With little in the way of public amusement or general intercourse,
Mentone and its neighbourhood offer some subjects of interesting
inquiry. If employment does not come readily to hand, it may possibly be
evoked by looking about. The medieval old town; the character and habits
of the people; excursions on foot or donkey to the mountainous region,
with its decayed castles and sun-baked villages perched thousands of
feet above the sea-level; the picturesque sea-coast, with its caverns
and traditions of Saracenic invasion; the mouldering tokens of Roman
sway—all will yield matter for agreeable exploration. Turbia and Monaco
should be deliberately seen, if not already visited; and so likewise
should Ventimiglia and Bordighera—the latter for the sake of its
palm-trees. I am sorry to say there is no handy local guide-book,
affording that minute explicitness of detail expected from works of this
nature. The native topographers write prettily, and even poetically, of
the surrounding district; a guide-book, however, is not bought for fine
writing, but, like an almanac, is looked to for plain trustworthy facts.
The best of the books of the kind is entitled a _Guide des Etrangers à
Menton_, by M. Pessy; it comprehends a good map, which is at all events
indispensable. In the prevailing state of things, the explorer will have
to rely greatly on his own powers of investigation, assisted, if it
happily may be, by friends well acquainted with this outlying part of
the Alpes Maritimes.
The ever present, and often noisy Mediterranean can scarcely fail to
suggest historic recollections. Around it were clustered all the great
nations of antiquity. It is the sea of the Bible, that on which Paul
encountered misadventures. It is the sea which the Crusaders had to
cross in their delirious expeditions to the Holy Land. Now, in
comparison to the great oceans of modern discovery, it is only a
salt-water lake, yet rich in the legends which undyingly hover about it.
Physically considered, it is curious. Barred out by the Strait of
Gibraltar, the tidal wave of the Atlantic operates but feebly on the
Mediterranean. Residents at Mentone recognise little difference in the
height to which the water flows on the beach. The sea may be twice a day
a few inches higher or lower; but except in the case of winds affecting
it somewhere, and causing it to dash high up on the shore, it has a
monotonous uniformity of appearance. The beach consists of rounded
stones and gravel, not agreeable for being walked on, and on that
species of gray shingle the waves are everlastingly surging. Sometimes
in the calmest days and nights, its roar is most outrageous and trying
to the nerves. Suddenly, when level as a pond, it will assume an angry
aspect, with white breakers in the distance. In short, it is very
whimsical and incomprehensible in its varying moods; and those who
dislike its more placid or its more uproarious proceedings had better
live away from its shores. A distance of a hundred yards, with
intervening trees or houses, will be enough.
As the sea neither ebbs nor flows to a perceptible degree, rocks on the
beach are not periodically uncovered and exposed to the atmosphere, the
consequence being that there is scarcely any marine vegetation—no large
sea-weed, and no sea-like smell. Along the coast from Nice the beach has
a rapid descent to depths ranging from three thousand to five thousand
feet. So abrupt is the declivity that, unless at particular spots,
bathing is somewhat hazardous. We observed preparations for bathing at
Nice, in March; the wheeled machines employed being carefully tethered
by a rope to the shore, lest they should dart down headlong into the
depths. The occasional appearance of sharks adds another danger of which
bathers need to be cautious.
The Mediterranean is said to abound in many species of fish; visitors,
however, see little of them. The kinds which appear at table, and that
very sparingly, are sardines, red mullet, mackerel, tunny, and whitings.
Mentone has a fishing population nestling in the older part of the town,
who with all their toil and patience make but a poor livelihood.
Proceeding to sea in boats at an early hour of the morning, and keeping
within a few miles of the shore, parties of them may be seen from nine
to ten o’clock laboriously drawing in their nets to the beach. The
produce is very insignificant, often not more fish than will fill a
small basket, yielding perhaps three or four francs—sometimes the whole
not worth a single franc. Since the railway opened, a few of the shops
have begun to procure supplies of fish from distant and more productive
quarters, and the selling of fresh oysters brought from the Atlantic
coast, if not from the Channel, has in the winter season become a
considerable trade. Amateur anglers using fishing-rods of cane try to
lure a prey; the Quai Bonaparte, against which the sea is incessantly
dashing, being a favourite spot. On no occasion did I ever see one of
these anglers draw a fish from the water. The sport seemed to consist of
a more than ordinary exercise of hope and patience.
