Wintering at Mentone

by William Chambers

Old Martello Tower.

Wandering through the sinuosities of this ancient town, we are apt to be destructively inclined. In one sense it would be a pity to tear down what long ages have spared. To the archæologist, the whole cluster of buildings is a curiosity which he would consider it a species of sacrilege to destroy. Sanitary reformers, though not devoid of respect for antiquity, are forced to be less scrupulous. Knowing the evils that had ensued in Edinburgh from overcrowding in tall buildings closely packed together, I thought a clearance here and there would be pardonable. Archæologists, however, may calm their apprehensions. Looking to the slow and apathetic way public affairs are conducted in Mentone, as well as to the general indifference which prevails on matters of social concern, there is no reason to fear that the visitor fifty years hence will find any change whatsoever on this clustering old citadel.

Outside the Rue Longue on the south, where things have a more modern aspect, there is a street running east and west, now called the Rue Brea, possessing some good specimens of domestic architecture, dating from the seventeenth century, if not earlier. A tenement at the west corner on the south side, bearing traces of frescoes on the walls, is that in which General Brea was born in 1790, the fact being commemorated by an inscription on a marble slab over the doorway. Mentone has some credit in having put up several inscriptions of this nature in memory of incidents of local or historical interest. Brea was killed in the streets of Paris on the 24th of June 1848, when fighting in the cause of order, wherefore the inhabitants honourably acknowledge him as a native. In the same street, near the middle on the north side, there is a wall enclosing a piece of ground in which stands a house that had been temporarily occupied in 1814 by Pope Pius VII., on his return towards Italy, after a compulsory residence in France. This visit of the pope, and the circumstance of his having graciously blessed the people at this spot, are matters carefully recorded on a marble slab inserted in the wall.

One more incident needs to be recorded concerning the Rue Brea. Here for a night or two resided General Bonaparte, when, in April 1796, he was, as commander-in-chief, proceeding with the French army along this difficult piece of coast to open his famed Italian campaign. The tenement, marked No. 3, on the north side of the street, is a tall building, distinguished by a handsome doorway, leading to a spacious, and what had formerly been a finely ornamented common stair. The stair, consisting of intermediate landings, is at first of blue slate, and afterwards of tiles faced with wood. There are two dwellings on each floor. Eighty years ago, the house on the second floor, entering by the door on the right hand, was occupied by a M. Pretti, a négociant of some local importance, and was selected as the most suitable for accommodating General Bonaparte. At present, there is a decayed look about the stair, the houses in it having been relinquished by its former genteel inhabitants, though, still, they have by no means sunk to a degraded condition. Ringing a bell by a cord which hung at the side of the door, we were admitted by an aged female domestic through a lobby into a singularly elegant salle de réception, such as could scarcely have been expected in this back street. It measured upwards of thirty feet in length by about twenty in breadth, with two windows at each end, hung with figured lace-curtains. The floor of smooth tiles was carpeted in front of a sofa, which, like the chairs ranged along the sides of the apartment, was covered with yellow damask. From the centre of the ceiling depended a handsome chandelier. The most remarkable feature of the room were the decorations on the walls, consisting of classic scenes in raised stucco, disposed in panels, serving the place of pictures. While noting these particulars, the abbé entered the room, and there ensued the ceremonial of introduction. Made acquainted with my views, the abbé proceeded in the first place to say something of the house. The room in which we were seated was that in which Bonaparte gave his receptions, and here, during his stay, there was a dance. The small dingy room adjoining, into which we were conducted, was his salle à manger, and beyond that was his chambre à coucher, now forming the bedroom of the abbé. In one point of view these were small particulars, but anything which concerns the life of a noted individual is worth knowing. I considered it rather curious that Napoleon the Great had dwelt even for a short time in a house on a second floor in a common stair in Mentone.

In the still more modern street immediately below, forming the roadway through the town, is a mansion which, by an inscription, we learn was the residence of the patriotic Carlo Trenca, who, in the course of his onerous public duties, died in 1854. The example set by the town in this species of mural commemoration, might, as some will think, be advantageously followed in places of greater size and importance.

