Whatever be the fate in store for these provinces, no impartial mind can deny them, in common with the three other States of Central Italy, where an analogous line of conduct has been held, a just title to the respect and admiration of posterity.
CHAPTER XXXI.
The English Community of Nice—A Pleasant Meeting—The Corniche Road—The Smallest Sovereignty in the World—An Oppressive Right of the Prince—Rumoured Negotiation—Rencontre with Pilgrims—An Old Genoese Villa—A Piedmontese Dinner—The Culture of Lemon Trees—Piedmontese Newspapers—The Towers of the Peasantry—Cultivation of the Olive and the Fig-tree—Popular Mode of Fishing.
Not very long ago I was at Nice—beautiful Nice, with its wondrous skies and sapphire-like sea; its olive woods, and palms, and aloes; its mountains, luxurious valleys, and rich pasture-lands; and yet I was not content. When from the scenery around I turned to examine Nice itself—when, after paying a due tribute of admiration to the country thus lavishly endowed, I sought to learn something of its inhabitants, their customs, their social life, my dissatisfaction commenced. There seemed no individuality in this town; no leading features among its population. I found no interior to peep into, no traits of national character to record.
Nice takes its tone from the English and French, Bavarians and Russians, who make it their winter residence; the English influence, however, being predominant, as is evidenced by the number of British comforts and indispensabilities our country-people have introduced; English bathing-machines on the sunny beach; English goods and warehouses at every turning; chemists' shops, complete in all their time-honoured insignia; stay-makers to royal English duchesses; English groceries, hosiery, baby-linen; all are here to be found, besides English clubs, English doctors, English agency-offices—in fact, every imaginable device wherewith John Bull delights to surround himself when abroad.
Now all this may be very delightful, but it is certainly not instructive; and to those who think some improvement may be gleaned from foreign travel beyond seeing all the sights and taking all the drives set down in Murray's Handbook, it is particularly annoying to find themselves in a society where the prejudice and party-spirit, gossip and twaddle, into which a number of idle people must inevitably fall, are actively at work; within whose circles a native is rarely seen, and where a total indifference as to the history or condition of the country where they are sojourning is displayed. I was beginning to fret under this exclusiveness, and was endeavouring to resign myself to the conviction that my visit to Nice would be barren of reminiscence, when my good genius came to my aid, and one day, on the Promenade des Anglais, brought me face to face with the Comtesse de Laval, a Piedmontese widow lady I had known two or three years previously in Tuscany. She had lately come with her brother, a veteran general, who had lost an arm in the campaigns of '48-49 against the Austrians, to reside on some property they had purchased in the neighbourhood. It was a most charming rencontre for me; and they really seemed so cordial, that, making all requisite allowances for Italian exaggeration, I could not but believe the pleasure was mutual. The comtesse's first inquiry was if I were a fiancée, for in this respect all Italians are alike—Piedmontese or Neapolitans, from the north or from the south, they equally consider matrimony the sole object of a woman's life. Disappointed at my reply, she glanced nervously round to see whether I was unattended; but the sight of a servant reassured her, while I vainly attempted to demonstrate that my advancing years would speedily render any escort superfluous.
With a fixed determination to defer to the vassalage under which she considered I ought to be restricted, she begged me to take her to call upon the friends with whom I was staying, in order to proffer a request that I might be permitted to accompany her for a few days to her brother's villa at Latte, some thirty miles' distance from Nice—her own house in the vicinity being under repair. We were all amused at the stately old lady's punctilio; but the kind invitation, it is needless to say, was willingly accepted, and an early day appointed to set out.
Everybody has heard of the Corniche Road—the Riviera di Ponente; that is, the Shore of the West—which connects Nice with Genoa, and that portion of it leading to Latte is perhaps the most beautiful of the whole. October had already commenced, but no trace of autumn had as yet stolen over the landscape, no chillness in the balmy air reminded one of the lateness of the season. Our way at first wound along a gradual ascent, bordered with olives, cherubias, cypresses, orange-trees, and the maritime pine, and commanding the most extensive inland prospect, where mountains upon mountains displayed exquisite varieties of colouring and form; whence a sudden turn of the road brought us to heights overhanging the Mediterranean, with its endless succession of headlands and bays, towns nestling beneath the shelter of a protecting rock, or cresting some rugged eminence; while the blue waters stretched forth in their calm majesty, scarcely a ripple on their glass-like surface, scarcely a murmur as they wafted their wreaths of spray towards that highly-favoured shore.
Soon after passing Turbia—a village constructed of Roman ruins—the road began to descend, always overhanging the sea; and then, far, far beneath us, accessible only by a very circuitous route, we saw Monaco, the capital of the smallest sovereignty in the world, with its towers and fortifications rising along a rugged promontory, which flung its arms protectingly around the tiny city, and formed a bay, so graceful in its curve, in the outline of the hills which rose above it, that the scene looked like a gem worthy of Italy's diadem of beauty. From this I was directed to turn my gaze in the direction of Roccabruna, another town in this same Liliputian principality, situated upon the shelving side of a mountain, so exceedingly precipitous, that the marvel is how it ever could have been built, or men found agile enough to climb there; the popular legend being, that, some hundred years ago, the whole slid some distance down the face of the rock to its present locality, without destroying its castle or other structures.
Florestan, Prince of Monaco, and Duke of Valentinois, spends in Paris the revenues he obtains from his subjects by exactions which have rendered him deservedly unpopular. One oppressive right he possesses, is that of compelling all the population to grind their corn at his mills, and to buy their bread at his bakers'; the result of which is, that the 5000 or 6000 subjects of the principality eat the worst bread in Italy. So the general said; and as he was of an agricultural turn, and had gone through the metaphorical act of beating his sword into a ploughshare, he was a great authority on such matters.