now produced does not command a better jji-ice, so it is evident that the mineral oils are driving out of the market the coarser oils of the country once used both for lamps and for machinery. Many small landowners are in consequence anxious to part with their land. When the village schoolmaster and his sister have sold, they will proceed to buy shares in some So ciete fonder e, or immobiliere, and will probably lose all their money. Their smaller neighbours will also sell, but then they will go up to Grasse, Avhere, in the perfume factories, men, women, and girls all find employment, where labour is better paid, and Jean will proceed to live a la carte, instead of starving on the lettuces of his tiny farm. This perfume trade is popular, and, like the potteries, seems to have the future of the Maritime Alps in its hands. ^ But, as was said before, the native ^ The works of M. Clement Massier, at Golfe Jouau, give em- ployraent to several artists, and to a hundred and twenty hands. These are modellers, sculptors, engravers, enarnellers, painters, grinders and oven men, besides the hewers of wood and drawers of water, packers and carpenters. The supply of clay is inexhaustible, and M. Massier, by his taste and energy, has given a great impetus to the business of the country. 44 THE MARITIME AIPS. population does not care to work for strangers. If you want a job done by the carpenter or the blacksmith you must send five times for him, and if there lie a broken pane of glass on a wet day you must make u[) your mind to its remaining unmended, and for no other reason than ' because it is raining ' ! Yet work is highlj' paid. A mechanic earns four francs fifty centimes a day, and the gardener, who prunes the vines and puts a mat over the heliotropes, expects three francs a day ; or, if he resides on the villa, mil ask five hundred and fifty francs a year, with a liouse and fuel. Contracts are rarely finished here to time, and all the heavy labour is done by the Piedmontese. These poor fellows seem to be the Chinese of Europe. Their numbers are inexhaustible ; in the winter 1882-3 there were four thousand of them on the new Boulevard of Cannes, and as many more on the works at Cimiez. Many of them have lived so long on this side of the frontier that not only are their children to be found on the benclies of the schools, but a percentage of them lias been drawn for the conscription, which shows that Provence is again absorbing into herself a strain of foreign blood, which must ultimately alter the type and the temper of her people. The Piedmontese are hardy and enduring in no common degree. They work all day long for seventeen or twenty-five pence, live on dry bread, onions, and oranges, eat nuts and apples, and sleep in the ditches.^ Yet tliey have their little theatres, and will sing all day long about their loves. ' Too much cannot be said in praise of the night-schools organised, 188.3-4, for these poor fellows. THE PEOPLE. 45 Sometimes Gigi pauses after his verse, tlicn Pepe will whistle a stave, till the singer recommences : — O quanto voglio bene a chi so io, II nome non lo voglio palezare : Lo tengo sempre scritto nel cuor mio, Infinche vivo lo voglio portare .... Then a companion starts another ditty : — Credo da ver, bell' Isolina, XJn cuore senza amor deve morir. Cerca mi in van alia porta di Torino, Senza di te sto io per morir .... and so on, indefinitely. Yet, in spite of these pure and pretty love-songs, all the crimes of violence that occur are invariably laid to the door of the Piedmontese, and terrible cases of their fury and jealousy have come to my own knowledge. I shall never forget a prisoner whom I once saw being driven by the police across the Place Garibaldi ; he was in a cart, and netted over like a young bull. I asked a woman, standing near Avith a green water-jar in each hand, what he had done ? She said it was a sporcJieria^ and it appeared that he had just murdered his wife ! Till the Ee volution of 1848, the great ambition of every peasant proprietor, and small bourgeois, was to make one of his sons a priest. That it would ensure Peiroun against the conscription, for which jSToiil or Nourat were too certain to be drawn, was what the mother said, while the brethren and kinsfolk felt it to be a creditable incident in the family history to have an Abbe among them. Peiroun might hope to officiate some day, in pomp is, before a high altar, with all the 46 THE MARITIME A IPS. members of liis family present, and miglit not Pieroiin's father, when old and past work, find his cliair and his soup in some preshytere where there wonld be room for him beside M. V Ahhe? Within the last forty years, however, the number of lads who enter the seminary has fallen off; trade, enterprise, and the many careers of modern life drawing off young men from the ranks of the secular and parochial clergy, wliile those who feel any peculiar vocation for tlie religious life frequently prefer to enter some of the religious orders. In many dioceses the supply of clergy already falls short of the demand, and now that military service is obligatory even on those who have crossed the threshold of the seminary, it is to be feared that many posts of duty will be left vacant. Some of the livings are cruelly small. Even with the help of the much-begrudged ca.mel (fees for baptisms, marriages, deaths, funerals, and obits), the incumbent of a village on the Esteron must have a hard struggle on a pittance which ranges from 30/. to 50/. a year. If he has any luck the municipality may eke this out by a small present; but his 2tre.sbyt<'re is a poor little hovel, and hard, very hard, is his fare. As he has the poor always with him, and as an affluent landowner is a thing unknown as a neighbour, it is difficult to suppose that he can save any money, and so, when disease and old age overtake such a village cure, he must ask for a pension of 8/. from the Minister of rul)lic Worship. If he stands well Avilh his vicar-general and his bishop, this may l)e augmented by the splendid gift of 21. from the diocesan fund. It is easy therefore to understand that there sliould not be great competition among the candidates THE PEOPLE. 47 of such a profession, and easy to understand tliat the Jiolders of such poor livings must charge for the Masses, and other offices, wliich they are asl^ed to perform, A rich peasant will not grudge 20Z. on his funeral ; the bakemeats, bells, candles, and the like, mounting up sometimes to even a lare^er sum. In the hill- villages about Vence, the Italian custom of carrying the dead with open face still prevails, and sundown is here, as in Italy, the usual hour for the funerals of the poor. In Grasse, though the coffin is actually covered, the lid is draped so as to look as if the corpse were displayed ; the cap and veil of the deceased presenting a striking likeness to the figure. In the same arrondissement we have recently come on the trace of a singular super- stition. For the space of nine days and nights it is thought right to leave the house, the room, and the bed of the dead man exactly as he left them. During that period his return is considered possible, and it would argue a want of tact if anything were changed, for better or for worse. As the practice cannot be defended from the sanitary point of view, one can only be glad that the days of expectation do not here, as in Eussia, extend to forty. All the habits of the peasantry are unhealthy — from the swaddling bands of the infant, down to this last com- pliment paid to the departed. Smallpox is never really banished from the towns, but it is only a wonder that the popidation is not much more unhealthy than it is, for the plagues of olden