not materially affected. HIS SARDINIAN MAJESTY was enjoying the air of NICE in preference to that of his capital of TURIN, and no doubt with advantage. The whole of the surrounding mountains, and even the hills close to Nice, were hoary with snow when I passed through-though December had not quite set in. The year 1829 was, however, remarkable for premature and severe cold, as I dearly experienced on the mountain of FINALE, the ESTRELLES, and the cheerless plains of PROVENCE.

But it is time to take my departure from a place, where the beauty of the earth, the sea, and the skies, forms a striking contrast with that of the inhabitants. Men, women, and children are here as ordinary a race of beings as one would wish to encounter. In Italy-even among the bandits of Itri, Fondi, and Velletri, there is something interesting, if not positively handsome, in the black eyes, roguish expression, and killing looks of the women. But, at Nice, the stunted growth, the mahogany complexion, the distorted features, the nothingness of countenauce, and the pyebald head-dresses of the females, would sicken a sailor who had just arrived from a three years' cruise round the world, without ever seeing a petticoat.

NICE TO PARIS.

We started from Nice about mid-day in the stage, and drove over the long, narrow, and crazy bridge of the VAR, where we came into terrible collision with a huge English berline, stuffed, like Noah's Ark, with numerous bipeds and quadrupeds—with parroquets, pug-dogs, ladies' maids, and lazy footmen -together with a quantity of luggage, that must have gladdened the heart of every custom-house officer between Dover and Nice. On the western bank of this river, we once more set foot on LA BELLE FRANCE, and soon brought up at the DOUANE. But from us of the DILIGENCE, the keen-scented douaniers expected nothing but trouble for trouble-a species of commerce which they evidently disrelished-and, consequently, our baggage was dispatched with as much celerity as our passports, and we were en route in less than twenty minutes! We drove through the gates of Antibes before sunset, and, after threading the mazes of many wretched streets, were set down in a stinking yard, ankle deep in dirt, from whence we carried our trunks on our own shoulders to an inn, which was little superior to an Italian LOCANDA! The TABLE D'HOTE was marked for eight o'clock, and I spent two hours in perambulating the ramparts, and taking a farewell look of the mighty and snowclad Alps, of which there is a glorious view from the walls of this town. At the inn we found two tables-the superior one for the military mess-the inferior for the travellers, and other plebeians. The martial hauteur engendered by the long war has not yet entirely subsided in France.

I hardly know whether I ought to congratulate or condole with myself,

*

CONTINENTAL COOKERY.

247 that chance, in early life, gave me a peep at the "art and mystery" of cooking, which curiosity-foolish curiosity I allow-afterwards repeated and enlarged in various countries. One result was, a firm resolution never to put any thing into my mouth which had been touched by the fingers of the cook. This may look like self-condemnation to the doom of Tantalus-and so it proved on many occasions, as well as on the present! In England, however, one can always get an inside slice of meat, and the interior of a potatoe, to satisfy the demands of appetite. Not so in France or Italy. It is said, indeed, that every individual has a certain quantity of a certain article to consume in the course of his life-and the sooner the tribute is paid the better. I can swear that whoever sojourns in the aforesaid countries, will very soon liquidate this portion of his debts-whatever may be the case with his other pecuniary obligations! I had often seen the Bengal professor of culinary science grease the toast for his master with rancid GHEE, taken out of a kedgeree pot by means of a dirty piece of rag, or the equally dirty wing of a fowl-but that was cleanliness, compared with the revolting manipulations and unutterable combinations of a Continental CUISINE !

From one end of the long TABLE D'HÔTE to the other, not a single article untortured from its native taste, could I find, unless we except that horrible hybrid composition-the fat of a BOAR engrafted on the flesh of a BULLOCKand misnomered BŒUF AU NATUREL! Where did Nature ever produce such

a monstrous conjugation! Well! as I could get neither animal nor vegetable substance in any thing like a state of nature, I went to bed supperless, as one of the many penalties inflicted on me for my prying curiosity.*

