Sunday is kept abroad with various degrees of propriety. As a rule, it is a gala day—a fete day, and to certain classes of servants it only brings additional toil. There is no distinction, as with ourselves, unless in rare and exceptional cases, between railway trains on Sunday and trains on week-days; and, in point of fact, I believe there is more travelling on Sundays than on other days of the week. Work and business are not wholly suspended, but there are fewer carts upon the streets. In many places, workmen may be seen engaged in their employments, at all events till dinner-time, just as usual. Shops are nowhere wholly closed, at least during the earlier part of the day. But the generality of the natives attend a morning service, and afterwards walk about in their Sunday clothes; so that in large towns the streets are crowded by lounging saunterers, or scarcely less idle sightseers. It is gratifying to observe that wherever English people form a large admixture of the population, as at Cannes, Mentone, and Pau, a greater external reverence is paid to the day than elsewhere, and particularly in the matter of closing shops. Possibly in some cases this may result from finding it is not worth while to open them, as the principal customers would not enter and transact, but let us hope that it springs from a growing influence for good. In Paris, during and after the reign of the Commune, I believe all shops were open; but they are now, year by year, getting to be more and more closed.
In Mentone the washerwomen appear to suspend operations on Sundays. It is probable that they strive to get all the linen committed to their care sent home by the end of the week to the ladies, who require their things by that time to be ready. But I have occasionally seen one or two washing away as usual, even in heavy rain; and I fancy, from appearances, they were then purifying their own garments.
To what extent theatres are open, I have no means of stating. I believe that in Paris and other large French towns, if not elsewhere, the theatres are in full operation.
In places where musical bands play, as at Interlachen, the music proceeds just as on ordinary days—once, twice, or three times a day, according to the custom of the place; but it gathers to it all the idlers, and is therefore generally listened to by far greater crowds than during the week. Nor is the music different in character from what is usually performed. There is no attempt to compromise matters by playing sacred tunes. Not improbably, in some places, there may be a better selection of secular music than usual; ‘classical music’ may be attempted. At Cannes, although it is a thoroughly English settlement, the band plays on Sunday near the Mairie. At Mentone the playing took place outside the cirque, near to some of the churches, so that the worshippers had to pass by it to reach them.
Where there are Galleries or Museums, Sunday is usually an open or free day, no payment being exacted. At Naples the Museum, and at Florence the Picture Galleries and the grounds of the Royal Pitti Palace, are open to the public, the only other day in the week on which the Museum and Galleries are free being Thursdays. Ascension Day, however, seems to be regarded as more holy than Sunday, for it happened at Florence, while we were there, and falling upon a Thursday, the Galleries were closed. The Louvre in Paris is open on Sunday, but is closed on Monday, to be cleaned. The Capitoline Museum in Rome (belonging to Government) is open on Sundays gratis, but as a rule galleries as well as shops are closed on Sundays in Rome.
The Casino at Monte Carlo is always open on Sundays, and was a source of attraction to many of the foreign visitors at Mentone, and sometimes, though more rarely, even to such English people as were not very strict in their views.
The Carnival proceeded at Nice the same as on the other day or days on which it was held. It was probably then a grander affair, and I believe drew to it much greater crowds—many, though not many English, going to see it from Mentone, and, no doubt, from all the surrounding parts.
Sunday, indeed, is regarded as a fete day. In the times of the Empire I found it, on occasion of my first visit to Paris, to be the day of the great Fête Napoleon. It was also the day for illuminations, and for playing the Grandes-Eaux at Versailles. The same practice prevails elsewhere. At Rome there was on one Sunday during our visit an illumination of the Piazza del Popolo, and a balloon was sent up in the course of the evening. At Pau also our attention was called one Sunday afternoon to an immense balloon descending, with a man suspended from it by ropes—a most perilous-looking adventure, and by no means an agreeable spectacle, though we were not near enough to see the man distinctly. Throughout France the elections take place on the Sunday, and possibly it is the same elsewhere. In Italy and in Paris, as well as in other places, people expend a portion of their earnings in driving about in cabs and other vehicles plying for hire. One summer, a few years ago, we spent a fortnight in the Champs Elysées, and found that on Sunday evening they were, if possible, more brilliantly lighted up, and more gay and noisy, than on other nights; but I think the great spectacle then to be seen was derived from the multiplicity of voitures driving up and down, two rows one way and two rows another, in continuous line. As each carries either one or two lights (I am not sure which, but I think two), and as nothing at a little distance but the lights is seen, the effect is curious. The broad roadway seems from the Place de la Concorde to the Triumphal Arch to be filled with an incessant stream of Will-o’-the-wisp-like lights noiselessly flitting up and down the course.
Letters are delivered by the post either as usual on the rest of the week, or at all events on the Sunday morning, but my impression is that there is no difference in the deliveries. When there were any letters to annoy us, they were sure to come on a Sunday morning, so that often we wished there had been no delivery.
In hotels at home, with a laudable view to lessen the work of servants and give opportunity to them to go to church, visitors who have private rooms are often requested to dine on Sundays at the public table, and I have heard of no less than thirteen newly-married couples at one of the English lake hotels having thus one Sunday complied. As people abroad are little in the habit of dining in private rooms, there is not scope for this observance. But Sunday is always regarded as a day for a somewhat better dinner than usual. Sometimes, if not on the ordinary programme, it is in the shape of a course of ices, or it may be some other rarity.