From amid the dense, soft shadows of the valley rise the old tower of the church and the picturesque cupolas of the strange Moorish villa where poor Rachel, the famous French tragedian, breathed her last, and which is fast falling to decay. It is no longer let to strangers; but we made our way through the tangled gardens and wilderness of orange-trees. Everything looked tumbling to pieces. The house itself is in ruin; and being painted in bright colors externally, and chiefly built of wood, at least in the ornamental parts, it looks like the cast-off decorations of a dismal theatre. Two white pigeons were picking up the scattered grain in the little, untidy court. A few mutilated plaster figures of gods and goddesses near the entrance added to the tawdry and unreal aspect of the whole. It was as if the poor actress had selected it to die in for its scenic effect, and so had closed her life on a mute and deserted stage. I fancied I could see her lithe form and her sinuous glide (for she never seemed to walk like a common mortal) along the veranda. I could recall the intense passion of her matchless voice as she thrilled you through with the words:
“Je ne me verrai point préférer de rivale.
Enfin, tous tes conseils ne sont plus de saison:
Sers ma fureur, Œnone, et non pas ma raison.”
And then she came here, alone, to die! As I turned away from the place, so beautiful even in its desolation, I wondered if the rumor might be true which was prevalent at the time—that her maid, a French Catholic, seeing her poor mistress in a state of coma just before her death, had dared to baptize her—and thus give us a large-hearted hope for the woman and the Jewess.
We drove through the narrow, sharp-angled streets of the little town of Cannet to the church in the valley. The streets were so narrow, and the turnings were so sharp, that it always seemed that our horses were in one street while we and the carriage were in another. Three little children, with bright, dark eyes and tangled hair, hung over a wall, each with a rose in its mouth. They looked as if they would drop the flowers, and themselves after, into our laps. The church was very clean and well cared for; full of tawdry decorations, but fresh and neat, as if all were often renewed by loving hearts, if not by cultivated taste. M. le Curé is very old, and has not sufficient help for the wants of so large a parish; and there are no Sisters to teach the children. They seem a simple people; and if only there were a habitable house, what pleasure might be found in living in this earthly paradise, and working amongst them!
It is said that the Englishman carries Bass' pale ale and Warren's blacking with him where-ever he goes, to say nothing of Harvey's sauce. At any rate, he has established his own special amusements at Cannes, with no apparent consciousness of their incongruity with the scene around them. Of course we took our share, though denouncing and protesting all the way at the horrors of pigeon-shooting. We drove over sandy lanes close to the shore, through groups of pine-trees on either side; a glorious panorama of mountains and snow-clad peaks beyond, the dark-blue sea, and the purple Estrelle. There was a vulgar booth and a shed, and some rickety benches like those at a country fair. We sat down, facing three boxes, in which the innocent birds were concealed until the moment—unknown, of course, to the sportsman himself—when, bursting open, the pigeons spread their wings at liberty, to be perchance instantly killed by a clever shot. I acknowledge that I tried not to look, and that my heart gave a spasmodic leap every time I heard the clap of the lid of the box and then the sharp shot. I looked at the pine-trees and the far-off mountains, with the many-tinted, undulating middle distances, and tried to forget the coarseness and cruelty of the scene I was supposed to have come to as an amusement. The nuts and the ginger-bread were wanting, and Aunt Sally was distinguished by her absence; but there was nevertheless a milder reflection of everything that might have graced this same kind of scene in England; and so the English gentleman of the XIXth century, brought by fortuitous circumstances into a new and exquisitely beautiful land, was doing his best to make himself “at home,” and to inspire the natives and foreigners with his own tastes. I am fond of sport, though I am but an old maid; but somehow this does not strike me as being sport in the true acceptation of the word. And I sat wondering how long it will be before [pg 028] my own brave countrymen, who are already addicted to battues, will build one-storied, round summer-houses in their woods, painted inside with arabesques, Cupids, Venus, and Diana, and having six or eight small windows all round it; then, seated in a large gilt fauteuil, with a bottle of choice Chambertin by his side, he will languidly pop his short gun at the thrushes or the finches as they flutter from bough to bough before him; and so, at the end of a couple of hours, saunter home with a bagful of “game,” wearied with the exertions of la chasse au tire, like the gentlemen in France in the times of La Régence.
The Duc de P. was there, and the Duc de C., and the Duke of H., and actually one of the men—what may they be called?—who preside over the pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham, and who had been got over to ensure everything being en règle. What more could any one want? I wondered to myself whether the extraordinary beauty and sublime majesty of the surrounding scene had anything to do with enhancing the pleasure of the pigeon-shooters; whether, in short, the successful slaughter of the poor birds was rendered more enjoyable by the fact of its taking place under a sky and in a spot fraught with exquisite beauty; noble and serene, vast and varied.
And if not, why did they not stop among the cockney flats of Hurlingham? When all was over and we returned home, I actually found myself semi-conscious of a sort of pride that the best shot, in this decidedly trying proof of skill, was an Englishman! So much for the inconsistency of human, especially of female, nature.
We are in the land of perfumes. Acres of roses, violets, and other scented flowers are cultivated solely for the perfume manufactories at Grasse, a few miles from Cannes. Of course, this is not the time of year to benefit by this exceptional form of farming; but in the spring it must be lovely.