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:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 306 of 535
Words from 82102 to 82362
of 143308