times, like the late-lingering leprosy that used to find its home at Eza, proved what dirt can do for disease. When I first came to the Eivicra I was 48 THE MARITIME ALPS. much interested iu tlie fact that real Syrian leprosy (Lepra Uehrceorum) was still to be found, and I hoped to see a leper. At last I did — in a crowd before the door of a church on a festival — and I was so utterly scared by the sight of the shining white patches, and by the glaring eyes of the most debased-looking being I had ever be- held, that I clapped my muff up to my eyes, and fled downhill, as fast as if the leper had been pursuing me. As education spreads, some knowledge of the laws of health and disease will spread also, and it is to be hoped that this may in time correct the extreme nasti- ness of Provencal habits. Infant mortality is terrible. From motives of economy the children of a family are limited in number, and again from motives of economy the mothers, in going out to work, abandon their babies to the grandmotlier or to the creche. Thanks to this system the proportion of those who never live to cut their seven-year-old teeth is enormous. The number of Proven^-als who can neither read nor write is much diminished : schools have multiplied, rival coiiiniunilies have bestirred themselves in the cause of education, and in tlie regiments a colonel will uClen refuse leave, furlougli, and other indulgences till his recruits have learned to read. A great deal has been said against the education given by the Sfjeurs. That it leaves somewhat to be desired I can imagine, but, on the other hand, tlie Soeurs are the good angels, and the only ones, of a very ])oor district. I I'eniember once, along with a iriend, examining some cliikh'en bc- lonoins to a convent-school near Falicon, and tliat we found tlieir knowledge of the New Testament to be THE PEOPLE. 49 advanced as well as correct. The same cannot be said for the peasants who come down from La Brigue, if they are over thirty years of age. One day our Briguegasque housemaid returned from witnessing a Passion-play. She was much touched, and still more indignant. ' What,' she exclaimed, ' had that poor Monsieur done that they maltreated him so ? They beat him, and spat at him, and I cried when they pierced his side with a spear ! ' Our Presbyterian maid and old Benoite, the Savoisienne cook, were alike horrified at Madeloun's ignorance, for as she went to Mass regularly no one supposed her to be so ignorant of the Life, Death, and Mission of our Lord. We tried to enlighten her, but Madeloun was proot against any theological training. She stoutly denied any complicity in the cruel sufferings of the Lord, appealed to all concerned whether she were not a good daughter, sister, wife, and mother, and as such incapahle ! of such horrid cruelty ? Of imputed guilt and imputed merits Madeloun would not hear a word, and though we bought a volume of Scripture stories (with pictures) for her, and Benoite read them to her in the kitchen, Madeloun remained of the same opinion* ' that poor Monsieur was as gentle as a lamb, that those people were brutal, and that she had had nothing to do with it.' Eeligion to the Latin populations is too often a show — a poem acted on the stage of the church, a piece which, thanks to candles and music, is still fairly acce])table, even after many years of repetition, because on a great festival there is always something to look at, Htinti belli (as they call the cheap images) to buy, and a pro- cession in which to take a part. Corporations and E 50 THE MARITIME ALPS. congregations are popular, for the same reasons, but there is more love of movement than of devotion in tliis race, and a festival is looked to more for the fun til an for the prayers. The spread of Liberal oi)inions keeps the men away from church, but as the male connnunicants in the parish church of Cannes numbered over three hundred last Easter, it cannot be said that either the Eadical dema- gogues or the influx of Protestant visitors has greatly altered the habit of attendance at this/c'te obligatoire. People go iri crowds to visit the churches on Maunday Thursday, and I do not know that I ever witnessed a more touching sight than the mourning group of women who on the evening of that day sang the Stabat Mater hymn. It was in a dirty, ruinous, parish church, damp as a stable, and ill paved witli bricks. The great door stood o])en, as if a funeral liad just ])assed out, and the altar was stripped, l)ut before the reposoir, Mdiere the sacrament was buried, stood some tall camellias, and some candles burned. The women, with their shawls over their heads, as they stood liuddled together in the i>-loom reminded one forcibly of tlie desolation of the Maries, and of the sor- row and tlie apparent overthrow of the little Christian comnumity on the evening after the Crucifixion. That same church had been very picturesque on Palm Sunday, for every grown-up person then had a palm or green spray, while the cliildren carried their curious tropliies — a stick all tinsel flowers and bonbons, which is said to be the remnant of the old Greek festival for the return of Theseus after slaying the Minotaur. How- evej' that may be, ' these ])alms,' as Origen said, ' are no THE J'EOJ'LE. 51 longer tlie palms of Osiris, they are tlie palms of Christ, and the moment when the priests, on arriving, demand entrance into the church is very impressive. The door is tlirice struck on the outside by the foot of the cross, and, with tlie choristers collected inside, a parley tlien commences. Admittance is demanded for ' the King of Glory.' ' Who is tlie King of Glory ? ' asks the choir. ' The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory,' is the response from without, and then the doors are flung open, and the procession of palms streaming np the aisle becomes the signal for the elevation of the palms of the whole congregation. Tlie church looked like a wood. Still, because a church is sometimes crowded, or because the peasant, reckoning like his grandfather, by the calendar, sows his seed on tlie Feast of the Con- version of St. Paul, or looks for rain at Michaelmas, or fears the frosts of les saints vendangeurs in May, it does not follow that he is either a devout or a submissive per- son. Very far from it. These Provencals, like all French- men, believe in equality. They are frondeurs^ and diffi- cult to overawe. They do not respect dignities, and their patois has few locutions expressive of deference or of respect. Tlie scenes at the midnight Mass of Christmas are not always edifying. Some young lads close to me kept up, one Christmas Eve, a fire of jokes and laughter, till I touched one of them on the shoul- der, and said to him, ' Chut ; lou Pichieut someilho ! ' (Hush, the Infant sleeps.) The boy first stared at me and my fur jacket, and then stoutly replied, ' He is not born yet.' ' Pardon me,' I answered, ' it is past twelve.' E 2 52 THE MARITIME ALPS. ' Ah, then ! ' lie cried, and order was restored in my neighboiirliood. I possess a curious metrical rendering of the Gospels into Proven^'al, and the direct homely phraseology of tluit version is very curious. By a certain Marius Decard the Gospels for every Sunday and saint's day were virados (turned) into verse, and, what is still more wonderful, he succeeded in doing the same for the Canon of the Mass, and for the prayers during the Cele- bration. I will only quote a part of the Gospel for the second Sunday in Lent — St. Matt. xvii. 1-19.