It were to be wished on many accounts, that the French government would keep their galley-slaves as much out of sight as they do their arsenal. Under the ancient regime, these unfortunate creatures were only employed in the works of the latter place, which they never left; but under the present system, those only who are condemned for life are so treated, and the rest are employed in different parts of the port, where they perform the work of horses, in the most public manner, chained by the leg in pairs. Some were drawing timber, and stone carts; and others, rather more favoured, were laying the pavement of the pier, with a single heavy iron link on one leg. How far economy may justify this arrangement, or whether the exposure of incorrigible offenders may answer as a public example, it is not for a mere visitor to determine; but certainly a plan more adapted to deaden and sear the sense of shame which may still remain in them, and brutalize their minds by constant irritation, can hardly be devised. The mildness and temper with which the guard and superintendants appear to behave is not likely to counteract sufficiently the effect of the constant gaze of passengers, a circumstance which to judge by one's own sensations must tend to stifle those feelings of repentance which solitary confinement naturally induces, and harden every manly particle of the mind into rebellion. It is hard to reproach them with the natural effects of this rough mode of regeneration; but I think I never saw a worse or more obdurate set of countenances. One fellow in particular, when civilly directed by the overseer to change the position of a stone, gave him a look of deadly malignity when his back was turned, which reminded me strongly of the look of Kemble in Zanga, while pronouncing the emphatic "Indeed!" Strange as it may appear, we were informed that there were several colonels, generals, priests, and men who could afford to spend 300 francs a day, among this body. These contrive, it seems, by bribery, to procure more variety of food than the bread, soup, and vegetables, which are the regular allowance; and are permitted to purchase better linen than the ordinary convicts; but the dress and regulations are to outward appearance the same in all. Those condemned for military insubordination are marked by a bullet round their necks, and the convicts cast for life by a green cap. The individuals whose term of confinement is nearly expired wear only an iron ring round the ankle, as it is presumed they will not incur the penalty of fifty blows and three years additional confinement by an attempt to escape: there are others, however, sentenced for five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and these are heavily ironed and more strictly watched.
A detachment of the celebrated Thibet goats, who are to make the fortune of the French shawl-manufacturers, is now in harbour, and others are performing quarantine at Marseilles. The specimen of their fleece which was shown us, resembles the coat of the musk ox. The wool of which the shawls are made grows at the roots of the longer hair, and is of a warm and delicately fine texture; a circumstance which should seem to prove these animals natives of the cold and mountainous districts of Thibet, and capable by dint of British skill and enterprise, of being naturalized in our own country.
[CHAP. XII]
FREJUS—CANNES—ISLE OF ST. MARGUERITE—ANTIBES.
May 27.—From Toulon to Puget les Crottes, 23 miles. On passing the small town of La Valette, from which the road to Hieres diverges, the mountain barrier under which Toulon is situated ends abruptly in a precipice, fortified by a strong redoubt. From this spot a detachment of the combined forces were driven by the republicans, who scaled the rock during the night at the most imminent risk; and the evacuation of Toulon was the ultimate consequence of this daring coup de main, in which Buonaparte is said to have first distinguished himself. After passing this point, and leaving on the right the distant hills of Hieres, no remarkable feature presents itself. The country is chiefly an extensive olive forest, varied by a few vineyards, and enlivened by hedges of pomegranate, and Spanish broom. We found Puget les Crottes but a bad exchange for the fountains, and clean airy streets of Toulon: and it better deserves the name of Puget le Crotté, by which it is laid down by some mistake in some maps. The inn was perfectly worthy of the place; a frowzy kennel of bustling Yahoos, totally deficient in that readiness and attention which can put a reasonable traveller in good humour with the worst accommodations. Our servant fought his way to the kitchen fire to execute our orders; finding them neither attended to by the old dame who presided in the kitchen, of whom Gil Blas's Leonarda was a faint type, nor by the maid who screamed rejoinders at the top of the stairs, to the ravings of her mistress at the bottom, in a tone that deafened us. The arrival of the Draguignan diligence, which we had passed on the road, heavily laden with money and passengers, and travelling at a foot pace, escorted like a condemned cart by two gens d'armes, accounted for this mighty sensation. We were glad enough to escape from the din of tongues and the steams of garlic, and resume our road, which did not offer any variety, till we had nearly reached La Luc, 17 miles from Puget, whose situation and red sandy soil reminded us of a Herefordshire glen. The junction of two main roads has created a tolerable inn at this small place, which may with safety be recommended to persons on an abstemious regimen, and to none else.
May 28.—To La Muy 19 miles, without any remarkable feature, though the character of the country is rather pleasing. La Muy is a wretched village, whose tout ensemble is completed by a ruinous house of the Count de Muy: this, as well as his castle at Grignan, was destroyed in the Revolution, and the annexed property alienated from him. To Frejus 12 miles: the few last of which improve as to scenery. We saw cork trees for the first time, and a profusion of myrtle in hedges and bushes. There is something peculiarly stagnant and wo-begone in the appearance of Frejus, which, however, is in more strict poetical character with its Roman ruins, than the populous and wealthy streets of Nismes would be. The inn where we dined and slept preserved the same character most rigidly; indeed, Madame, whose ideas seemed perfectly in unison with those of mine hostess of La Luc, wished apparently that our feast at Forum Julii should be entirely intellectual, and that we should rise from dinner with unclouded heads, to enjoy a walk among its antiquities. We were really diverted by the formal parsimony with which the good woman had contrived to invent a dinner for four, out of what would have hardly have sufficed as a whet to an English farmer. Were I blest with the culinary accuracy of the facetious Christopher North, or his friend Dr. Morris, I could better record a bill of fare which would form a complete contrast to the vaunted luxuries of their inspiring deity, Mr. Oman of Edinburgh. Suffice it, as a specimen, that three pettitoes of an unfortunate roasting-pig, or rather pigling, which I fear must have died a natural death, formed the most substantial part of our repast.
The amphitheatre of Frejus, to pass to a more dignified subject, is situated without the walls of the town, on the side by which we had entered from Toulon; and is sufficiently perfect to be interesting, though it must suffer by a comparison with the better known, and finer specimens of the same sort which exist. There is also a temple, and an arch, the latter known by the name of the Porte Dorée, neither of which possesses any thing remarkable when compared with the ruins of Nismes and Orange. The aqueduct built by Vespasian, and situated to the north-east of the town, is on a more extensive scale, and taken with its concomitants, better merits the attention of a painter: even when viewed from under the walls of Frejus, which it adjoins at one end, it possesses as sombre a character of repose as Poussin could have wished, and which is unbroken by the intervention of mean houses, and busy figures. Its scattered groupes recede from the eye up a solitary valley, interspersed with clumps of olive trees, and backed by pine forests, and the foreground derives a degree of wildness from the profusion of Spanish broom of an unusual size and beauty, with which its scattered blocks are fringed. We walked also to the small village of St. Raphael, a mile or two from the town, which is the modern port of Frejus, and stands in what was formerly the main sea; while the Pharos which marked the entrance of the ancient harbour is now surrounded by an alluvial meadow, and in place of the numerous vessels which must have crowded the ancient quay, a brig, and two or three feluccas, were quietly at anchor. A change like this, of the very soil, and local features, speaks more strongly to the imagination than the most mighty and extensive ruins.
29th.—We rose at a very early hour to pursue our route,
——for our sleep
Was airy light, from pure digestion bred,
And temperate vapours bland,