over its pebbles towards the sea. Our road followed the western bank,
and before long brought us to Campo Rosso, a little village with a
picturesque belfry, a church whose facade was decorated with old
frescos, two marble sirens spouting water, and numberless "bits" in the
way of vistas through narrow arched passages and crooked streets, which
are the delight of artists. But Campo Rosso was not our destination, and
entering the carriage again, we went onward through an olive wood whose
broad terraces extended above, below, and on all sides as far as eye
could reach. When we had stopped wondering over its endlessness, and had
grown accustomed to the gray light, suddenly we came out under the open
sky again, with Dolce Acqua before us, its castle above, its church
tower below, and, far beyond, our first view of snow-capped peaks rising
high and silvery against the deep blue sky. Inness and Baker threw up
their hats and saluted the snow with an American hurrah. "What with
those white peaks and this Italian sky, I feel like the Merry Swiss Boy
and the Marble Faun rolled into one," said Baker.
We drove up to the Locanda Desiderio, or "Desired Inn," as Inness
translated it. It was now noon, and in the brick-floored apartment below
a number of peasants were eating sour bread and drinking wine. But the
host, a handsome young Italian, hastened to show us an upper chamber,
where, with the warm sunshine flooding through the open windows across
the bare floor, we spread our luncheon on a table covered with coarse
but snowy homespun, and decked with remarkable plates in brilliant hues
and still more brilliant designs. The luncheon was accompanied by
several bottles of "the good little white wine" of the neighborhood--an
accompaniment we had learned to appreciate.
Upon the chimney-piece of a room adjoining ours, whose door stood open,
there was an old brass lamp. In shape it was not unlike a high
candlestick crowned with an oval reservoir for oil, which had three
little curving tubes for wicks, and an upright handle above ending in a
ring; it was about a foot and a half high, and from it hung three brass
chains holding a brass lamp-scissors and little brass extinguishers.
Mrs. Clary, Mrs. Trescott, Miss Graves, Miss Elaine, and myself all
admired this lamp as we strolled about the rooms after luncheon before
starting for the castle. It happened that Janet was not there; she had
gone, by an unusual chance, with Lloyd, to look at some cinque-cento
frescos in an old church somewhere, and was, I have no doubt, deeply
interested in them. When she returned she too spied the old lamp, and
admired it. "I wish I had it for my own room at home," she exclaimed. "I
feel sure it is Aladdin's."
[Illustration: DOLCE ACQUA]
"Come, come, Janet," called Mrs. Trescott from below. "The castle
waits."
"It has waited some time already," said Inness--"a matter of six or
seven centuries, I believe."
"And looks as though it would wait six or seven more," I said, as we
stood on the arched bridge admiring the massive walls above.
"It has withstood numerous attacks," said the Professor. "Genoese armies
came up this valley more than once to take it, and went back
unsuccessful."
"To me it is more especially distinguished by _not_ having been a home
of the Lascaris," said Baker.
"To whom, then, did it belong?" said Janet, contemptuously.
We all, in a chorus, answered grandly, "To the Dorias!" (We were so glad
to have reached a name we knew.)
The castle crowned the summit of a crag, ruined but imposing; in shape a
parallelogram, it had in front square towers, five stories in height,
pierced with round-arched windows. It was the finest as well as largest
ruin we lately landed Americans had seen, and we went hither and thither
with much animation, telling each other all we knew, and much that we
did not know, about ruined towers, square towers, drawbridges, moats,
donjon keeps, and the like; while Miss Elaine, who had placed herself
beside Verney on the knoll where he was sketching, looked on in a kindly
patronizing way, as much as to say: "Enjoy yourselves, primitive
children of the New World. We of England are familiar with ruins."
Margaret and Lloyd found a seat in one of the ruined windows of the
south tower; I stood beside them for a few moments looking at the view.
On the north the narrow valley curved and went onward, while over its
dark near green rose the glittering snowy peaks so far away. In the
south, the blue of the Mediterranean stretched across the mouth of the
valley, whose sides were bold and high; the little river gleamed out in
spots of silver here and there, and the white belfry of Campo Rosso rose
picturesquely against the dark olive forest. Directly under us were the
roofs of the village, and the old stone bridge of one high arch. "Do you
notice that many of these roofs are flat, with benches, and pots of
flowers?" said Lloyd. "You do not see that in Mentone. It is thoroughly
Italian."
