have passed a long and uninteresting suburb, and enter Marseilles by the
Cours, the first effect of which is striking, as it runs in a straight
line dividing the town into two parts. We turned off to the right,
towards the stately quarter which Vernet has represented in his
celebrated view from the inner harbour; and took up our abode at the
Hotel de Beauveau, which we found in every way deserving the rank which
it holds among the number of excellent hotels in this place. We rose
soon after day-light the next morning, to walk to the fort and signal
post of Notre Dame de la Garde, the most conspicuous object in a distant
view of Marseilles, and which we had observed rearing its flag-staff at
the end of almost every vista of street, like the castle of St. Elmo at
Naples. In our walk we picked up a species of locust, the sauterelle of
this country, of a pale, dirty brown, and somewhat more than three
inches in length. Thanks to the great cleanliness of the Hotel de
Beauveau, this was the first insect which we had as yet met with at
Marseilles. In a climate, indeed, of a certain degree of heat, perpetual
scouring and sweeping becomes absolutely necessary in all comfortable
establishments, and these little evils are more completely eradicated
than in those places where they are less natural. The simple precaution
of shutting the windows before candles are brought, is commonly
sufficient to keep off the mosquitos; and as for the scorpions, this
formidable bug-bear exists only in the imaginations of travelling
ladies, in glass jars at apothecaries' shops, and occasionally in the
poorer houses of the old town, where the dirt and rubbish afford it a
shelter.
On ascending the hill of Notre Dame de la Garde, we found reason to
approve our choice of it as a point of general survey. It commands not
only the whole bay, but also the flat space of land encircled by
mountains, in which Marseilles is enclosed as between hot walls, and the
town itself lies like a map under it. As a point, however, for a general
sketch, I should prefer the island of Ratoneau, which possesses
sufficient elevation for all purposes of the picturesque, and brings in
the sea and the Chateau d'If as a front ground, grouping at the same
time the masses of building of Marseilles better than a mere bird's eye
view would do.
The chapel of this fort, like that of Notre Dame de Fourvieres at Lyons,
possesses a great reputation for sanctity, and much resembles it also in
its steep ascent, which one would suppose that some austere monk had in
both cases contrived as a penance to short breathed devotees. The same
hosts of beggars also besiege both places, of all ranks and pretensions,
from those who stand silent in a white sheet for drapery, to those who
obstreperously exhibit their want of any drapery at all. The chapel is
hung with little pictures, dedicated to the Virgin by the honest sailors
and peasants, and representing different providential escapes: the
wretched daubing of which is somewhat atoned for by the good feeling
which placed them there. One of them represents the Virgin appearing to
a ship in a storm, with a visage and demeanor which might as well
accompany a flying mermaid; another describes a man run over by a cart,
and preserved unhurt by a similar interference; a third, the recovery
from a sick bed, and the joy of the friends on the occasion, whose
countenances not a little reminded us of our grim friends Damon and
Holofernes. Some offerings of a better and richer description were
pillaged at the time of the Revolution.
We descended from this airy situation down a range of streets as
precipitous as the roof of a house, the slope of which probably
counteracts the effect of heat, and prevents the stagnation of air in
the crowded situations of the old town: Marseilles is said to be healthy
in consequence; and the generally active and fine appearance of its
population confirms it. The heat, however, to judge from a comparison
with Naples at the hottest season of the year, must be tremendous. It
struck on us at nine in the morning, on re-entering the town, like the
air from the mouth of an oven; and the herds of poor goats who compose
the walking dairies of Marseilles and the environs, dead asleep on the
trottoirs, formed, with a few strolling Turks, almost all the
out-of-doors population in the principal streets. We had no objection
whatever to imitate the general practice, and to sit still in a cool
room for the rest of the morning, reserving ourselves for an evening's
walk on the quay. I have as yet seen no place where a promenade of this
sort is so fraught with little circumstances of amusement, or where such
a variety of different ideas can be taken in by the eyes alone.