^ Un jour comm' ooujourd'liui, escalant la Mountagno, Jesus s'ero pres per coumj)aguo, Leis tres Disciples sauct', Pieroun, Jacques etJean : Et, per qu'igiioures ren de tout ce que n'eii ero, Jacques et Jean erount doux frero. ' As on a day like this Jesus ascended the mountain And took to Himself for companions The three \io\y disciples, Peter, James, and John : And (that ye may not be ignorant of how things were) James and John were two brothers. "When tliey felt to themselves returning "Wonted courage and force, They took again the little path "Which sevpent-like did wind Along the mountain's side. Then as they went he stopped their followers" steps ; And Jesus this admonition made : ' BeAvare,' he cried, ' and lay this well to mind : Never to any man declare AVhat you have newly seen — Make this your secret, in your hearts coucealed Until your death-day, never telling How drawn up from the earth You saw God's Son Towards His Father fly.' THE PEOPLE. 53 Then follows the account of the Transfisfuration m seven verses, and the poem ends thus : — Quand agneront repres et I'aploumb et leis for^o, Et lou courage que ranfor90, Regagnerount ensems lou pichoun carreiroon, Que serpentavo en viravoon, Lou long de la Mountagno. Es en camin fasent qu'arrestant seis coumpagno. Jesus I'y fet' questo montien ; Gardes-vous (fes-l'y ben attentien) De dire, en que que siech, ce que vines de veii-e ! Fes n'en voustre secret, chacun dens voustre cuour, Jusqu'oou jour que deis mouort, S'envoulant de la terro, Vegues lou Fiou de Diou s'envoular vers soun Pcro. I think my readers will appreciate this extract, its nai've simplicity, and the skill witli which the scene is presented, and it is not difficult to imagine its becoming popular. Long may such a homely and affectionate acquaintance with the Gospels live in the hearts of the Provencals ! for it must be owned that in the towns very advanced views are now fashionable. In Nice Garibaldi, as the real hero of the popular imagination, has certainly dethroned any lingering partiality for religious observances. The Soeurs were, in 1882, re- moved from the management of the Hospice de la Ville in Cannes, and one may even meet a civil interment on the Grasse road. The advanced party there not only has its newspapers, but it lias its own ferry-boat, for a steam-launch that plies to the Islands seeks to attract one class of customers by proclaiming the fact that it has never been baptised ! With all this, with the most passionate ideal of 54 THE MARITIME ALPS. personal liberty, the peasantry of the Maritime Alps are marked enemies to progress. They like a prohibitive tarifl', they consider every advantage given to strangers as a positive injury to themselves, and they decline to alter their old methods of dealing with their own property. How they till their fields we shall see when we come to look at tlie agriculture of the Maritime Alps. 55 CHAPTER IV. CORN, WINE, AND OIL. ' The sire of gods and men, with hard decrees, Forbids our plenty to be bought with ease, And wills that mortal man, inured to toil, Should exercise, with pains, the gi-udging soil. . . . Nor is the profit small the peasant makes. Who smooths witli harrows, or who pounds with rakes The stubborn clods. Nor Ceres from on high Regards his labours with a grudging eye : Nor his, who ploughs across the furrowed ground. And on the back of Earth inflicts new wounds : For he, with freciucnt exercise, commands The unwilling soil, and tames the stubborn lands.' I. Gcorrjic (Drj-den). ' The field labourer of Northern countries may be but a hapless hind, hedging and ditching dolefully, or at best serving a steam-beast with oil and tire ; but in the South there is the poetry of agi-iculture still. Materially it may be an evil and a loss; but spiritually it is a gain— a certain peace and light lie on the people at their toil : the reaper with his hook, the plougher with his oxen, the girl who gleans among the tiailing vines, the men who sing to get a blessing on the grapes — they have all a certain grace and dignity of the old classic ways left with them. They till the earth still with the simplicity of old, looking straight to the gods for recompense. It will not last, but it is here for a little while longer still.' — Ouida. MiRABEAU said of the soil of Provence tliat 'were it to be valued at tlie price of tlie best land in France its entire rental would not, in 1780, pay for the cost of nil the walls that are used for holding it up.' TJie countless terraces of Provence are certainly the first tiling to strike a stranger, and if that stranger knows anything of the price of labour, his first questions are sure to be, ' Who ])aid for these walls ? ' and ' Wlio is now paid to kec}) tliein 56 THE MARITIME A IPS. in repair ? ' These terraces are simply an instance of the tinitli of tlie Scottish saying that ' mony a pickle maks a niickle.' Had they all been constructed in the same half century the rental of the province would indeed have been insufficient to pay for them, but the peasants working at them all day, and often part of the night, through many centuries, have covered Provence with a network of stones. In this way they have preserved to her a soil tliat is ever ready to run off. Many of the little plots, which really cannot be called fields, rise at an angle of 70° and even of 75°, and but for these walls they might cease to exist after a thunderstorm. As it is, they allow the culture of vines, oats, and plums to creep far up the sides of the hills. It is said that the idea of so supporting the fields was originally brought from the Holy Land, and as Provence certainly owes both her cork trade and her hU Sarrazin to her Moorish invaders, so she may be content to have received her terraces from Templars and Hospitallers, when, fresh from Palestine, they were eager to improve the manors they held under the Maritime Alps. After the terraces the system of irrigation next calls for attention. If tenants received any com- pensation for their outlay on irrigation much greater advances would be made ; but even as it is the peasant proprietor at least never neglects it. From the ' upper and the netlier springs ' he waters his field. Countless little, stone channels are built, and from these he can Hood the narrow, pan-shaped beds in which he is grow- ing violets or salads. He can let the water pass from one bed to another by simply pushing down the edge CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 57 of the pan at tlic side he cliooses, and in tliis way, hko tlie Syrian cultivators of Scripture, he waters his land ' with his foot.' The whole asfricultural and rural life of Provence has this charm of Scriptural associations. Eound the wells you see the tall ' reeds shaken with the wind.' There is, in bad weather, plenty of ' clay in the streets.' Yonder is the ' threshing-floor,' with its piles of golden maize ; oxen plough between the drills, and on that sunny bank a kneeling woman gathers into her apron the last ' shakiufT of olives.' There are ' rivers that run among the hills,' and then emerge into the ' green pastures,' where the shepherd as he walks leading his slieep ' carries a lamb in his bosom.' The ' waters wear away the stones,' but among the rocks there are ' veins of silver' ; and in the beds of the streams hungry, bare- foot children seek for ' dust of gold.' Across the moun- tains go ' paths which the vulture's eye hath not seen ' ; but in the low-lying valleys ' the wild olive ' is grafted, and the fruitful vine is pruned ' that it may bring forth more fruit.' There are' dev/s that lie all night upon tlie branches,' ' hoar frosts scattered like ashes,' thunders which are as ' the voice of His excellency,' ' bands of Orion ' across the midnight sky, and ' sweet influences of the Pleiades.' But there are also ' clouds which return after the rain.' There are flowers of the fields ' arrayed ' as Judean