Nice Abounds With Noblesse, Marquisses, Counts, And Barons.
Of
these, three or four families are really respectable:
The rest
are novi homines, sprung from Bourgeois, who have saved a little
money by their different occupations, and raised themselves to
the rank of noblesse by purchase. One is descended from an
avocat; another from an apothecary; a third from a retailer of
wine, a fourth from a dealer in anchovies; and I am told, there
is actually a count at Villefranche, whose father sold macaroni
in the streets. A man in this country may buy a marquisate, or a
county, for the value of three or four hundred pounds sterling,
and the title follows the fief; but he may purchase lettres de
noblesse for about thirty or forty guineas. In Savoy, there are
six hundred families of noblesse; the greater part of which have
not above one hundred crowns a year to maintain their dignity. In
the mountains of Piedmont, and even in this country of Nice,
there are some representatives of very antient and noble
families, reduced to the condition of common peasants; but they
still retain the antient pride of their houses, and boast of the
noble blood that runs in their veins. A gentleman told me, that
in travelling through the mountains, he was obliged to pass a
night in the cottage of one of these rusticated nobles, who
called to his son in the evening, "Chevalier, as-tu donne a
manger aux cochons?" "Have you fed the Hogs, Sir Knight?" This,
however, is not the case with the noblesse of Nice.
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