That His
Revenues From Nice Are Not Great, Appears From The Smallness Of
The Appointments Allowed To His Officers.
The president has about
three hundred pounds per annum; and the intendant about two.
The
pay of the commandant does not exceed three hundred and fifty
pounds: but he has certain privileges called the tour du baton,
some of which a man of spirit would not insist upon. He who
commands at present, having no estate of his own, enjoys a small
commandery, which being added to his appointments at Nice, make
the whole amount to about five hundred pounds sterling.
If we may believe the politicians of Nice, the king of Sardinia's
whole revenue does not fall short of twenty millions of
Piedmontese livres, being above one million of our money. It must
be owned, that there is no country in Christendom less taxed than
that of Nice; and as the soil produces the necessaries of life,
the inhabitants, with a little industry, might renew the golden
age in this happy climate, among their groves, woods, and
mountains, beautified with fountains, brooks, rivers, torrents,
and cascades. In the midst of these pastoral advantages, the
peasants are poor and miserable. They have no stock to begin the
world with. They have no leases of the lands they cultivate; but
entirely depend, from year to year, on the pleasure of the
arbitrary landholder, who may turn them out at a minute's
warning; and they are oppressed by the mendicant friars and
parish priests, who rob them of the best fruits of their labour:
after all, the ground is too scanty for the number of families
which are crouded on it.
You desire to know the state of the arts and sciences at Nice;
which, indeed, is almost a total blank. I know not what men of
talents this place may have formerly produced; but at present, it
seems to be consecrated to the reign of dulness and superstition.
It is very surprising, to see a people established between two
enlightened nations, so devoid of taste and literature. Here are
no tolerable pictures, busts, statues, nor edifices: the very
ornaments of the churches are wretchedly conceived, and worse
executed. They have no public, nor private libraries that afford
any thing worth perusing. There is not even a bookseller in Nice.
Though they value themselves upon their being natives of Italy,
they are unacquainted with music. The few that play upon
instruments, attend only to the execution. They have no genius
nor taste, nor any knowledge of harmony and composition. Among
the French, a Nissard piques himself on being Provencal; but in
Florence, Milan, or Rome, he claims the honour of being born a
native of Italy. The people of condition here speak both
languages equally well; or, rather, equally ill; for they use a
low, uncouth phraseology; and their pronunciation is extremely
vitious. Their vernacular tongue is what they call Patois; though
in so calling it, they do it injustice. - Patois, from the Latin
word patavinitas, means no more than a provincial accent, or
dialect.
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