kings have never been, and ' grass of the field ' ruthlessly ' cut down and cast into the ovens.' There is ' wine that maketh glad the heart of man ' ; tliere are ' shadows of great rocks in a dry and thirsty place where no water is ' ; tliere are ' fenced cities ' set upon hills, 58 THE MARITIME ALPS. witli ' foundations ' in the living rock. Tliero arc ' floods that descend ' and find out the weak places in the ' bowing-out walls ' ; there are ' broken cisterns that can hold no water ' ; and in 'gardens of cucumbers' there are the gardeners' ' lodges,' while there are 'orchards of pomegranates, and of every pleasant fruit.' When spring returns there are 'almond-trees' that flourish, 'locusts and caterpillars' without number. The air is perfumed with ' cassia,' l)ut there are ' little foxes that spoil the grapes,' and many a ' pitcher broken at the fountain.' To make up for them we have ' the potter ' and his wheel ; in short, a whole world of Oriental images, brought here into daily life, and filling it with associa- tions and with charms. Provence is a country of extremes — of glaciers, and of sun-dried sands, of winters that are like summers, and of summers that make one regret the few showers of the winter. The same quantity of rain falls annually in Marseilles as in Paris, but in Paris the quantity is spread over one hundred and fifty days which in Marseilles floods the streets in fifty days. In Lontk)n, out of three hundred and sixty-five days, one hundred and seventy are days of such moisture as to deserve the name of ' Avet days.' In Edinburgh the number rises to two hundred and six, while in Dublin it exceeds even this liberal allowance. In Cannes the average never amounts to seventy, and Dr. de Valcourt, who has studied the subject carefully, rates the average over the whole Riviera at fifty- one wet days in the year. But the quantity of rain that falls during those fifty-one days is immense. The peasants are not satisfied unless it also CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 59 penetrates four metres into tlie soil, and tliey look for the early and the latter rains with the anxiety of persons who know that for the rest of the year tJiey nmst depend on the dews. Those are certainly abund- ant, and it is well that they are, for the climate of Provence is very much more arid than it used to be. Such an undesirable alteration has been brought about by a stupid destruction of the forests, which makes eva- poration too rapid, and causes the rain that does fall to run off too quickly. So long ago as 16G9, a royal edict, taking note of this danger, forbade the cutting of the woods en hlanc etoc, and they had begun to flourish again when they were in the eighteenth century de- preciated by those Economists, called physiocrates, who, like the elder Mirabean, wished to grow corn on every rood of eartli. The forests were encroached upon, and the ground so reclaimed put under cultivation. Then came the Eevolution, when the peasants, without sharing the theory of the philosophers, had a still more destructive practice, for they put their goats into the woods. Those little depredators soon nibbled and de- stroyed more trees than their owners felled with hatchets, and the combined effect was disastrous. The late Emperor Napoleon III. gave his attention to this subject, and the hills behind Nice have been all re- planted at his command, in the hope of rendering the climate less dry, and of preventing the dangerous floods which the autumnal rains were apt to produce in the district. The department of the Var remains the best wooded part of France, and in the Maritime Alps the rental of 6o THE MARITIME ALTS. the cork-trees is now large. These beautiful evergreens flourish wlierever they find a granitic soil, and along the Argentiere, as in the valley above Biot, they form groups that remind one of the wooded dells in the Campagna. It is estimated that over a thousand persons find employment in the trade to which their bark gives rise. A fine carouba tree, such as we see on the coast about Eza, represents a rental of forty francs per annum, but the principal riches of the Maritime Alps has, until the last half of this century, consisted in the olive-trees. All soils, except a marshy one, lend them- selves to this cultivation. There is a popular saying that on the same piece of ground as the best wine you may look for the best oil. There may be some truth in this ; but perhaps it only means that the olive is a very gross feeder, and that where it has been plentifully manured its neighbour the vine derives some accidental benefit. The olive is said to have been originally brought to this coast by the Greek traders, and the climate has certainly suited a tree which about Beaulieu attains to the most noble size. The wood, which is valuable, takes a high polish, and has created for Nice and Cannes a whole trade in mosaic furniture. The flowers, which are green and very insignificant, appear about Easter. The fruit hangs long on the trees, ripening slowly as it turns from green to a rich purplish black, and exposed therefore, not only to many changes of tempei-ature, but to the attacks of all sorts of insects. Of all its enemies the Cdiron is the most mischievous. It is a wicked, little, white worm, that lodging in the CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 6i pulp soon cats the olive hollow, and which in the last ten years has eaten up 40,000 francs worth of the olives of the arrondissement of Grasse. The Proven9al olives are never as large as the Spanish ones, but the oil given used to be very fine. The Nostrale is the kind on which the peasants of the Eiviera mostly rely, but the Columbano is also used at Nice for preserv- ing. The harvest, which begins in October, goes on to the end of March. The fruit when it has been beaten oil' the trees is gathered by women and children, and, after lying for some days in a cool place, is then sent, in sacks of 100 or of 200 kilos, to the mill. In a good year a tree ought to yield 9 kilos of olives and return about 9 kilos 500 grammes of oil. The best sort is dehghtful for the table, but many of the oils, especially those of Nice, are too rich in what is called muqueuse, and as such burn dimly, while they clog the wick unpleasantly. Nothing can be more pic- turesque than an oil mill, with its shadowy recesses, its deep jars that always seem to be waiting for Ali Baba, and its strange collection of sacks and weights and presses. But next to a perfume factory it is the most ill-smelling place conceivable, whether you stand inside, where the golden oil runs drop by drop from under the horsehair presses, or outside, by the tanks where the refuse festers in the sun. This unpleasant- looking, dark green stulT is, as it hardens, broken up into cakes which are dug out and sold as manure, returnino- therefore, very possibly, in this shape to the roots of the same trees which originally furnished its materials. The crushed stones, or grainols, are a cheap fuel much used 62 THE MARITIME ALPS. by tlie bakers for their ovens, l)ut tliey are the terror of tlie laundresses, as the least mixture of this oily refuse is ruin to the wood ash wliich is so constantly used here instead of soap. Nothino- can be more beautiful than the view from the town of Grasse, over miles of these olive-trees, of which the pale grey-green foliage forms a quiet-toned backo-round for the sunburnt limestones, the red roofs, the clumps of Aleppo pines, and the beautiful Catalpa trees. The hues of the olive have puzzled artists, whether the trees be looked at in the cool tints of early morning or in the bronzed beauty of the afterglow. Each pabiter has his own way of handling