"Greeks, Romans, Yankeedoodles, and Hindoos,"
and more nations than could be described in a whole stanza of names, may
be found clustering in knots, or lounging under the awnings of their
different coffee-houses; while new detachments of fresh-men are seen
continually landing, with lank staring quarantine faces, and elbowed in
every direction by the busy Marseillois, whose curiosity is too much
deadened by continual importations, to be excited by the newest or
strangest costume. In short, the memorable political masquerade which
was got up so awkwardly by Anacharsis Clootz and his friends from the
Fauxbourg St. Antoine, might here be represented almost every day in the
week by real and genuine actors, in every possible variety.
May 24.--I cannot say much for the old cathedral; and as far as I can
collect from the conversation of a scientific Englishman, who has dropt
his watch into one of the boiling vats, while minuting some process, the
great soap manufactory of this place offers nothing very different from
other places of the same sort. Our morning's walk was therefore confined
principally to the Cours, the shade of whose spreading trees, and the
profusion of fine bouquets and cheerful faces in the flower-market at
one end of it, render it a most agreeable promenade. The pleasure of
lounging, which in the spirit-stirring climate, and among the busy faces
of England is the offspring of conceit, becomes in such places as this,
and to an unoccupied person, a real and physical satisfaction, and we
much preferred it to the lions of Marseilles, which are not many. In the
evening we explored the western side of the bay, and the low reef of
rocks opposite to the Lazaretto, which may someday or other be known by
the name of Alfieri's[50] seat, as he has described it in his life with
sufficient accuracy to mark the spot. It commands one of the best and
most cheerful views of Marseilles, including several features of the
prospect afforded from the Viste, but of course on a lower elevation.
[Footnote 50: Vide Cooke's Views.]
CHAP. XI.
OLLIOULES--TOULON.
MAY 23.--From Marseilles to Cujes twenty-four miles. From the views
which we had from the Viste and Notre Dame de la Garde, we were prepared
to expect much from the nearer acquaintance with the environs of
Marseilles, which the first seven or eight miles would afford us. In
this case, however, as in Campbell's mountain,
"'Twas distance lent enchantment to the View;"
for that which as a distant whole presented a scene of the highest
beauty, and the richest cultivation, was nothing better in detail than a
drive between stone walls. I have always thought that the ostentation of
riches, or of those things which they will procure, was not a subject of
vanity so common in France as in England; but there is a medium in all
things, and it would be as well if the Marseillois and their countrymen
of Lyons, had a little of that social and respectable pride, which
induces every cit of Hampstead or Clapham to set off his little box to
the best advantage. They seem to prefer the philosophical sulkiness
which Shakspeare's Iden describes himself as enjoying between four
garden walls.[51] On passing Aubagne, however, the valley of Gemenos
makes ample amends to the eye, uniting the verdure and wild character of
a Swiss vale, to the rich productions of Provence. After about three
miles, the road narrows to a mere cleft in the hills, which we threaded
for several miles, emerging at last upon the green bason of ground on
which Cujes stands. Here, for the first time, we saw capers, with a
profusion of every sort of esculent vegetable, which the inhabitants
cultivate with great assiduity, losing not an inch of ground. To such a
pitch, indeed, does their laudable economy proceed, that every
inhabitant of Cujes keeps a pet dunghill before his house, fearing no
doubt to lose sight of it; and in this wilderness of sweets the good
women sat basking and gossiping with great satisfaction.
[Footnote 51: See Second Part of Henry VI. Act 4.]
At Cujes we breakfasted in the same salle-a-manger with an agreeable old
Marseillois and his wife, who confirmed Peyrol's account of the bloody
revolutionary committee at Orange, and added circumstances which, at
this distance of time, seemed still fresh in their minds. The latter had
been confined four months in the prison at L'Isle, near Avignon, from
which detachments of persons were daily sent to be tried at Orange, none
of whom returned. Among the sufferers were a Mad. Vidou, a superannuated
widow of ninety, who was guillotined in company with her son, an amiable
and respectable man, and was unconscious of her fate till the last.
