The weather at Mentone during December and January was unusually cold—such a coldness as had not been experienced for many years. It was penetrating, and hard to withstand, at least during the hours of darkness. When the sun was out, the air was warm; but mornings and evenings were cold, and it was difficult to avoid encountering cold blasts and drafts, especially in passing from hot rooms through cold corridors chilled by open doors, and we did find this year servants very tiresome in leaving doors open which communicated with the outer air. I believe, though not conscious of it at the time, that this cold weather and the cold drafts had reproduced, though it might have then been in a very elementary way, the seeds of disease which we fondly thought had been altogether eradicated.
We found the municipal authorities busy making a continuation of the promenade along the shore for a full additional half-mile or more westward towards Cape Martin,—an addition which has ere this proved a great accession to the place, and will be complete when carried as far as Cape Martin itself, which, with its forest of trees, is one of the most charming haunts about Mentone; but the access to it has hitherto been either by the dusty high road or by the rough stony beach. Builders had also been busy with new houses, but the speculation, I doubt, had not proved profitable, as, owing to the dulness of trade and to the war in the East, many of the villas remained empty, while even the hotels did not fill so rapidly as they had done the previous year. However, when we left in the spring, the builders had not seemed deterred by the want of demand, for building operations were still progressing, and I fear much that in a few years Mentone, if not overbuilt for the number of visitors, will lose a great deal of its charm as a rural town. In other respects it was the same as ever, bright and pleasant; and helping to make it so, we had friends in many of the other hotels, besides meeting old friends in our own.
During the first part of our stay, people were kept in great anxiety about the course of events in France, and we never could tell but that any day a revolution might break out: one result apparently was that newspapers were occasionally stopped, or at least some did not reach us. Punch had in one number a certain distinguished gentleman floundering in the mud. This number did not reach us through the usual channels, but the cartoon nevertheless came to the hotel enclosed in a letter to one of the visitors from a friend in Germany. Perhaps the French are a people too easily excited to make it safe to allow such things to be circulated, but it seems strange to our ideas of free discussion.
When these difficulties were overcome, the British portion of the population at least were disquieted by the attitude taken by England in regard to affairs in the East. Before we left home in 1876, Turkish misrule and oppression of the provinces had awakened the attention of the European powers, and a movement for reform was made. The Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria had also come to light, and Mr. Gladstone, with all the fervour of his noble heart, had come to the front, and forced the facts into lively attention, and not without effect. But the firm word from us to the Turk, which would have prevented war, was not spoken, and Russia found herself compelled, single-handed, to have recourse to arms to terminate oppression. Russia did not declare war till April 1877. When she became successful, there was considerable excitement in the south of England, and it seemed as if many good people were not careful of what they fed upon, and for a long time nightly dreamt that the Czar, with one foot on Russia, was putting another on Constantinople, and, like a gigantic Gulliver, was just about to haul India off to St. Petersburg. Into the political causes and consequences of this excitement it would be out of place to enter here. Suffice it to say that they made us uneasy during several months; and had it not been for the extreme moderation and coolness throughout regulating the counsels of Russia (which was no doubt thinking as much of taking Jupiter or Georgium Sidus as of taking India, or even Constantinople, and was perhaps amused, though displeased, at our fright), joined to the restraining good sense of the country at home generally, we should have been involved in war, all Europe would have been ablaze, and—selfish thought—what would those have had to do who found a foreign residence necessary?
Among other delicious canards to which we were treated from time to time during the war in the little French newspapers, was the astounding information that our beloved Queen had resolved to resign.
Two important events, however, did happen during our stay at Mentone—first, the somewhat sudden or unlooked-for death of Victor Emmanuel in January 1878; and, within a month afterwards, the long-expected death of Pope Pius IX. On both these occasions a special service was held in the Cathedral of Mentone, and I suppose 2000 persons must have been crammed into its body and recesses. Although the church is a pretty large one, the odour with which it was filled was by no means that of sanctity, and it was a relief, when the service was over, in little more than an hour, to get out to the fresh air. Besides black drapery hung throughout the church, a grand catafalque was in each case erected in the centre of the cathedral, in front of which a space was reserved and seated for the grandees of Mentone. The altar at the back was denuded, perhaps to afford space, and the singers and players on instruments were placed between it and the catafalque, out of sight of the audience. The harsh sounds of the brass instruments as they blew their trumpet-blasts thus in our ears seemed vastly inappropriate. The singing had quite a provincial mediocrity; but on the whole, for a small country town, I believe it may be said the arrangements, according to Romanist notions of how such things should be conducted, were fairly good.
The death of the Pope, while it prevented the celebration of the Carnival in Rome, had no influence in preventing its observance in Mentone and Nice, and scenes similar to those of last year were enacted, with a difference—not to the better—in the pageant. At Nice the Carnival was, I believe, grander than ever, and many of the Mentone visitors made a day of it there. The Carnival time brought with it rather appropriately, though probably accidentally, some fancy balls in Mentone, for which gay and elaborate costumes were, I believe, procured at Nice. We were kindly invited to one of these entertainments, but for reasons declined.
The tendency towards such gaieties seemed this winter rather on the increase. They suit some, but to those desirous of quiet evenings it is disturbing to have frequent routs, and concerts, and other diversions in the drawing-rooms of the hotels.
We were treated, however, to a different description of pleasure, in the shape of an exhibition at New Year’s time of a large collection of water-colour paintings of views in Mentone, Cannes, Corsica, etc., by Mr. Van der Weldt, a skilful artist. The pictures were for sale, but the admission money went to the funds of Helvetia.