them. One Avill deal espe- cially with the angularity of their branches and the roughness of their trunks ; another with the airy, smoke-like delicacy of their masses in middle distance ; a third will handle them cleverly in clumps, wdiile a fourth, using their masses as part of the lines of his composi- tion, does no more than justice to the part which they play in the landscapes of the south. Yet the difficulty has never really been overcome, and only an approxi- mate success has been gained by anyone over trees so intangible in their beauty. Seen by moonlight they seem to belong to fairyland, wdiile even in the noonday their stems have shadows so sharp as to recall all the pathos of the moonliglit in Gethsemane. At once light and massive, at once changeful and evergreen, the olive is like nothing but itself, as it flowers and fruits in its perpetual peace. After the olive comes the vine. The plant is as old as the world, and as new as the gladness which it CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 63 daily ])uls into the hearts of men. It is the most beau- tiful thiiiL>- that o-rows when it is left to ramble from tree to tree ; its very tendrils are scented, its autumn leaves are stained amber and orange and crimson, and when its faggots come to die on the hearth they do so at last in ' aromatic pain.' Yet it leads a hard life : — We shall see its way is not of pleasure or of ease. .... The fruit begins Almost before the flower has had its day : Even as it grows it is not free to heaven, But tied to a stake, and if its arms stretch out It is but crosswise, also forced and bound — And so it drains, out of the hard hillside Fixed in its own place, the food of life — And quickens with it, breaking forth in bud Joyous, and green, and exquisite in form. Wreathed lightly into tendrils, leaf and bloom. Yea, the grace of the green vine makes all the land Lovely in springtime. . . . But so they leave it not — the husbandman Comes early, with the pruning-hooks and shears, And strips it bare of all its innocent pride And wandering garlands, cutting deep and sure. Unsparing for its tenderness or joy. Then in its loss and pain it wastetli not ; But lends itself, in unabated life, More perfect under the despoiling hand : The bleeding limbs are hardened into fruit. Then comes the vintage, for the days are ripe, And surely now, in its perfected bloom, It may rejoice a little in its crown. Though it Ijend low beneath the Aveight of it Wrought out of the long strivings of its heart — But, ah ! the hands are ready to tear down The treasures of the grapes : the feet are there To tread them in the winepress gathered in. 64 THE MARITIME AIPS. Until the blood-red rivers of the wine Run over, and the land is full of joy. But the vine standeth, stripped and hare, Having given all : and now its own dark time is come^ And no man payeth back to it The comfort or the glory of its gift. But rather now, most merciless, all pain And loss are piled together, as its days Decline, and the spring sap has ceased to flow. Now is it cut back to the very stem, Despoiled, disfigured, left a leafless stock. Alone, thro' all the dark days that shall come — - And all the winter-time the wine gives joy To those who else were dismal in the cold. But the vine standeth out among the fi'ost, And, has only this praise left, after all. That it endures, in long lone steadfastness. The winter thro' — and next year blooms again, Not bitter for the torment undergone, Not barren for the fulness yielded up, As fair and fruitful towards the sacrifice. As if no touch had ever come to it But the soft airs of heaven and dews of earth : And so fulfils itself in love once more. I speak to those who suffer : they will know. Better than I, the whole deep truth of it ! Measure thy life by loss instead of gain. Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth, For Love's strength standeth in Love's sacrifice. And whoso suflTers most, has most to give.' The vine flowers in April, and is therefore only too certain to fall a victim to the lune roiis.se,, to the moon after the Paschal one, so a})t to come with sharp frosts and blighting winds to ruin the prospect of the year. ^ llie Disciples, a poem by IT. E. H. King. CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 65 Even if the vines and the walnuts do not siifler diirin<»- lier reign, which corresponds to the 'bhickthorn winter' of onr Enghsh experience, there are other dangers signalled all along the calendar of the Frencli spring. There are the redoubtable ' Saints vendam/eurs,' St. Croizet, who is commemorated on the 3rd of May, St. Colniet on the 9t]i of the month, and St. Urbinet on the 25t]i, and who, as Ins fete falls the latest, is tlie last and w^orst enemy of the vine. If there be frost on that day, the case is indeed a bad one for vines that ah'eady on the 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th were re- minded of St. Mamert, St. Pancrace, St. Gervais, and St. Pacome, all grouped under the unpleasant head of ' les saints de (jlace.'' A vineyard that has been blackened is indeed a sad siglit, but there are seasons in which all goes well till tlie so-called faux boun/eons wave ready to be pruned. At this moment the plant is most luxu- riant, but as its strength is needed for its fruit-bunches, these superfluous branches with their wandering ten- drils are all condemned. I have watched tlie process in tlie vineyards of Dauphiny and Savoy. When the last bundle of fragrant leafage has been carried away, probably on the head of the master's daughter, it is her business to plant a small, white wooden cross among her vines, and then, closing the gate, to leave them to God and the sun. The gate will not be opened again till October, wlien all the merry vintagers troop in. If they are merry then or not depends on the thunder- storms of tlie summer, for a vineyard that has been grelee is even a sadder sight than one which has been frosted. F 66 THE MARITIME ALPS. Sonic afternoon a storm comes beating up against the wind, and breaks overhead, with flashes and crashes, and such a rattle of liail as makes the heart of tlic hindh)r(l die witliin liim. When the storm has I'oUed away he goes out to judge of its work. Alas ! alas ! the path from his vineyard is still i-unning like a river, and a bowing-out wall having fallen into the roadway, he need go no farther to get a sight of the vines. They are all tangled and ravelled, and drenched and hashed, and look as if a park of artillery had been driven over them. A week hence they will look even worse, for the scorchino' and reddeninoj of the leaves will then show how the sudden chill and the evaporation, after the touch of the ice, have checked the sap and circulation of the plant. In fact the wine-growers of France have many troubles, and between cold and bad seasons, hailstorms and phylhKvera, their property has of late undergone a deterioration which has reduced many /^ affluent families to the condition of Irish landlords. The department of the Maritime Alps has some very fine vineyards, though here too didium and i?hylloxera have touched their health. The vineyards are treated witli sulpliate of carbon, and Avith a nuinure of potass which has l)cen found useful. The labonr of so dressing an infected vineyard is paid by the State, the proprietor ])aying only for the chemicals employed. Two Ameri- can vines, called here 'Eiparia' and ' Jacquet,' are gene- I'ally proof against the teeth of the phylloccera, and the black Catawba grape, the one which has a smell of I'aspbei-ries, and which covers the Crimean slopes, is now largely cultivated for ihe same reason in tlie CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 