Forty nuns of the convent of Bollene were also among the prisoners,
accused of a plot to bring about a counter-revolution, and four had been
already guillotined on this charge when the fall of Robespierre took
place. Three of this lady's friends had been reported as emigrants, and
lost their property, merely from not having been at home when the
commissaires made their visit. The wife of one of these offered to
recall him in ten minutes, if necessary: "Non, Citoyenne, c'est egal;"
and he was accordingly enrolled and treated as an emigrant, though he
never had been absent a single day from his home. In a nation where
almost every person of a certain age has such incidents as these burnt
into his recollection, it is not wonderful that the general character
should somewhat alter, and that the lively thoughtless Frenchmen of
Sterne should become nearly an obsolete race. It may be perhaps a
fanciful idea to trace to the same source the nature of a Frenchman's
vanity, which has generally more reference to mental qualities, than to
those goods of which fortune or the will of a despot may deprive him in
an instant. "Bene vixit qui bene latuit" should seem the motto of the
bulk of the nation.
The first part of the road from Cujes to Toulon traverses great
inequalities of ground, affording very odd bird's eye glimpses of the
sea through little chasms in the line of cliffs to the right. Beausset,
through which we passed, is as filthy a town as Cujes, and the country
as beautifully cultivated, and as rich in flowers, fruit, and corn; it
is difficult, indeed, to find animal and vegetable nature more strongly
contrasted. If I may be allowed to parody the words of a noble poet--
"They are brown as the dunghills whereon they decline,
"And all, save the dwelling of man, is divine."
About three miles from Beausset, the road inclines towards a barrier of
high and nearly perpendicular rock to the right, which it appeared
impossible either to penetrate or ascend. A large string of mules,
however, which met us from Toulon, loaded with barilla for the great
glass works at Beausset, showed us that the one or the other was
practicable, and on advancing a little farther, we distinguished the
chasm through which the road to Toulon is conducted, surmounted by the
black ruins of an old castle to the left. On the right of the road in
this place, a singular cluster of conical rocks occurs, which, both
from their form and position, seem exactly like a heap of gigantic
shells, piled up to batter the old ruin on the opposite cliff. Their
appearance was that of a mass of large pebbles, held together by
indurated clay; but as each probably weighed some scores of tons, it was
impracticable to bring away one as a geological specimen; nor would such
specimen give a more accurate idea of the singular and wild effect of
the whole mass, than a single corner stone of the Colosseum would of the
grandeur of the whole amphitheatre. The country name of the castle is
Chateau Negro, as we understood from some gens d'armes whom we met in
the pass; and the houses adjoining it, which seem actually overhanging
the perpendicular edge of the rock, belong to the ancient bourg of
Emenos. Nothing, one would suppose, but the overruling motive of
security, ever could have induced human beings to take up their abode in
such an eagle's nest as this, and its date is therefore probably as
ancient as it professes to be. In days of old, the castle must have been
completely the key of the pass, many hundred yards of which would have
been exposed to stones and arrow-shot from it. A turn to the right
conducted us into the heart of the Val d'Ollioules, as this mountain
chasm is called, which is somewhat on the scale of the celebrated pass
of Pont Aberglasllyn in Wales, but far exceeds it in striking effect. A
dreary whiteness, unrelieved by hardly a single blade of vegetation,
covers the whole, as if it had been recently cleft by a volcanic
eruption, and had as yet had no time to smooth down the sharpness of its
original fissure; and nothing occurs to break the silence, except the
trickling of a narrow brook, which just finds room to creep along the
side of the road, the distant bleating of numberless adventurous goats,
climbing over head from the mere love of peril, and the occasional echo
of large stones disengaged by their leaps. One of these, of a size which
would have shattered the carriage to pieces, came whirling and crashing
down just in the direction which it had quitted. The whole spot, in
short, is such as Tasso might have imagined to be the scene of Ismeno's
incantation, and the congress of devils whom he convoked; and at a
sudden turn of the road, the Chateau Negro peeps from between the
opposite heights in such a new and striking position, as to seem,
without much stretch of imagination, the abode of the wizard himself.
