Part 2 (1/2)

That man never would allow that he was beaten. My eldest boy one day held some pansies over the fumes of ammonia, turned them green, and showed them as a _lusus naturae_ to the gardener. He smiled contemptuously. ”Them's the colour of biled cabbage,” said he; ”I grew them verdigris green--beds of 'em, when I was with Squire Cross.”

One day he said to me: ”The nurserymen call them plants big onias just to sell them, I call them little onias; you shall just see them I grow, them be the true big onias, as large as the palm of your hand.”

I tumbled, by hazard, at Nice into a pension, where I believe I saw at _table d'hote_ a score of the ugliest women I have ever had the trial of sitting over against in my long career. I found out, in conversation with a porter at the station afterwards, that this pension was notorious for the ugly women who put up there, and it is a joke among the porters when they see one very ill-favoured arrive by the train, that she is going to be an inmate of the Hotel ----. The name I will not give, lest any of my fair readers, in that spirit of delightful perversity that characterises the s.e.x, should go there and spoil the credit of the pension. I could not endure the _table d'hote_ there for many days. An ugly woman is, or may be, restful for the eye when her face is in repose--not when she is chewing tough beef or munching an apple. Besides, Lent was pa.s.sed.

When I was in Rome there appeared in a comic paper at the beginning of Lent the picture of a very stout lady, who thus addressed her spouse. ”Hubby, dear! you haven't kissed me.” ”Can't, love,” he replies, ”_fat_ is forbidden in Lent.” Ugliness was uncongenial to me in radiantly beautiful Nice, and in sparkling Easter--so I packed my Gladstone bag and went further.

The snow still lying on the crests of the Maritime Alps and the intermediate ranges broken into fantastic forms, the lovely range of red porphyry Esterel to the south, with the intensely blue sea drawing a thread of silver about its base, together made a picture of incomparable loveliness.

The sun was so hot that the horses had already a.s.sumed their summer hats.

”A good man is merciful to his beast,” and the good-hearted peasants of the Riviera and Provence, thinking that their horses must suffer from the burning heat of the sun, provide, them with straw hats, very much the same sort of hats as girls wear, adorned also with ribbons and rosettes, but to suit the peculiarity of formation of the horse's head, two holes are cut in the hat through which the ears are drawn. The effect is comical when you are being driven in a carriage with a pair of horses before you wearing straw hats, and their ears protruding, one on each side, like the horns in the helmets of mediaeval German knights. One lovely glimpse of the sea I got that I shall never forget. The blue sea was in the background gleaming; against it stood a belt of sombre cypresses; before the cypresses the silvery, smoke-grey tufts of olive, in a grove; and before the olive, in mid-distance, a field of roses in young claret-red foliage--a landscape of belts of colour right marvellous.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Horse in a Hat.]

Then Antibes--a blue bay with castle on one horn, on the other the little town, its lighthouse, and a couple of bold towers.

It was at Cannes that Prince Honore IV. of Monaco encountered Napoleon in 1815, as he was returning from Paris in his carriage to take possession of his princ.i.p.ality, that had been restored to him by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.

The Grenadiers of the Imperial Guard stopped his carriage, made the prince descend, and conducted him before a little man with clean-cut features, whom he at once knew as the Emperor--returned from Elba.

”Ou allez-vous, Monaco?” asked Napoleon bluntly.

”Sire,” replied Honore IV., ”je vais a la decouverte de mon royaume.”

The Emperor smiled.

”Voila une singuliere rencontre, monsieur,” said Napoleon. ”Deux majestes sans place; mais ce n'est peut-etre pas la peine de vous deranger. Avant huit jours je serai a Paris, et je me verrai force de vous renverser du trone, mon cousin. Revenez plutot avec moi, je vous nommerai sous-prefet de Monaco, si vous y tenez beaucoup.”

”Merci de vos bontes, sire,” replied the prince in some confusion; ”mais je tiendrais encore plus a faire une restauration, ne dut-elle durer que trois jours.”

”Allons! faites la durer trois mois, mon cousin, je vous garderai votre place de chancellier, et vous viendriez me rejoindre aux Tuileries.”

The two monarchs separated after having shaken hands amicably. The story would be spoiled by translation.