Janet, Mrs. Trescott, Inness, Baker, and the Professor were up on the
highest point of the crag, where the Professor was giving a succinct
account of the Guelphs and Ghibellines. His words floated down to us,
but to which of those celebrated and eternally quarrelling factions
these Dorias belong I regret to say I cannot now remember. But it was
evident that he was talking eloquently, and Inness, who was quite
distanced, by way of diversion threw pebbles at the north tower.
We came down from the castle after a while, and strolled through the
village streets--all of us save Margaret and Lloyd, who remained sitting
in their window. Mrs. Trescott, seeing a vaulted entrance, stopped to
examine it, and the broad doors being partly open, she peeped within. As
there was more vaulting and no one to forbid, she stepped into the old
hall, and we all followed her. We were looking at the massive, finely
proportioned stairway, when a little girl appeared above gazing down
curiously. She was a pretty child of seven or eight, and held some
little thumbed school-books under her arm.
"Is this a school?" asked Verney, in Italian.
She nodded shyly, and ran away, but soon returned accompanied by a
Sister, or nun, who, with a mixture of politeness and timidity, asked if
we wished to see their schools. Of course we wished to see everything,
and going up the broad stairway, we were ushered into an unexpected and
remarkable apartment.
"We came to see an infant school, and we find a row of noblemen," said
Baker. "They must be all the Dorias upon their native heath!"
The "heath" was the wall, upon which, in black frames, were ranged
forty-two portraits in a long procession going around three sides of the
great room, which must have been fifty feet in length. At the head of
the apartment was a picture seven feet square, representing a
full-blooming lady in a long-bodied white satin dress, with an
extraordinary structure of plumes and pearls on her head, accompanied by
a stately little heir in a pink satin court suit, and several younger
children. One grim, dark old man in red, farther down the hall, was
"Roberto: Seigneur Dolce Acqua. Anno 1270." A dame in yellow brocade,
with hoop, ruff, and jewels, and a little curly dog under her arm, was
"Brigida: Domina Dolce Acqua. 1290."
"So they carried dogs in that way then as well as now," observed Janet.
The Mother Superior now came in. She informed us that this was the
chateau of the Dorias, built after their castle was destroyed, and
occupied by descendants of the family until a comparatively recent
period. Its plain exterior, extending across one end of the little
square, we had not especially distinguished from the other buildings
which joined it, forming the usual continuous wall of the Riviera towns.
The chateau was now a convent and school. There were benches across one
side of the large apartment where the village children were already
assembled under the black-framed portraits, but there was not much
studying that day, I think, save a study of strangers.
"Here is the real treasure," said Verney.
It was a chimney-piece of stone, extending across one end of the room,
richly carved with various devices in relief, figures, and ornaments,
and a row of heads on shields across the front, now the profile of an
old bearded man looking out, and now that of a youth in armor. It was
fifteen feet high, and a remarkably fine piece of work.
"Quite thrown away here," said Miss Graves.
"Oh, I don't know; the portraits can see it," replied Janet.
The Mother Superior conducted us all over the chateau, reserving only
the corridor where were her own and the Sisters' apartments. The
dignified stone stairway with its broad stone steps extended unchanged
to the top of the house.
"In the matter of stairways," I said, "I must acknowledge that our New
World ideas are deficient. We have spacious rooms, broad windows, high
ceilings, but such a stairway as this is beyond us."
The empty sunny rooms above were gayly painted in fresco. At one end of
the house a door opened into a little latticed balcony, into which we
stepped, finding ourselves in an adjoining church, high up on the wall
at one side of the altar. Here the Sisters came to pray, and as we
departed, one of them glided in and knelt down in the dusky corner.
"Perhaps she is going to pray for us," said Inness.
"I am sure we need it," replied Janet, seriously.
In the garret was a Sedan-chair, once elaborately gilded.
"I suppose they went down to Ventimiglia in that," said Baker--"those
fine old dames below."
From one of the rooms on the second floor opened a little cell or
closet, part of whose flooring had been removed, showing a hollow space
beneath following the massive exterior wall.