* My countryman, Mr. Matthews, though, perhaps, much more observant, was much less squeamish about these matters. "The kitchen (says he) of an inn in Languedoc is enough to damp the strongest appetite. While the host, who played as many parts as Buskin, in the farce, was killing the devoted fowl, his cat ran away with the sausages intended to garnish it. Poor chanticleer was laid down to finish his death-song as he could, while the host pursued puss to her retreat, which was so well chosen, that a third of the sausages were gone before he discovered her. Puss, however, paid dearly for it in the end-for, in endeavouring to make her escape under a door, her hind legs and tail were left on the hither side of it, upon which mine host wreaked his vengeance by stamping most unmercifully. At last we sat down to Grimalkin's leavings, while the landlord contrived, some how or other, to furnish a very tolerable breakfast." If Mr. Matthews had seen the sausages made, he would have wondered how even Grimalkin could have taken such a liking to them! Poor puss must have had many a banyan day, such as I experienced at ANTIBES, before necessity compelled her to this unhallowed banquet on a French sausage!

Leaving Antibes before day-light, and with no great reluctance, we drove through CANNES, the scene of Napoleon's debarkation from Elba, and, after casting a look at the gloomy tower of St. Marguerite, a prison overhanging the sea, and in which two noted personages had had their residence-the man in the iron mask, and Napoleon's favourite Mameluke-we ascended the ESTRELLE mountains, where the cold was intense, the ground covered, in many places, with snow, and the scenery the most interesting of any I had ever seen in France. Descending thence, we crossed a plain to FREJUS, and passed under a venerable Roman aqueduct before we entered the town. Here we halted to dine; and here I almost expected to end my days with hunger-for nothing could I find on the table that I was able to touch! By dint of bribery and flattery, I procured half dozen of eggs-and as I was perfectly certain that the cook's fingers had not penetrated the shells, I was set up for the ensuing journey to Aix.

I have alluded, on a former occasion, to the indignity that was offered to one of the most delicate, useful, and retiring goddesses of antiquity, when she crossed the Alps on her way to the North, after the fall of Rome. It was at FREJUS I learnt the astounding intelligence that, in Provence, no other temple than the fields, was dedicated to her worship! Napoleon, who resided three days here, previous to his embarkation for Elba, must have often blessed the Romans, as I did from my very heart, for having erected an amphitheatre in the neighbourhood-the ruins of which, will be visited by every traveller-from more motives than mere curiosity!*

In the whole course of my existence, I never spent a more miserable five days and nights, than those which were occupied in travelling, (with only one night's repose,) between Antibes and Chalons. PROVENCE is a disgrace to France and to Europe! I wonder where Mrs. Ratcliffe picked up her romantic and glowing descriptions of Avignon and Languedoc! Even Aix, the capitol, though rather handsome at a distance, is poor and cheerless when entered. The VENT DE BIZE was blowing bitterly, during the few hours I staid here waiting for the TOULON DILIGENCE-for there was no possibility of getting a place in the mails-and the boiling steam issuing from the middle of the principal street, or rather square of Aix, was the most comfortable spot I saw in PROVENCE. How this town, subject as it is to the cutting MISTRAL, could ever have been selected as a place for consumptive invalids from England, I cannot imagine. It is still more inconceivable that people

* "Three days did he live at Frejus before he sailed, and if one place was better calculated than another to give him a disgust to the country he was on the point of quitting, this little town might have been specially fixed on for the purpose."-Sketches of Italy, Vol. I. p. 108.

AVIGNON TO LYONS.

249

in health, could leave the cheerful and busy hum of man—the clean, comfortable, and warm houses and hearths of their own country, to rot and rust away a portion of their existence, in one of the most dull, cold, insipid, and uninteresting cities of Europe !