As regards the inhabitants generally, who are crowded into the narrow passages in the old town, we have, I believe, a proper specimen of the aborigines—a people illiterate and uninstructed, but from naturally good dispositions, industrious and well conducted. The older among them are said to be unable to read, which is not unlikely, considering their past history; at anyrate, I never saw either book or newspaper in their hands. Since the expulsion of the Grimaldis, the town has been provided with schools, at which there is a large attendance of children; but beyond some efforts of this kind, nothing is attempted to enlighten the humbler classes. The town possesses no school of arts for the improvement of mechanics, no lectures on miscellaneous subjects of interest, no popular concerts, no native newspapers to concentrate and direct public opinion. The young are suffered to grow to manhood without intelligent direction. The only provision for their leisure hours is made by the keepers of cafés and billiard-rooms. This state of things is not very creditable to the more thoughtful part of the community; and does not come up to what is frequently represented as the activity of continental governments in stimulating advancement in arts and science.

The humbler operations of the day-labourers employed on the tramway were on an awkward, and to us amusingly rude scale; the implements they used were such as an English navvy would have treated with disdain. In rough manual operations, things are far behind, and we are painfully reminded of the fact, that a country may excel in science and the fine arts, and yet not be acquainted with the use of a shovel and wheelbarrow. The man who repairs the roadway of the Promenade does so by the slow and painful process of bringing small basketfuls of shingle on his shoulder from the beach, thus taking days to perform what, under a more intelligent system, might be effected in a few hours; and, after all, the thing is badly done. There is not that amount of knowledge which prescribes making provision for water to run off to each side; the consequence being that, after rain, the roadway is in pools.

To make up for the absence of local public spirit, the central authorities in Paris beneficently prepare and circulate a news-sheet gratuitously all over France. It is designated the Moniteur des Communes, and resembles a page of a newspaper, closely printed in columns. Dispersed from the Ministry of the Interior, it is stuck up as a placard in every commune. Besides scraps of news on such subjects as the opening of the Suez Canal, the paper contained, when I saw it, a variety of information regarding movements in commerce and agriculture, with advices as to the treatment of vines. The thing is really well done and well meant, but so far as Mentone is concerned, it experiences the usual fate of all that is given for nothing. Although this sheet is regularly stuck up at the market-place, no one is ever seen reading it—not that the people despise the information which is offered, but because it is not their practice to read anything.

With such an entire absence of wholesome mental exhilaration, it does not surprise us to see that there is an inordinate number of Débits de Vin, dingy vaults, furnished with deal tables and benches, where the imbibing of thin potations drawn in jugs from the cask, forms a popular solace. I am bound, however, to add, that whether from the weakness of the liquor, or an indisposition to spend, there is little or no external demonstration of drunkenness. As a whole, the people are sober and thrifty in their habits. Here, as in other towns in France, intemperance in tobacco-smoking is greatly more conspicuous than in stupefying liquors. I see it stated among national statistics that the quantity of cigars smoked in France during a year, would, if put end to end, go twice round the globe at the equator. In this monstrous wastefulness, the female population take no part. It is impossible to over-rate the painstaking assiduity of the humbler class of women, both old and young. Their small industrial occupations for a subsistence are most meritorious. One of their pursuits is the sale of roasted chestnuts, an article much in request. In one of these female vendors I took some interest. Verging on eighty years of age, and with a wrinkled countenance that would have been the delight of Rembrandt, this poor woman carried on business in a packing-case, which stood on end without a lid, placed at the termination of the Quai Bonaparte. Here seated in her box with her chauffer and bag of nuts, and cheerfully chattering to her customers, or to the douaniers who loiter hereabouts in sky-blue uniforms, she made a living by her petty merchandise, exemplifying what may be done under depressing circumstances to rise above a degrading dependence on charity.

As at Nice, the carrying of articles poised on the top of the head is a common practice of the women of Mentone. They may be seen coming daily into the town loaded with baskets of oranges or lemons, or with huge bundles of sticks for fuel, in some instances their hands being employed in knitting. As suitable for this kind of drudgery, they wear a straw-hat, almost flat like a trencher, with a small round space raised in the middle, on which the load is balanced. These hats, formed by an ingenious interweaving of straw and cotton, are one of the peculiar manufactures of the district around. Some hats of a superior quality, with fanciful trimmings, are becomingly worn by young ladies. Besides fruits and sticks, bundles of fir-cones are brought into the town for sale. Of all the toils of the women of Mentone, this is the most severe. The cones, called here pommes des pins, are gathered among the scattered forests of pines high up on the mountains, and brought down in bags to be sold for lighting fires. Arrived at the market-place, the girls sit down patiently with their loads, which are offered at the price per bag of twelve sous—sixpence for all this excessive labour. I could not help pitying these females, brown, skinny, and bare-footed, with faces like leather, who are engaged in these rude occupations; but painful as is the sight, is not the labour honest? and how much more distressing is the spectacle of flaunting vice and wretchedness in our own country?