67 canton of Nice. But its juice can only be used to mix with other wines, a process always largely resorted to here where the country produces so little wine that for seven out of the twelve montlis of the year it has to rely on the produce of other countries. The best red wine is that of Bellet near Nice, and the best white ones are those of Gillette and La Gaude. It is also good at Pegomas, where a spur of the hills comes down into the broad alluvial valley which the Mourachone waters. I have often drunk this wliite wine, which the mistress of the beautiful farm of Terres-Blanches calls Oros, because the dairette grape from whi(^li it is made grows on the rocks above Pegomas. The process of making a Avhite wine is always a tedious one, requiring greater care than the preparation of a red wine, and there is the fear that a second fermentation setting in inoppor- tunely may turn the wjiole cask sour. It requires to be racked and cleared very often, and the waste en- tailed during the repetition of this process makes the wine dearer. White Avine will seldom fetch less than from eighteen to twenty pence a litre, while a very good red wine can be drunk, and is drunk in my house, at seven pence the litre. So much for wine and oil. Now for the corn. Through all the winter days we have seen it pushing bravely in the httle fields, drilled in between the vines and the beans, and sheltered by a network of peach- and almond-trees, from which, wdien spring appears, there Avill drop a rosy snow. What would our Nortliern farmers not give to have anything like these tall, fresh green stalks, in all their F 2 68 THE MARITIME AITS. healthy straightness of growth, which liave feared no winter's rages, and wliich will be ripe for the sickle before the 20th of June ? But on the other hand the ]S"orthern farmer would be scandalised at tliese weeds, at the sword lilies and tlie liemlock, and the big arum leaves, and tlie clumps of borage which adorn the fields. Then sowing and reaping as practised in Provence would strike him as very ai'cliaic. And so they are. Machinery for agricultural purposes is un- known, and broad-footed oxen tread out the grain on a paved tlireshing-floor, to which not even the authority of Scripture could now reconcile a Scotcli bailiff. Yet he would Ijc quite mistaken if he despised the Provencal farmer, even in departments where la petite culture prevails. Every means for increasing the fer- tility of the soil is known and practised, and the small farmer who can ])roduce wlieat, maize, pulse, grapes, figs, ahnonds, peaches, liemp, tobacco, and fiax, along Avith ])luuis, mulberries, liaricots, madder, roses, arti- chokes, and green peas, must be allowed to be a ]ierson of no common experience and ingenuity. Tn the arrondisseinent of Nice tlie wlieat represents a money value of about 50,000 francs, but the rpiantity gi'own is not suflic^icnt to ])r()vi(le for the p()])ulation during eight months of the year. In this way the numeraire of the district (grossly augmented as that annually is by the influx of strangers) does not remain in the country, but leaves it to purchase the bread re- quired for daily consumption. It appears therefore that, in spite of the perpetual sunshine which settles on il, llio districl of the Maritime Al]is is a poor one, nor CORN, WINE, AND OIL. 69 is there any promise of a golden age for agriculture. Quite the reverse. Wheat, which it costs forty francs to produce here, can be bought on the quay of Marseilles at thirty-five francs, and that after the freight from America, and the duty, and the octroi de la ville have all three been paid. This fact is the death-knell of such Proven(j'al farmers whose fields lie in a zone higher than that which can grow oranges, lemons, or flowers for the perfume trade. The taxes are already a fifth of their rental, and the land is no doubt mort- gaged for another fifth, so that, considering the rising- price of labour, the prospects of the agricultural class may be said to be as gloomy here as they are in Great Britain. I have hitherto spoken, however, only of the case of the landowner ; it remains for me to speak of the farmer, and of the husbandman — to whom the ground does not belong, and who have to I'eckon with a land- lord. 70 THE MARITIME ALPS. CHAPTER Y. ON THE FARMS. 'The distribution of a number of small properties among the peasantry forms a kind of rampart and safeguard for the holders of large estates : a peasant propertj' may, without exaggeration, he called the lightning-conductor that averts fi-om society dangers which might otherwise lead to violent cata- strophes.' — E. DE Laveleye. Peasant proprietors were by no means unknown in France before the Revolution, and in Provence they not only did exist but they also suffered less from the pressure of the feudal system than in the northern districts of the kingdom. During the Crusades, and during the wars of the Countesses, the great lords could not pretend to cultivate their estates. Nor as time went on did it become more possible for them to do so. The family of Grasse, for example, held forty fiefs; tlie Yilleneuves spread all along tlie coast from the Var to Hyeres, and tlie barons of liuux, who held lands from Aries to Ventimigha, were the masters of seventy-nine cities, known as les places Baussenques. Such proprietors thought of no- thing so little as of turning tlieir swords into plougli- sliares, but they liit on the plan of giving grants of land to tlieir luniiiiu's, or dependants. Tlie grants to these ca.slan.s were of two kinds : either in franc-alleu, or subject to the cens — a duty paid yearly, but to be levied also whenever the ground changed hands, by barter, by ON THE FARMS. 71 sale, or by death. These hommes for centuries have cropped the soil and built the terraces of Provence, and have drawn from the gronnd a livelihood which their superiors, lay or clerical, taxed more or less heavily. The feudal rights of tlie lords were too many and too complicated to be all enumerated here. They comprised the corvee, or forced labour on the lands of tlie supe- riors ; liability to military service, not always for de- fensive purposes only, and an obligation to grind their corn at their lord's mill, and to bake tlieir bread at the banal oven. Peasants sometimes paid in money, sometimes in fridt, or in hens, and while the Abbot of the Lerins took every alternate basket of iigs, the Villeneuves of Vence liad a disagreeable way of asking for one pig out of every two. There were also tolls and ferry dues — a penny a foot for every horse or mule ; and there was a hard law forbidding the cen- sitaires to sell their wine so long as the lord's wine remained unsold. Yet the censitaires held on for centuries, and, except when a war or a pestilence decimated their numbers, they made a living of it as best they might. They even bought land occasionally, for they could raise money from the Jews and Lombards on the unexceptionable security of their real property. The Italian colonists settled l3y the Prior of the Lerins at Vallauris, and those whom the Bishop of Vence originally planted at Biot, held grants of land on the most favourable terms, so that small holdings cannot be said to have been created in Provence by the Eevolu- tion. What it really did was, iirst, to increase tlieir num- 72 l^HE MARITIME ALPS. bers. and, secondly', to free them fi'oiii t]ie cruel exac- tions and restrictions of feudal tenure. Out of the proprietors in France M. Leonce de Lavergne used to reckon that 5,000,000 were rural owners, and about 4,000,000 were actual cultivators of the soil. Of these 3,000,000 possess, on an average, a hectare^ or nearly two and a half acres of land. It is easy to see