Although hitherto styled a sea-port, Mentone has little pretension to
that character. The few small craft that belong to it are, along with
the fishing-boats, drawn up high and dry at an open space adjoining the
beach. After being in a primitive way delivered of their cargoes—barrels
of wine, for instance, being lowered overboard and floated to dry
land—the vessels are tugged up the ascent to their resting-place by a
windlass, at which men, women, and children lend their assistance. Last
winter, the French government commenced to form a harbour with landing
quays; the first step taken being to lay down a tramway along the beach
for conveyance of blocks of stone from Cap Martin. The tramway was so
insufficiently executed that the greater part was washed away by the
storm on the night of the 21st of December. It was replaced on a better
footing, and the works were begun. Whether they will endure the
impetuous battering of the heavy rolling waves may be gravely doubted.
The spot selected adjoins the old martello tower, which remains
invulnerable on the ledge of rocks in front of that medieval old town of
which it was once the protector.
Possessing in some degree a resemblance to the steep and crowded lanes
of the older parts of Edinburgh, I made this ancient town a kind of
study. Originally walled for defence, it consists, as has been said, of
a dense cluster of tall tenements, rising pile above pile from the
sea-shore to the summit of one of those low hills which stand out in
advance of the higher mountains. From the modern street, forming part of
the thoroughfare of the Corniche, we ascend into this strange mass of
buildings by steep paved lanes, which turn and wind in different
directions, until we reach the top, where, on the site of the ancient
castle, is found the cemetery of the town, from which there is an
extensive prospect over sea and land.
At the foot of the ascent, wheeled carriages are left behind. The lanes,
though dignified with the name of streets, are accessible only to
foot-passengers or donkeys. The principal one is the Rue Longue, noticed
as having been an ancient thoroughfare, protected at each end by a
vaulted gateway and guardhouse. The gates have been long since removed,
leaving free access to all who feel any interest in perambulating the
narrow passage, now sunk into the character of a back street. Being
paved with small rounded stones, with an inclination to a central
gutter, and environed with tall antique buildings, you feel pretty much
as if walking along the bottom of a drain; but there the resemblance
ends, for, to do the inhabitants justice, the road is remarkably clean,
which is more than can be said for some of the pretentious
thoroughfares. The massive tenements, five or six stories in height, are
laid out in separate dwellings, reached by narrow common stairs. In the
lower floor were the shops, consisting of dingy vaults with round-topped
doorways, some down and others up a step, and a good deal of
irregularity throughout. The Quai Bonaparte having drawn away all
general traffic, the Rue Longue has, in a business sense,
correspondingly declined. You see vaults which had been great shops in
their day, sorrowfully shut up, their clumsy old-fashioned doors
dreadfully in want of paint, fastened with queer-looking decayed
padlocks. As, however, there must still be a demand in the crowded
floors above for the essentials of existence, the street is not without
some traces of commerce. When grand concerns disappear, hucksters step
in to occupy the field, just as when some imposing order of forest trees
is swept to destruction, shrubs of various species start beneficently
into existence. In the Rue Longue, accordingly, you will not be
surprised, but rather on the whole gratified, to see a certain class of
dealers—old women selling bread, oranges, and candles, modestly
exhibited on a slip of shelf outside the door, with meal and flour in a
small way in bags inside the threshold, along with possibly cheap cuts
of salt fish in steep to meet demands on Fridays; establishments
purporting to be a _Débit de Vin_; a _Boucherie_, authorised to sell
_bœuf, agneau et de veau au 2^{me} qualité_; or a respectable
middle-aged spinster retailing a miscellany of tapes and other small
wares. Dull and composed even at mid-day, the long Rue has an air of
solitude. There is little stirring. The only sound heard is that of a
shoemaker, who, seated outside his door for the sake of light, is
industriously hammering his leather; besides which spectacle of activity
you will have the satisfaction of observing a wrinkled old crone airing
herself on the outside step of a doorway, and spinning with the
distaff—a picture for your sketch-book, if artistically inclined.
What traditions of historical events and distinguished personages could
be told of the Rue and its surroundings! Some of the houses, the backs
of which overlook the East Bay, and in old times reached down to the
water’s edge, have still a wonderfully aristocratic aspect; and it might
be safely affirmed at a venture that they had been the residence of
dukes and counts in the stirring bygone times. A mansion of this kind,
with tall windows and heavy cornices at the eaves, is pointed out as
having been the dwelling of the Princes of Monaco. It is said to have
been built by Honore II. in the early part of the seventeenth century.