[Illustration: PIFFERARI]
"Here," said the Mother Superior, "the papers of the family were
concealed at the approach of the first Napoleon, and not taken out for a
number of years. The flooring has never been replaced."
The Mother Superior spoke only Italian, which Verney translated, much to
the envy of the younger men. The Professor was not with us, for as soon
as he learned that the place was "papist" he departed, although Inness
suggested that the street was papist also, and likewise the very air
must be redolent of Rome. But the Professor was an example of "coelum,
non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt," and quite determined to be
as Protestant in Italy as he was in Connecticut. He would not desert his
colors because under a foreign sky, as so many Americans desert them.
The Mother now conducted us to a little square parlor, with south
windows opening upon a balcony full of pots of flowers; the walls and
ceiling of this little room were glowing with color--paintings in fresco
more suited to the Dorias, I fancy, than to the "Sisters of the Snow,"
for this was the poetical name of the little black-robed band. In this
worldly little room we found wine waiting for us, and grapes which were
almost raisins: we had never seen them in transition before. The wine
was excellent, and Mrs. Trescott partook with much graciousness. After
partaking, she employed Verney in translating to the Mother a number of
her own characteristic sentences. But Verney must have altered them
somewhat en route, for I hardly think the Mother would have remained so
calmly placid if she had comprehended that "this whole scene--the
grapes, the wine, and the frescos"--reminded Mrs. Trescott of
"Cleopatra, and of Sardanapalus and his golden flagons." Presently two
of the Sisters entered with coffee which they had prepared for us; after
serving it, they retired to a corner, where they stood gently regarding
us. Then another entered, and then another, unobtrusively taking their
places beside the others. It was interesting to notice the simplicity of
their mild gaze; although brown and middle-aged, their expression was
like that of little children. When they learned that some of us were
from America they were much impressed, and looked at each other
silently.
"I suppose it does not seem to them but a little while since Columbus
discovered us," said Baker.
At last it was time for us to go: we bade the little group farewell, and
left some coins "for their poor."
"Though we may not meet on earth, we shall see you all again in heaven,"
said the Mother, and all the Sisters bowed assent. They accompanied us
down to the outer door, and waved their hands in adieu as we crossed the
little square. When, at the other side, we turned to look back, we saw
their black skirts retiring up the stairway to their little school.
"Farewell, Sisters of the Snow," said Janet. "May we all so live as to
keep that rendezvous you have given us!"
The carriages were now ordered, and Margaret and Lloyd summoned from the
castle tower. We were standing at the door of the Desired Inn,
collecting our baskets and wraps, when the Professor appeared with a
long narrow parcel in his hand. This he stowed away carefully in one of
the carriages, changing its position several times, as if anxious it
should be carried safely. While he was thus engaged in his absorbed,
near-sighted way, Inness came down the stone stairs from the upper
chamber, and going across to Janet, who was leaning on the parapet
looking at the river, he was on the point of presenting something to
her, when his little speech was stopped by the appearance of Baker
coming around the corner from the front of the house, with a parcel
exactly like his own.
[Illustration: MONACO--THE PALACE AND PORT]
"Two!" cried Inness, bursting into a peal of laughter; and then we
saw, as he tore off the paper, that he had the old brass lamp which
Janet had admired. Meanwhile Baker had another, the Desired Inn having
been evidently equal to the occasion, and to driving a good bargain. Our
laughter aroused the Professor, who turned and gazed at our group from
the step of the carriage. But having no idea of losing the credit of his
unusual gallantry simply because some one else had had the same thought,
he now extracted his own parcel and silently extended it.
"A third!" cried Inness. And then we all gave way again.
"I am so much obliged to you," said Janet, sweetly, when there was a
pause, "but I am sorry you took the trouble. Because--because Mr. Verney
has already kindly given me one, which is packed in one of the baskets."
At this we laughed again, more irresistibly than before--all, I mean,
save Miss Elaine, who merely said, in the most unamused voice, "How
_very_ amusing!" As we had all admired the ancient lamp (although no one
thought of offering it to _us_), the superfluous gifts easily found
places among us, and were not the less thankfully received because
obtained in that roundabout way.