After threading all the sharp angles of this savage pass, some of which
are chiseled out to admit the road, the eye is at length relieved by a
vista of sky, and the sight of the little town of Ollioules close at
hand, sheltered in a grove of orange trees and olives, and just filling
up the entrance of the pass. The view is completed by some singular
gothic ruins to the right, and by the town of Six Fours in the distance,
which is situated on such a commanding conical hill, that we mistook it
for the citadel of Toulon. On emerging from the pass, we turned abruptly
to the left, pursuing our route along the foot of the mountain barrier
through whose bowels we had just penetrated, and which acts on the
climate and productions of Toulon like a high south wall. Some corn was
already reaped at Ollioules; and it may be said almost without
exaggeration, that the two last miles of the road make a difference of
at least a degree in latitude, if one could be allowed to judge by one's
feelings. There is nothing remarkable in the situation of Toulon itself,
which is flat and uninteresting; but the shores of the bay possess great
beauty and variety, and the mountains which overhang the town are very
bold in their outline. The bastides of the wealthy inhabitants are
sprinkled along the foot and sides of this abrupt range, overlooking
extensive views of the bay and its vicinity, and disposed with better
taste and less encumbered with walls than those in the neighbourhood of
Marseilles. Instead of a multitude of white spots, vying in numbers with
the trees which surround them, the mansions of the Toulonais are placed
just thickly enough to agreeably enliven the woods, pleasure grounds,
and vineyards from which they peep at scattered and irregular distances.
We found ourselves well accommodated at the Croix de Malte, situated in
one of the best parts of the town, which although airy, neat, and well
watered by little streams conducted through the streets, possesses no
building or feature worth recollection, save its strong and regular
fortifications.
May 26.--A morning of very pleasant lounging, without any particular
object. We rose at five, and not obtaining admission to the platform of
the Fort du Malgue, walked about on the heights near it, which are
situated on the south-east of the town, and form one of the best
panoramic points in its vicinity. The mountain cape to the south, under
which the entrance to the harbour winds, the distant islands of Hieres,
and in a different direction, the town of Six Fours, are striking
objects from this place. There is certainly more local propriety in this
latter name, than in its more classical and ancient appellation, Sextii
Forum, from which it has probably been corrupted in the derivation by
some wag, for no one would suppose that such a situation afforded room
to heat more than six ovens, or indeed bread to fill even one.
The town of Hieres, seen at a distance in a contrary direction, appears
to much more advantage. The nature of its soil is said to be peculiarly
favourable to the growth of the orange and lemon trees, for which it is
celebrated, but the climate can hardly exceed that of Toulon in
mildness. We were particularly struck with the softness of the sea
breeze during this morning's walk, and the vivid verdure of every thing
around us, contrasting strongly with the dry and naturally sterile
character of the immediate neighbourhood of Marseilles. The vegetable
productions of the latter place seem wrung by the hand of industry from
a rocky and hide-bound soil, whereas a walk near Toulon almost realizes
the ideas of some favoured green spot in a tropical climate, where the
sun has both soil and moisture to act upon. The pleasure of sitting down
upon cushions of lavender and other aromatic plants, under myrtle hedges
in flower, of gathering capers in their natural state, and tracing the
most curious and rich varieties of our own wild and garden flowers, amid
the infinite profusion of others which we could not name, may seem
trifling to a scientific botanist, but is no small addition to the
morning's walk of a plain traveller. A visit to the Jardin des Plantes
will complete the illusion to the most critical eye: and the lovers of
romance may fancy themselves at once in Juan Fernandez, or in the Isle
of France, as they walk in the open air, under the shade of palm-trees,
and seeing tea, coffee, guava fruit, and a hundred other exotic
luxuries, growing in their natural state. This establishment, which we
visited in the course of the day, appears a favourite walk of the
inhabitants of Toulon, and is conducted in a manner which reflects the
highest credit on their taste and liberality. The system of irrigation
is well contrived, and the whole, from its variety and extent,
interesting to the commonest observer.