At AVIGNON We came upon the banks of the Rhone-not the clear, blue, and rapid river that darts through the city of Geneva-but the turbid and contaminated flood formed by its unfortunate junction with the muddy Saone. At the name of AVIGNON, Petrarch and Laura rise upon the memory, and we listen for the lays of Love and Harmony from the lyres of the Troubadours. But the church of the Cordeliers, where Laura's body was interred, has long been destroyed by Time's relentless hand-and with it her tomb, and Santa Clara, where the enthusiastic Petrarch first beheld the object of his affections. We are soon woke from our romantic dream, by the sight of a most wretched and melancholy town, where-" the streets are overgrown with grass, the houses are deserted and empty; the frames dropping from the open windows -the doors decaying on their rusty hinges.”—Such is Avignon, where we dined at a tolerable TABLE D'HÔTE, to pursue our "long rough road" along: the banks of the Rhone to Lyons. Such was the state of the high-ways, with snow, mud, water, and sand, that three dreary days, and two most horrible nights were consumed in the abominable diligence-waggon between Avignon and Lyons! I had hitherto travelled nearly 3000 miles in the open air, with scarcely a feeling of fatigue, except that salutary lassitude which conduces to oblivious but restorative repose. Between Antibes and Lyons, the pressure of six people in each compartment of the infernal machine-the impossibility of stretching one's limbs-the poisonous atmosphere which we breathed, (for no window could be kept open in consequence of the drifting sleet) the total want of sleep-all combined to induce such a feverish exhaustion of body, and prostration of the mental powers, as I had never before experienced in all my peregrinations! Throughout this wretched journey, two unfortunate Scotch sailors travelled on the summit of the diligence, exposed day and night to the pelting of the pitiless storm, with a very scanty supply of clothing, and with scarcely any money except what they paid for their passage! They had been discharged from their ship by. some inhuman skipper at Genoa, and were making their way to Calaisneither of them able to speak a single word of any language but broad Scotch! I am very certain that these two poor wretches would have perished on this journey, from the effects of cold and hunger, had I not lent them my water-proof cloak, and supplied them with food and drink the whole way.. The consolation of diminishing the sufferings of my pennyless countrymen, was the only thing that cheered my drooping spirits, though it could not alleviate my corporeal fatigue, on this diabolical route. I arrived at Lyons in an actual fever-and went to bed under the full conviction that I had K k

3

tried my constitution a little too far, and that now at last I should pay the penalty, by a long and perhaps fatal illness. I was equally surprised and overjoyed, on awaking next morning, to find that I was in perfect health and good spirits! Such is the elasticity of animal power conferred on the human frame by a three months' system of travelling exercise. But I was determined not to tempt Fortune too far-and going to the BUREAU, I pre-engaged the whole of the coUPÉ, that is, three places, from Lyons to Paris, with the express stipulation to go up the SAONE by the steamer, as far as Chalons, there to meet the diligence.

And now I had time to view, not for the first time, this celebrated laboratory of silk and sans-culottes-of red hot republicans and rank Bonapartists -strange combination !-strange enthusiasm for the extremes of licentious LIBERTY and iron DESPOTISM! The true key to this paradox will be found in national VANITY. It matters little who is the MAN, or what is the MEASURE, provided the chord of national glory or Gallic aggrandisement be struck ;whether it be by a Bonaparte or a Bourbon-a Collot D'Herbois or a Louis Philippe-a citizen king or a citizen butcher—the conquest of a Barbary pirate, or the annexation of a Belgic province-whatever exalts the horn of a Frenchman's pride will insure the approbation of a Frenchman's judgment. This will be proved in time!

Lyons, like many other Continental cities, is beautiful when surveyed at some distance; but mean and dirty when narrowly explored-advantageously situated by nature-but wretchedly constructed by art. It has been characterized by two travellers of different sexes, different tastes, and different sentiments, and nearly in the same terms.

"Behind the splendid row of houses, which I have just described, betwixt the Quay du Rhone, and the line of the Saone, lies the crowded part of the city; and here disorder and filth meet the eye in every quarter. Gloomy streets, crooked courts, ruined monasteries, smoked walls, and patched windows, give the idea of inconceivable poverty and wretchedness. In all but its distant aspect, Lyons is a miserable place. On every side are tokens of desolation and decay. To the thousands of sallow beings sitting at the looms weaving silk, or drawing gold-wire, nothing seemed to give animation, but the suspense and agitation awakened by the sounds of revolt." JOHN BELL.

"Lyons, the second city of France, placed in a temperate climate, and occupying one of the finest situations in Europe, at the junction of the two great rivers which flow through it, is yet, beyond all description, vile, dirty, and wretched. It has all the faults of Continental cities carried to excess ;— the narrowest streets, the highest houses, and the most filthy of smells, uniting to destroy all the charms of its singular and beautiful situation between the steep romantic banks of the Saone on the one hand, and the rich wide plain which here borders the Rhone on the other." Anonymous Sketches of Italy.