Small wild birds are scarcely ever seen. I have counted up six sparrows fluttering about or chirping in the trees; but a sparrow, like every other small bird, is in France a rara avis. Three broad-shouldered men, dressed in blouses like labourers, go out daily with guns to shoot them. One could almost wish a visitation upon France of the Colorado beetle, or if birds do not feed on it, of some other insect plague, to open the eyes of the French to the impolicy of allowing these small birds to be shot. One of the most pleasing diversions in Mentone is to sit and watch the flock (perhaps now only two or three hundred in number) of sea-gulls which frequent its shores. While you are witnessing the joyful flights of these beautiful birds, suddenly you hear a shot fired, and the whole flight rises and skims away, leaving perhaps a distressed comrade, who has probably had its wing broken by a bullet. It is making frantic attempts to rise or to get out to sea. With right good-will could one pitch into the fellow who had done this wanton, cruel harm. I believe that the consequence of the shooting is that the poor birds find their muster roll greatly reduced, and they may in time disappear or migrate to some safer locality.
There is one animal which everybody could more readily wish to disappear, and that is the mosquito. I have previously mentioned that we did not find this plague so great at Mentone as at Cannes and Hyères. This may partly have arisen from our having visited these other places earlier in the winter; but I think a good deal also is due to Mentone being better drained, or at least to the drains not being so offensive.
At Cannes we were also more plagued than at Mentone with flies. These little animals are very impudent. They walk over your face and hands, nibbling as they go, and play at hide-and-seek in your hair. They are not to be deterred by the most stringent prohibitions; and while one has no mercy on mosquitoes, you hesitate to inflict the extreme penalty of the law upon a fly—nay, rather help your tormentors out of their scrapes when they tumble into water, milk, treacle, or the like.
It is commonly thought that it must be a disagreeable feature of Mentone that visitors encounter in their walks so many invalids there. No doubt there are a good many invalids at Mentone, and some of them have all the appearance of being so, but they do not predominate by any means. Many of them keep their rooms, and those who go out seldom go beyond the promenade, except for a drive. It is indeed painful sometimes to see some delicate invalids who are hopelessly beyond recovery, and particularly young men, thin, gaunt, and white, well wrapped up, even on sunny days; but they are never so numerous as to make Mentone a painful residence. The English people, as a rule, are wiser than the Continental. They come at an early stage of their complaint, and get rapidly cured; while it is said, on the other hand, that people of other nations come when they are incurable. Of course, some of these invalids succumb, and from time to time a death occurs; but a funeral is seldom or never seen. When a death happens, the hotel people keep it as long quiet as possible. The authorities take charge of the burial, and the body, which must lie unburied twenty-four hours after death, is removed in a coffin after dark to the mortuary adjoining the cemetery, where the relations assemble usually on the following day, and it is buried. The expense of burial is said to be moderate, the charges varying according to circumstances. But there is one repellent fact connected with this subject which I have heard exists. It is, that some of the hotels put up a notice in the printed bills of charges, which are hung in the bedrooms, that a death occurring in the house will be charged so much. This is no doubt done to prevent disputes, and there is fairly reason for a charge, seeing that the bedding on which the dead person lay is burnt or otherwise destroyed, the room is unoccupied for a short time, and it is against the hotel; but the making of this prominent notification shocks one’s feelings, and may sometimes be injurious to the invalid. I have not personally seen it.
The cemetery of Mentone, surmounting the hill, on the ridge and slopes of which the old town is built, has a picturesque look from below. As usual abroad, the Protestant ground is separated from the Roman Catholic; the Catholics, by the narrow feeling of religious exclusiveness, refusing Protestants burial in the same ground with themselves. But it collects the strangers the more together, and it is painful to walk round and think of the many who are buried so far away from their homes and friends. We have seen at different places one or two funerals, when the English service was performed, but at Cannes had the opportunity of witnessing a funeral service conducted by the French Protestant clergyman. He was a remarkably fine-looking old gentleman, and in place of a formal service, or perhaps in addition to it, for we had not arrived at the commencement, he made a very touching address to the relations and others present, and offered a simple earnest prayer. We could not help thinking that it was so very much more appropriate than the formal service of the Church of England, however stately and beautiful, which so often is rattled over without much appearance of feeling, and is uniformly the same to all.
We were three months in Mentone during our first winter there, and, as may be gathered from what I have previously said, we had ample means of spending the days pleasantly. Perhaps the evenings, though pleasant, had too much of the public life about them, living so much in family with others. We occasionally longed for the quietness of home life, which could not be said to be had by simply retreating to our rooms. Sometimes the evening was varied, as I have elsewhere mentioned, by little entertainments, such as conjurors with their tricks. But we had, even amidst all the pleasant days we spent there, some peculiarly red letter days, embracing our more extensive excursions, and days to be noted.
Of these, the first was Christmas day. Among the English people this was maintained in the usual manner; but we had heard that there would be a grand service according to the Roman Catholic form in the cathedral or parish church, and we went thither. The Church of St. Michael, a large one, dating back, it is said, to the thirteenth century, was draped with crimson cloth, and a profusion of gold or gilt articles was displayed at the altar, which was lighted up with an immense quantity of candles. The place was crammed with people, the crowd even extending a good way outside the door. After the usual service and chanting, the great event of the day took place. Several priests, preceded by a tall janitor in cocked hat and uniform and halberd, in humble imitation of the grand man of the Madeleine, commenced parading through the church, one of them bearing in his arms a wax doll, baby size, as if new born, which he held out to be kissed; and every one, even respectable-looking people, pressed forward as they slowly progressed to kiss the doll’s foot. When he came our length, the priest, a jolly fat man, who, whatever he may have felt at the absurdity of the scene, contrived to keep his countenance, quietly, seeing at a glance we were Protestants, or what was the same thing, ‘Anglais,’ presented it to others, and did not give us a chance. A priest behind him took up the collection. Each person, besides, had to pay for the use of a chair, some paying for two, one being used to kneel on.
New Year’s day is, however, the great day among the native population; and gifts among the foreigners are usually then exchanged, in place of, as with the English, on Christmas day. A very common form of such gifts is that of a large bouquet of flowers, generally more than a foot in diameter, laid out in circular symmetrical rows, the flowers on short stalks being supported by wires. They look pretty, but stiff, and do not last so long as our assorted bouquets with their long stalks. On occasion of a birthday, the heroine of the day, if popular, and the event were known, would often get three or four such sent to her.
On the 3d of February we saw bands of young men parading the streets in an uproarious manner, with flags, and preceded by drummers beating the usual rat-tat-tat. We could not imagine what this meant, until informed that it was the day upon which the young men drew lots for the selection of those who were to serve as conscripts in the French army. The noise and merriment were, like the tom-tom at a Hindoo suttee funeral pile, doubtless intended to hide the agony and to drive away thought, if they any had, from the ‘chosen few.’