how the freedom of such a farmer makes all the difierence to him between comfort and starvation. It has been calculated here, in Maritime Provence, that every grain of corn must bring forth threefold before it represents the bare equivalent of the seed and time bestowed on it. Supposing tlie retura to be only threefold, the revenu net would tlien be none at all. Supposing it to be fourfold, tliere would still be l)ut little margin left for tlie husbandman. The royal taxes (reckoned by so iw^ny feux in each canton) had first to be paid, and tlien there was the dime of the C^liurch, and hnall}^ the feudal dues, from the cens on tlie land down to the baking of tlie loaf. But the peasant proprietor of to-day has only the first of tliese burdens to bear. The taxes are heavy — about a fifth of the annual value of his farm, but for the rest he may manage as he thinks best. If the harvests are bad then he and his must live more meagrely, and themai'ri- agesofhis children must be postponed, but if a good year comes, if corn and wine and oil are plentifid, then he is master of his own gains, lie has seed-corn to sell, he has no arrears, and if he has not got a lawsuit on hand, he can put by some money, and forget the leanness of past seasons. ON THE FARMS. 73 Almost every peasant lias, or has liad, or is going to ]iave, a lawsuit. Sit, as I liave clone, sketcliing for lialf a day on the doorstep of a notary's office, and you will be surprised to see the number of feet that cross his tlireshold. Needless to say that these litigious habits lead to debt, and that many of the small holdings of France are already mortgaged up to one-fifth of tlieir value. If to this amount of debt overhead aii)^ peasant happens to add heavily in his own case, it is easy to see that bankruptcy is not far below the horizon of practi- cal politics for him. At the best of times a very strict econoni}'- is required ^ to make the ends meet,' and it is a question whether, as education spreads and the wants taught by education increase, the class of peasant ])ro- prietors will remain such as it now is. It could not, if it were not that the wants of others are increasing at a still more rapid pace, and that the demand for what a little farm can supply makes the farmer more sure of a sale for his calf, his eggs, his grapes, and his carrots. This is his great opportunity, and it is one which might make his fortune if the movement of modern life did not also reach to his own threshold, and had not sometimes crossed it. The passionate chase after money, and those material pleasures which money can buy, is already spreading downwards from the hourgeoisie, and botli debt and lieart-burnings appear in many liumble homes. Jean and Marguerite Firniin could tell you something about all that. They have lived long and liappil}^ on their farm where their little inn was so popular that their wine needed no bush under the creaking; sig-n of the Cheval Blanc. It is true that the doorstep has a 74 THE MARITIME AIFS. pool of very dii't}' water in front of it, that there are sacks of grain on tlie landiiitj-, and tliat a lot of feathers in a sliallow basket shows the fate of tlie little white cockerel newly killed for yonr dinner. But the kitchen is a w^arm place, a savoury mess of polenta smokes on the board, and a bit of meat is stewing on the lire. (31d Jean lias grown stifi'witli rheumatism, but lie has a good face, and his old woman looks at liim with kind and anxious eyes. A young woman, Avith a handker- chief tied round her head, waits sulkily on the carters who are at table. That is their daugliter-in-law — one of the new school. She has a bonnet and white stock- ings in a box upstairs ; she dislikes the farm, and tlie chickens, and tlie barn wliere the golden straw is stacked, and most of all she dislikes exerting herself in the house, while her husband is in the field, and his parents are too infirm to w^ork as they used to do. Madame Fanchette is a fine lady in her w^ay. The last time I saw her was at the little station at St. ; the handkerchief had disappeared, she was, as the Italians say, veo ijarfumeur de la royne ; and again of a certain Tombarel, who called himself ' of Florence,' because these men were, in the matter of their art, proud to ])rofess themselves disciples of those perfumers of Florence to whom the Medici Avere wont to resort for their perfumed or poisoned gloves. Tan- gier, the perfumer to Louis XYL, lived in the house 86 THE MARITIME ALPS. Avliicli is now the Hotel de la PosLe, but the expansion of the llower trade of Grasse since the Revolution is entirely owing to the initiative of M. Perolle. This generous citizen, the same who presented the Eubens pictures ^ to the chapel of the Hospital, sent two boxes of his wares to Paris, and from this timid venture com- menced the trade Avith the capital and with Europe. Grasse now coins money from flowers, and she will con- tinue to do so through her flowers, after American wheat has undersold the corn, and phylloxera ravaged the wine, and disease diminished the oil of the district lying between the Siagne and the Var, The burghers of Grasse are very wealthy, and fortunes are being made rapidly, to say nothing of those which have accumulated here since the days of the consular city. This is in fact one of the most flourish- ing towns in France, nor does it require a prophet's eye to foretell that Grasse must continue to prosper. As the sea-winds dcj not reacli ii]) to its esplanade, it will become a health-station, and there are many delightful expeditions to be made from it. If you choose to go in a southerly direction, you can drive to Mouans, with its modernised castle : or to Sartoux, with its Eoman ruins : or to Pegomas, with its anemones : or to Penna- fort on the Loup. You can also go eastwards — to Tourretes, with its mills: to tlie gorges of tlie Loup, to Gourdon on its crag, or to Le liar, the cradle of the Counts of Grasse. All these expeditions among uj)- ' Three line .specinieus of Rubens' early style, painted in 1G02, tor a (•(tnsent cliurcli in Rome when the artist was twenty-live yeai's of age, and wlicii his colouring was still thai of his master, Otto Venius. 'I'licy wen' jiainted in three iiKuitlis. GRASSE. 87 turned ledges of limestone, wooded dells and vawniii<>- gorges are enchanting. No winds blow, and the soft air breathes through the j^ines while the sunshine glorifies the ruins and the little, tortuous streets. What is more, tliese excursions are fitted for persons of moder- ate strength and moderate means, but enterprising tourists miglit by passing westwards do greater deeds than these. They might explore Cabris, and the grot- toes of St. Cesaire, or the sources of the Siagne, and the native camps of St. Vallier, There are also the ruins of Cahan and of Montaroux, the oak forest of Beauregard, and the bridge and mill of Mons in tlie gorge of the Siagnole. There is the Eochetaillee to be seen, and the Clus de St. Auban, the Eoman villa at St. Ferreol, and the little summer-stations of Thorenc and Brian^on to frequent. Any traveller who explores this country will be well repaid, whether his hobby be ruins, or sketches of ruins, or deep, shadowy glens with river- pools, or fragrant meadows, or hedges of medlars and jessamine, whether he seek for vestiges of the Tem- plars, or for such strange Orchis as the 0. hircina, the 0. militaria, and the 0. albida. But to-day, instead of going so far afield, let us remain in Grasse. Let us drink of the well of Crassus, and stand under the gaunt vigie., mount the stone stair of the palace of the fair Queen ' Jeanno,' and pray in the chapel adorned by Bishop Mesgrigny, and tliink how Vauban planned the steps up to