The Grimaldis anciently possessed much more extensive territories than at present. At Cagnes, near Vence, is their ancient chateau, now converted into a hospital and barrack, and they owned considerable property, manors and lords.h.i.+ps near Cannes and Vence. We shall meet them again as Princes of Les Baux.

The present reigning family are not properly Grimaldis. The last representative was a daughter, married to the Count of Thorigny in 1715, who, on the extinction of the male line in 1731, a.s.sumed the name of Grimaldi, and succeeded to the princ.i.p.ality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lerins.]

Everywhere, for the mere delight of the eye, not from thought of any gain gotten out of it, is the Judas tree covered with pink flowers, standing among the cool grey olives. Here and there is a mulberry bursting into fresh, green, vivid leaf; in every garden the palms are rustling their leaves in the pleasant air, and are glistening in the sun. Out at sea lies the low, dull island of Lerins; but, though low and dull, full of interest, as taking the place to Provence occupied by Iona to Scotland and Lindisfarne to Northumberland, a cradle of Christianity, a cradle rocked by the waves. I cannot do better than quote Montalembert's words on this topic. ”The sailor, the soldier, or the traveller who proceeds from the roadstead of Toulon to sail towards Italy and the East, pa.s.ses among two or three islands, rocky and arid, surmounted here and there by a slender cl.u.s.ter of pines. He looks at them with indifference, and avoids them.

However, one of these islands has been for the soul, for the mind, for the moral progress of humanity, a centre purer and more fertile than any famous isle of the h.e.l.lenic Archipelago. It is Lerins, formerly occupied by a city, which was already ruined in the time of Pliny, and where, at the commencement of the fifth century, nothing more was to be seen than a desert coast. In 410, a man landed and remained there; he was called Honoratus. Descended from a consular race, educated and eloquent, but devoted from his youth to great piety, he desired to be made a monk. His father charged his eldest brother, a gay and impetuous young man, to turn him from his purpose; but, on the contrary, it was he who won over his brother. Disciples gathered round them. The face of the isle was changed, the desert became a garden. Honoratus, whose fine face is described to us as radiant with a sweet and attractive majesty, opened here an asylum and a school for all such as loved Christ.”

From this school went forth disciples, inspired with the spirit of Honoratus, to rule the churches of Arles, Avignon, Lyons, Vienne, Frejus, Valence, Nice, Metz, and many others. Honoratus himself, taken from his peaceful isle to be elevated to the metropolitan see of Arles, had for his successor, as Abbot of Lerins, and afterwards as Bishop of Arles, his pupil and kinsman S. Hilary, to whom we owe the admirable biography of his master. Hilary was celebrated for his graceful eloquence, his unwearied zeal, his tender sympathy with all forms of suffering, his ascendency over a crowd, and by the numerous conversions which he worked. But, indeed Lerins was a hive whence swarmed forth the teachers and apostles of Southern Gaul. Hence came the modest Vincent of Lerins, the first controversialist of his time, who at the head of his greatest work inscribed a touching testimony of his love for that poor little isle where he had spent so many years, and learned so much. Salvian, also, the ”Master of Bishops,” as he was called, though himself only a priest, was held to be the most eloquent man of his day, only second to S. Augustine. S. Eucherius of Lyons, S. Lupus of Troyes, who had married the sister of S. Hilary, were other prelates trained in this holy isle. When Troyes was threatened by Attila and his Huns, Lupus boldly went forth to meet him. ”Who art thou?”

asked the bishop. ”I am Attila, the Scourge of G.o.d,” was the reply. The intrepid gentleness of the bishop disarmed the ferocious invader. He left Troyes without injuring it, and drew back to the Rhine. And this isle through Lupus claims some regard from a native of Britain, for Lupus, trained in it, was chosen by the Council of Arles in 429 to combat the Pelagian heresy in Great Britain, along with S. Germa.n.u.s of Auxerre.

Into the same carriage with me, at Nice, got a pair--a young couple; he, with an amiable but weak face; she heavy featured, her only charm her eyes.

There had been a breeze between the pair, evidently, before they took their places, and she was sulky. He, poor fool, endeavoured by every means to allay her ruffled temper, always ineffectually. He pulled out his Guide Joannot, and endeavoured to interest her in the places we pa.s.sed, their history, their antiquities; in vain, she sat scowling, with pursed lips.