This prince, one of the best of the Grimaldis, rendered himself popular
by causing the reconstruction of the church of St Michael, a puissant
archangel in whom all classes of the Mentonians have ever in their
emergencies placed great confidence; and it is a matter of no little
pride to them that the handsome spire of the church under his invocation
dominates over every other edifice. It is further said of Honore II.
that he erected the martello tower or bastion on the ledge of rocks at
the port. This would place the date of that conspicuous structure at
about 1620. From appearances, I am inclined to think it is of greater
antiquity, and that the prince only caused it to be repaired in the
shape in which it has latterly remained.
[Illustration: 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?
The want of water led in pipes to the houses, entails another heavy
department of labour on the humbler class of women. In the older part of
Mentone, there are some public fountains, supplied from the hills, and
from these all water has to be carried for domestic purposes. Subject to
this inconvenience, the water so obtained is pure and wholesome, though
yielding a slight limy deposit. In this respect, therefore, the
inhabitants at the centre of the town are better off than the occupants
of hotels and villas, which depend on pump wells. The Hôtel d’Angleterre
has the advantage of being close to the fountain in the Place Napoléon,
and of readily getting water from it. The husbanding of water does not
seem to engage the attention of the authorities. During wet weather,
there is such a profuse and wasteful overflow at the fountain situated
at the end of the Quai Bonaparte, as to suggest that, by proper storage,
supplies could be widely distributed. It is the destiny of every town,
with any regard for health or decency, to have a ‘water question’ forced
some day peremptorily on its attention. Mentone’s day is coming.
The custom of washing clothes in rivulets or pools leads to some
difficulties in the profession of the _blanchisseuse_. It cannot be easy
to wash when there is no water possessing washable qualities. Cheerful
in this as in everything else, the women of Mentone are exemplary in
making the best of things. They will wash clothes in a dub which a dog
would not drink out of. Kneeling in a kind of basket, to keep their
knees from the stones, and using square lumps of white soap streaked
with green, like old Stilton cheese, they cluster in groups around pools
in the Borigo or Carei, and there carry on their operations. The pools
which have settled among the rubbish of the Carei, dirty and offensive
though they be, are the recognised washing-tubs of the town. Around one
favourite gutter, I one day reckoned as many as fifty-two washerwomen,
all kneeling as close to each other as possible, and all using the same
opaque frothy liquid. The sight of these bands of kneeling figures at
the outlet of the Carei, where a pool accumulates, after having served
the like purpose farther up the bed of rubbish, is about as
extraordinary as can be witnessed. How clothes can be cleansed by
washing in such puddles is somewhat incomprehensible. Persons knowing on
the subject ascribe all to the force of soap, and the detergent power of
fine air and sunshine in drying. The explanation is not very
satisfactory.
In this as in other toilsome occupations, the women of Mentone exhibit a
spirit of ceaseless and uncomplaining industry. Be the weather cold or
hot, there they are at their work. When frost put a film of ice on the
pools, they still continued their labours. Poor as the females evidently
are, they shew uncommon skill in the patching and mending of clothes.
The needle must be in frequent requisition, for nowhere is there to be
seen a ragged garment on man or woman. It does not detract from the
ingenuity of the needlewomen to say that, in patching, they do not
concern themselves greatly as to harmony of colour. A light patch on a
dark ground, or dark on a light ground, red upon blue, or any other
incongruity as it may happen, answers every required purpose. A square
patch of bright green on the back of a fisherman’s gray jacket, shews a
fine indifference to public opinion, and is rather amusing than
otherwise. The grand thing evidently is to overcome raggedness, no
matter about colour, and the design is fully realised. By the mending
process, garments of all sorts, masculine or feminine, are spun out to a
respectable longevity—that is to say, as long as they will hold decently
together. This thriftiness, I think, speaks well for the character of
the humbler classes. There is poverty, but no squalor. The only
unpleasing feature is street-begging. In all quarters we were beset by
mendicants. Public begging is doubtless forbidden, but where there is no
comprehensive method of succouring the necessitous, and no proper
police, how is it to be prevented? The feeling we had about it was, that
the _sergents de ville_ benevolently winked at the practice. However
this may be, the letting loose of beggars on the _Colonie des Étrangers_
is not a very discreet procedure; neither is it very commendable to take
so little trouble to enforce cleanliness in some of the highways and
by-ways.
