These Particulars Might Be
Executed At No Very Great Expence; But, I Apprehend, They Would
Be Ineffectual, As The Town Is Commanded By Every Hill In The
Neighbourhood; And The Exhalations From Stagnating Sea-Water
Would Infallibly Render The Air Unwholesome.
Notwithstanding the
undoubted antiquity of Nice, very few monuments of that antiquity
now remain.
The inhabitants say, they were either destroyed by
the Saracens in their successive descents upon the coast, by the
barbarous nations in their repeated incursions, or used in
fortifying the castle, as well as in building other edifices. The
city of Cemenelion, however, was subject to the same disasters,
and even entirely ruined, nevertheless, we still find remains of
its antient splendor. There have been likewise a few stones found
at Nice, with antient inscriptions; but there is nothing of this
kind standing, unless we give the name of antiquity to a marble
cross on the road to Provence, about half a mile from the city.
It stands upon a pretty high pedestal with steps, under a pretty
stone cupola or dome, supported by four Ionic pillars, on the
spot where Charles V. emperor of Germany, Francis I. of France,
and pope Paul II. agreed to have a conference, in order to
determine all their disputes. The emperor came hither by sea,
with a powerful fleet, and the French king by land, at the head
of a numerous army. All the endeavours of his holiness, however,
could not effect a peace; but they agreed to a truce of ten
years. Mezerai affirms, that these two great princes never saw
one another on this occasion; and that this shyness was owing to
the management of the pope, whose private designs might have been
frustrated, had they come to a personal interview. In the front
of the colonade, there is a small stone, with an inscription in
Latin, which is so high, and so much defaced, that I cannot read
it.
In the sixteenth century there was a college erected at Nice, by
Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, for granting degrees to
students of law; and in the year one thousand six hundred and
fourteen, Charles Emanuel I. instituted the senate of Nice;
consisting of a president, and a certain number of senators, who
are distinguished by their purple robes, and other ensigns of
authority. They administer justice, having the power of life and
death, not only through the whole county of Nice, but causes are
evoked from Oneglia, and some other places, to their tribunal,
which is the dernier ressort, from whence there is no appeal. The
commandant, however, by virtue of his military power and
unrestricted authority, takes upon him to punish individuals by
imprisonment, corporal pains, and banishment, without consulting
the senate, or indeed, observing any form of trial. The only
redress against any unjust exercise of this absolute power, is by
complaint to the king; and you know, what chance a poor man has
for being redressed in this manner.
With respect to religion, I may safely say, that here
superstition reigns under the darkest shades of ignorance and
prejudice. I think there are ten convents and three nunneries
within and without the walls of Nice; and among them all, I never
could hear of one man who had made any tolerable advances in any
kind of human learning. All ecclesiastics are exempted from any
exertion of civil power, being under the immediate protection and
authority of the bishop, or his vicar. The bishop of Nice is
suffragan of the archbishop of Ambrun in France; and the revenues
of the see amount to between five and six hundred pounds
sterling. We have likewise an office of the inquisition, though I
do not hear that it presumes to execute any acts of jurisdiction,
without the king's special permission. All the churches are
sanctuaries for all kinds of criminals, except those guilty of
high treason; and the priests are extremely jealous of their
privileges in this particular. They receive, with open arms,
murderers, robbers, smugglers, fraudulent bankrupts, and felons
of every denomination; and never give them up, until after
having stipulated for their lives and liberty. I need not enlarge
upon the pernicious consequences of this infamous prerogative,
calculated to raise and extend the power and influence of the
Roman church, on the ruins of morality and good order. I saw a
fellow, who had three days before murdered his wife in the last
month of pregnancy, taking the air with great composure and
serenity, on the steps of a church in Florence; and nothing is
more common, than to see the most execrable villains diverting
themselves in the cloysters of some convents at Rome.
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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