We now left the "Sweet Waters" behind us, and went down the valley
towards the sea.
"There is another town as picturesque as Dolce Acqua some miles farther
up the valley," said Verney. "I have a sketch of it. It is called
Pigna."
"Oh, let us go there!" said Janet.
"We cannot, my daughter, spend the entire remainder of our earthly
existence among the Maritime Alps," said Mrs. Trescott.
Inness had the place beside Janet all the way home.
On the Cornice, a few miles from Mentone, we came upon a boy and girl
sitting by the road-side; they had a flageolet and a sort of bagpipe,
and wore the costume of Italian peasants, their foot-coverings being the
complicated bands and strings which are, in American eyes (the strings
transmuted into ribbons), indelibly associated with bandits. "They are
pifferari," said Verney; and we stopped the carriages and asked them to
play for us. The boy played on his flageolet, and the girl sang. As she
stood beside us in the dust, her brown hands clasped before her, her
great dark eyes never once stopped gazing at Janet, who, clad that day
in a soft cream-white walking costume, with gloves, round hat, and plume
of the same tint, looked not unlike a lily on its stem. The Italian girl
was of nearly the same age in years, and of fully the same age in
womanhood, and it seemed as if she could not remove her fascinated gaze
from the fair white stranger. Inness and Verney both tried to attract
her attention; but the boy gathered up the coins they dropped, and the
girl gazed on. As the Professor was tired, and did not care for music,
we drove onward; but, as far as we could see, the Italian girl still
stood in the centre of the road, gazing after the carriages.
"What do you suppose is in her mind?" I said. "Envy?"
"Hardly," said Verney. "To her, probably, Miss Trescott is like a being
from another world--a saint or Madonna."
"Ah, Mr. Verney, what exaggerated comparisons!" said Miss Elaine, in
soft reproach. "Besides, it is irreligious, and you _promised_ me you
would not be irreligious."
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PALACE, MONACO]
Verney looked somewhat aghast at this revelation, of course overheard by
Mrs. Clary and myself. It was rather hard upon him to have his misdeeds
brought up in this way--the little sentimental speeches he had made
to Miss Elaine in the remote past--i.e., before Janet arrived. But he
was obliged to bear it.
* * * * *
"I suppose," said Inness, one morning, "that you are not all going away
from Mentone without even _seeing_ Mon--Monaco?"
"It can be _seen_ from Turbia," answered the Professor, grimly. "And
that view is near enough."
Inness made a grimace, and the subject was dropped. But it ended in our
seeing Turbia from Monaco, and not Monaco from Turbia.
"There is no use in fighting against it," said Mrs. Clary, shrugging her
shoulders. "You will have to go once. Every one does. There is a fate
that drives you."
"And the joke is," said Baker, in high glee, "that the Professor is
going too. It seems that the view from Turbia was not near enough for
him, after all."
"I am not surprised," said Mrs. Clary. "I thought he would go: they all
do. I have seen English deans, Swiss pastors, and American Presbyterian
ministers looking on in the gambling-rooms, under the principle, I
suppose, of knowing something of the evil they oppose. They do not go
but once; but that once they are very apt to allow themselves."
The views along the Cornice west of Mentone are very beautiful. As we
came in sight of Monaco, lying below in the blue sea, we caught its
alleged resemblance to a vessel at anchor.
"Monaco, or Portus Herculis Monoeci, was well known to the ancients,"
said the Professor. "Its name appears in Virgil, Tacitus, Pliny, Strabo,
and other classical writers. Before the invention of gunpowder its
situation made it impregnable. It was one of the places of refuge in the
long struggle between the Guelphs and Ghibellines" (we were rather
discouraged by the appearance of these names so early in the day), "and
it is mentioned by an Italian historian as having become in the
fourteenth century a 'home for criminals' and a 'gathering-place for
pirates'--terms equally applicable at the present day." The Professor's
voice was very sonorous.
Inness, the Professor, Janet, and myself were in a carriage together. As
Mrs. Clary and Miss Graves did not accompany us that day, we had two
carriages and a phaeton, the latter occupied by Lloyd and Verney.