These blemishes, along with certain excesses in tobacco-smoking (which
must drain the not over-enriched pocket of many a sou), and some
carousing in a mild way in _Cafés_ and _Débits de Vin_, constitute the
leading social defects. An absence of crime of a serious, or it might
almost be said of any, kind must be deemed a favourable characteristic.
In this respect the surrounding district, whether nominally French or
Italian, differs greatly from those southern parts of Italy which were
colonised by Greeks. The ancient Ligurians, a brave but docile Celtic
race, have left their impress on the inhabitants of the Riviera. All
strangers concur in speaking well of their honesty, sobriety, and
industry. The late Rev. Dr Robert Lee, who spent a season at St Dalmas
di Tenda, and afterwards gave an account of his experiences, compliments
them highly for these and other good qualities. In conversing with the
abbé who occupies the house in the Rue Brea in which Bonaparte resided,
I learned that the more odious vices common in our large (and some
small) communities were next to unknown in Mentone; and this coincided
with what I had often casually observed. The people, men and women, said
this clergyman emphatically, were _bon pour la morale_. This good moral
conduct is, I believe, greatly owing to a prevalent tone of courtesy and
refinement among even the humbler classes. Coarseness of manners and low
habits are at the root of much that we lament as evil.
Quoting from Dr Bottini on the medical statistics of Mentone, Dr Siordet
states that among the native population ‘epidemic diseases do not occur
to any great extent,’ and that some other diseases are very rare. This
may be true. I was informed, however, on what seemed good authority,
that the death-rate of the settled inhabitants of the commune was as
high as 26 per 1000 per annum, which is 6 or 7 above what it ought to
be. Assuming that I was correctly informed, the comparatively high rate
of mortality might be explained by hard work, poor living, and
overcrowding of dwellings, with perhaps other insanitary conditions.
Hard grinding labour in all states of the weather might alone account
for much. It would be a great mistake to imagine that the French, with
all their light-heartedness, are an idly-disposed people. Taking them
all in all, they work too much; for as there is no law in France against
working or transacting business on Sunday, many who are so inclined
labour seven days a week. The _blanchisseuse_ knows no recurring weekly
Sabbath—not because she is irreligious, for she is frequently seen
popping into the churches to go through some devotional exercises; but
that a regard for a periodical day of rest is not part of her spiritual
system. As in the case of the humbler orders generally, her reverence
for Sunday is merged in the great solemnities of Christmas, Good Friday,
and Easter, at which times alone do we observe that there is a
scrupulous laying aside of ordinary occupations. Such a constant round
of drudging labour cannot have a beneficial effect. The sight of it
gives one the heart-ache. We feel that an error is committed, not only
in a religious point of view, but in social economics, and in all that
tends to elevate and adorn humanity. A residence abroad convinces me
more powerfully than any argument, that a due and reasonable observance
of a weekly rest on Sunday is one of the noblest attributes of
civilisation. I am glad to observe that a change for the better is in
this respect creeping over France. At Mentone, from whatever cause,
there is a growing abstinence from work on Sundays. The practice of
closing the shops is more common than it was some years ago;
comparatively few loaded carts are seen in the streets; building
operations are for the most part suspended; and scarcely any donkeys
with their burdens are observed trooping in from the country. These may
be deemed gratifying symptoms of an improved tone of feeling, the more
creditable for being spontaneous, at least without legal obligation.
It might perhaps be argued that the cessation of donkey-traffic on
Sundays is as much due to commercial as to religious scruples. I am not
aware that any animals are kept ready for hire at the _Stations des
Anes_. These establishments are only dépôts for ass-saddles, where
orders can be executed. The donkeys come from the hills in the morning
laden with fruits or other articles, in charge of a female; and having
done what might be thought a fair day’s work, are ready for hire at the
_Stations_, to go on excursions with invalids on their backs to and from
places in the neighbourhood. As few visitors employ them on Sunday, it
may seem advantageous not to bring them to town on that day. If so, the
donkeys have reason to be thankful. These docile creatures, contriving
‘a double debt to pay,’ might be styled the true bread-winners of the
peasant proprietary. Travelling by pathways wholly inaccessible to
wheeled carriages, they are seen not only bringing down loads of native
produce, but carrying up stones, lime, and other building-materials to
places two thousand feet above the sea-level. But for these useful
animals, the hilly region would be in a great measure valueless. So far
as the Riviera is concerned, the ass must be considered to be a
beneficent gift of Nature.