We were unsuccessful in our attempts to see the arsenal, the object best
worth attention in Toulon; as it is open to none but naval officers,
the very class of men, one would suppose, whose prying eyes it would be
least desirable to admit. The young officer at the gate, however, was
very pleasant and communicative, and conversed with us in excellent
English; a language which he had partly acquired as a prisoner during
the war, and partly by his education at the Marine School of this place,
where our language is one of the first things taught. An inveterate John
Bull might remark, "Ay, these fellows know they are sure to be made
prisoners, if they fight with us; and that is the reason they take this
precaution." Our English pride was certainly gratified this evening, but
it was by the voluntary civility which we experienced during our walk
from this young man and several others who had been prisoners in our
country. It is peculiarly pleasing to find those who visited England
under circumstances commonly the most unfavourable, expressing grateful
recollections of their treatment, and ready to acknowledge them by
little attentions. We found, indeed, nothing but friendly faces among
that very class of people of whom we should have been most shy of making
inquiries, and at the very place where we should have expected them to
excite the least pleasant recollections. Two marines accosted us on the
quay, to point out a sand-bank which the English had attempted to cut
through during the siege of Toulon, in order to facilitate the entrance
into the harbour; and on our inquiry whether they had penetrated as far
as a station where we saw a 140 gun ship and some others laid up, they
answered with a laugh, "Ah oui, Messieurs, ils etoient la, et encore
plus loin, je vous en reponds."
It were to be wished on many accounts, that the French government would
keep their galley-slaves as much out of sight as they do their arsenal.
Under the ancient regime, these unfortunate creatures were only employed
in the works of the latter place, which they never left; but under the
present system, those only who are condemned for life are so treated,
and the rest are employed in different parts of the port, where they
perform the work of horses, in the most public manner, chained by the
leg in pairs. Some were drawing timber, and stone carts; and others,
rather more favoured, were laying the pavement of the pier, with a
single heavy iron link on one leg. How far economy may justify this
arrangement, or whether the exposure of incorrigible offenders may
answer as a public example, it is not for a mere visitor to determine;
but certainly a plan more adapted to deaden and sear the sense of shame
which may still remain in them, and brutalize their minds by constant
irritation, can hardly be devised. The mildness and temper with which
the guard and superintendants appear to behave is not likely to
counteract sufficiently the effect of the constant gaze of passengers, a
circumstance which to judge by one's own sensations must tend to stifle
those feelings of repentance which solitary confinement naturally
induces, and harden every manly particle of the mind into rebellion. It
is hard to reproach them with the natural effects of this rough mode of
regeneration; but I think I never saw a worse or more obdurate set of
countenances. One fellow in particular, when civilly directed by the
overseer to change the position of a stone, gave him a look of deadly
malignity when his back was turned, which reminded me strongly of the
look of Kemble in Zanga, while pronouncing the emphatic "Indeed!"
Strange as it may appear, we were informed that there were several
colonels, generals, priests, and men who could afford to spend 300
francs a day, among this body. These contrive, it seems, by bribery, to
procure more variety of food than the bread, soup, and vegetables, which
are the regular allowance; and are permitted to purchase better linen
than the ordinary convicts; but the dress and regulations are to outward
appearance the same in all. Those condemned for military insubordination
are marked by a bullet round their necks, and the convicts cast for life
by a green cap. The individuals whose term of confinement is nearly
expired wear only an iron ring round the ankle, as it is presumed they
will not incur the penalty of fifty blows and three years additional
confinement by an attempt to escape: there are others, however,
sentenced for five, ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and these are heavily
ironed and more strictly watched.
A detachment of the celebrated Thibet goats, who are to make the fortune
of the French shawl-manufacturers, is now in harbour, and others are
performing quarantine at Marseilles. The specimen of their fleece which
was shown us, resembles the coat of the musk ox. The wool of which the
shawls are made grows at the roots of the longer hair, and is of a warm
and delicately fine texture; a circumstance which should seem to prove
these animals natives of the cold and mountainous districts of Thibet,
and capable by dint of British skill and enterprise, of being
naturalized in our own country.
CHAP. XII.
FREJUS--CANNES--ISLE OF ST. MARGUERITE--ANTIBES.