"As to Monaco history," remarked Inness, carelessly, when the Professor
ceased, "I happen to remember a few items. The Grimaldis came next to
Hercules, and have had possession here since A.D. 980. Marshal
Boucicault, who was extremely devout, and never missed hearing two
masses a day, besieged the place and took it before Columbus and the
other Boucicault discovered America. In the reign of Louis the
Fourteenth a Prince of Monaco was sent as ambassador to Rome, and
entered that city with horses shod in silver, the shoes held by one nail
only, so that they might drop the sooner. Another Prince of Monaco went
against the Turks with his galleys, and brought back to this shore the
inestimable gift of the prickly-pear, for which we all bless his memory
whenever we brush against its cheerful thorns. _Three_ Princes of Monaco
were murdered in their own palace, which of course was much more
home-like than being murdered elsewhere. The Duke of York died there
also: not murdered, I believe, although there is a ghost in the story.
The principality is now three miles long, and the present prince retains
authority under the jurisdiction of France. To preserve this authority
he maintains a strictly disciplined standing army (they never sit down)
of ten able-bodied men."
These sentences were rolled out by Inness with such rapidity that I was
quite bewildered; as for the Professor, he was hopelessly stranded
half-way down the list, and never came any farther.
Passing Monte Carlo, we drove over to the palace.
"Certainly there is no town on the Riviera so beautifully situated as
Monaco," I said, as the road swept around the little port and ascended
the opposite slope. "The high rock on which it stands, jutting out
boldly into the sea, gives it all the isolation of an island, and yet
protects by its peninsula this clear deep little harbor within."
The old town of Monaco proper is on the top of this rocky presqu'ile,
three hundred feet above the sea, and west of Monte Carlo, the suburb of
Condamine, and the chapel of St. Devote. Leaving the carriages, we
entered the portal of the palace, conducted by a tenth of the standing
army.
"My first living and roofed palace," said Janet, as we ascended the
broad flight of marble steps leading to the "Court of Honor," which was
glowing with recently renewed frescos. A solemn man in black received
us, and conducted us with much dignity through thirteen broad, long
rooms, with ceilings thirty feet high--a procession of stately
apartments which left upon our minds a blurred general impression of
gilded vases, crimson curtains, slippery floors, ormolu clocks, wreaths
of painted roses, fat Cupids, and uninhabitableness. The only trace of
home life in all the shining vista was a little picture of the present
Prince, taken when he was a baby, a life-like, chubby little fellow,
smiling unconcernedly out on all this cold splendor. It was amusing to
see how we women gathered around this little face, with a sort of
involuntary comfort.
In the Salle Grimaldi there was a vast chimney-piece of one block of
marble covered with carved devices.
In the room where the Duke of York died there was a broad bed on a
platform, curtained and canopied with heavy damask, and surrounded by a
gilded railing. We stood looking at this structure in silence.
"It is very impressive," murmured Mrs. Trescott at last. Then, with a
long reminiscent sigh, as if she had been present and chief mourner on
the occasion, she added: "There is nothing more inscrutable than the
feet of the flying hours: they are winged!--winged!"
[Illustration: THE SALLE GRIMALDI, IN THE PALACE, MONACO]
"On the whole," said Janet, as we went down the marble steps towards
the army--"on the whole, taking it as a _palace_, I am disappointed."
"What did you expect?" said Verney.
"Oh, all the age of chivalry," she answered, smiling.
"The so-called age of chivalry--" began the Professor; but he never
finished; because, by some unexpected adjustment of places, he found
himself in the phaeton with Baker, and that adventurous youth drove him
over to Monte Carlo at such a speed that he could only close his eyes
and hold on.
The Casino of Monte Carlo is now the most important part of the
principality of Monaco; instead of being subordinate to the palace, the
latter has become but an appendage to the modern splendor across the
bay. Monte Carlo occupies a site as beautiful as any in the world. In
front the blue sea laves its lovely garden; on the east the soft
coast-line of Italy stretches away in the distance; on the west is the
bold curving rock of Monaco, with its castle and port, and the great
cliff of the Dog's Head. Behind rises the near mountain high above; and
on its top, outlined against the sky, stands the old tower of Turbia in
its lonely ruined majesty, looking towards Rome.