the western front of the church. Let us visit the dwellings of a dead-and- gone society, and go down to the gloomy Villa Malvilan to see the Fragonards, and turn over the dusty records 88 THE MARITIME ALPS. of tlie Consuls par la r/rdce de Dieii, and then, when the dayhght fails, let us pace the Cours, and listen to big ' Martin ' as lie makes the evening air and all tlie woods quiver witli his heavy stroke, of which the blow and the echo keej:) sounding above the town hke the vibra- tions of prayer through the human heart. The possession of these Fragonards will some day be disputed witli Grasse, for the Louvre is very anxious to possess such fine examples of a master who, if born in Grasse, seemed to realise in his talent all the grace and all the sparkle of the society of the eighteenth cen- tury. They certainly look a little out of keeping with the dark corner in which tliey now reside, but the Villa Malvilan is well worth a visit, and so is the Hotel Mira- beau. Another great town-house, near Negre's shop, is now a school, but tlie house of the conventionist Isnard may still be seen in the Place des Aires. It is always easily recognised by its balcony, an interesting piece of liammer-wrought iron, which Isnard was profane enough to have stolen out of a church. The town-house of the Counts of Grasse no longer exists, and the family has disappeared from the district in which they once held over forty fiefs. To say no- thing of a supposed descent from Ehodoard, Prince of Antibes, tliis family of Grasse is interesting from its alliances and from its distribution over the country. The names of twenty-eight of the Counts figure in Vertot's list of the Knights of Malta, where we read of the Lords of Grasse-Bar, Grasse-Cabris, Grasse- Valette, Grasse-Mouans, Grasse-Montaroux, Grasse-St.-Tropez, and Grasse-Brianron. The first-meiitioiu'd of tliese may GI^ASSE. 89 be looked upon as the elder or representative brancli of this lordly house. Eaimbaud de Grasse obtained pos- session of the fief of Bar in 1255, and it is from his grandson that the many cadets de la maison derive their lines. The castle of Bar is still an imposing mass, though the rooms in which Francis I. once spent three days are now used for a cafe. It was on the occa- sion of the kind's return from visitinsj the lands of his Savoisienne mother that Francis lionoured with a visit this Provencal noble who was actually his cousin, through a marriage with a daughter of the house of Foix. This connection with ro3'alty if it procured the excitement and expense of a royal visit for tlie lord of Bar did nothing more for tlie stability of the house. Nor did the Counts of Grasse ever possess rights over the town. Charters dating from the days of the Berengers, and of the magnificent ' Jeanno,' liad ever served to pro- tect it from the exactions of feudal neiGchbours who were not allowed to play any great pait in its local history. The branch of Grasse-Cabris, after giving an abbot to the Lerins in 1477, died out, in 1691, in the person of the Abbot of I'Enfourchere, and Cabris was then acquired by the Clapiers, who had been in Provence for more than three centuries, and who were alread}^ related to the Grasse family by marriage. It is rather a ques- tion who was not ? Glandeves and Castellane, Grimaldi and Lascaris, Barras and Villeneuve, d'Agoult and Lombard — we find all these great Provenyal names in the list of the alliances of a family which, just before its extinction, could boast of one of the bravest of 90 THE MARITIME ALPS. Freiicli seamen. Tlie family is now re])resented by a solitary individual. This grandson of tlie Admiral's is an officer of marines, and at the time of the Washing- ton banquet he was nnich surprised to receive an invi- tation, and to find that his presence, like that of a descendant of Lafayette,^ was desired by America. He learnt then that the gallantry of the Admiral Joseph de Grasse-Brian9on has never been forgotten by the republic of the West, to which he lent such great and timely support. When Grasse was inhabited by the local nobility it was further removed from the trade and movement of the world, but on the other hand life there must have been more full of incidents than it is now. At this moment the chief events are perhaps a rise in the price of cassia, or a fall in the price of soap, the nomination of a new houh- prefet (which happens at least once a year), or the death of an asthmatic Canon, or the news telegraphed to the ci\ il authorities that a celebrated Fenian has just been traced to an hotel in Cannes. But when Marie-Catherine- Louise de Mirabeau, Marquise de Cabris, reigned in that big, dark house near the steps up to the Cours, which is still known as the Hotel Mirabeau, life never lacked for incidents, or for scandals. Louise was the youngest and the fairest of the sisters of the orator. She had the same gift of eloquence, the same })ower of attracting friends and of making enemies, the same shamelessness, and the same restless energy. Her eldest sister was a nun in a convent at Montargis, and the othoi-, Madame de Sailhins, had less singular gifts than Louise, or indeed ' The late amiaLle Mai'(|uis, Jules de Lasteyrie. GJ^ASSE. 91 than lier parents, who had made all Europe ring with the story of their unseemly disputes. Louise, when quite a girl, was married to an un- suitable mate, to Jean-Paul de Clapiers, Marquis de Cabris, son of a sharp-tempered old marquise who lived in the town-house of the family, and who had no reason to be proud of her descendant. Part knave and part fool, the vices and the unhallowed imaginations of this Marquis Jean-Paul sometimes culminated in attacks of genuine insanity. His marriage with a girl who joined all the violence of the Mirabeau to all the licence of the Vassans was very unfortunate, and not likely to be mended either by the amours of Louise with a certain unqualifiable scamp, Denis-Jean- Augustin de Janserandy de Verdache, co-seigneur de Brian^on, or yet by the ap- pearance in Grasse of her brother the orator. Honore de Mirabeau, aged twenty-four, and already married, was at that moment under a cloud, and supposed to be living under a lettre de cachet in the dull, little town of Manosque, near the paternal acres and the castle of Mirabeau. He suddenly broke out of bounds, and presented himself at his sister's house. When, two days later, the walls of Grasse were found placarded with an indecent squib at the expense of all the ladies of the neighbourhood, it was not unnatural that its publication should be connected in men's minds with the advent of one more of those children of wliom their father, the Marquis de ]\iirabeau, once declared that ' there never had been anything seen like them.' All Grasse discussed the lampoon ; the lawyers on the Coui's foretold the causes ceVebres that could not fail to arise from it, and even the nuns behind the 92 THE MARITIME ALPS. cirilles, who ought to liiive known better, specuhited as to its aiitliorsliip. M. de Yilleneuvc-Mouans said tliat, in his opinion, no one could have been guilty of it but ' Miraheau et sa triste sveur.'' The brother and sister, who Avere in truth as much surprised at it as their neighbours, determined to be revenged on tlie man who made so free with tlieir names. Wliat they determined to do liad to be done quickly, for Ilonore was not onl}^ in fhigrant riqdiire de ban, l)ut l)ouiid on another errand of some moment in tlie neighbourhood. He had really come to the south to see if he could not arrange a marriage between a Made- moiselle de Villeneuve Tourretes and a man of the name of Gassaud, wdiom he suspected, rightlj" or wrongly, of an admiration for his own wife, iiee Mademoiselle de Mari