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After a pleasing description of Grasse, "famous for its pomatum, gloves, wash-balls, perfumes, and toilette boxes lined with bergamot," the homeward traveller crossed the French frontier at Antibes, and in Letter XXXIX at Marseille, he compares the galley slaves of France with those of Savoy.
And I let my glance wander along that ancient Roman road which led from Italy to Arles and can still be traced, here and there; I took in the section from Genoa to Marseille, an enormous stretch of country, and wondered: what has this coast ever produced in the way of thought or action, of great men or great women?
Yes, he was the typical adventurer from the South, moulded of the slime that covers the quays of Marseille, trodden hard by all the vagabonds who wander from seaport to seaport. Kind-hearted, generous, forsooth! as prostitutes are, and thieves.
So I inquired in the bureau for my man's number, intending to beat up his room then and there, but was met by the staggering announcement that the signor had cleared by the Marseille train which left Genoa at 3.30 in the morning. But there was a letter for me. I tore the limp envelope, and read: "GRAND HOTEL ISOTTA, Genova, Tuesday.
These words roused no expression of hatred on the part of the two brothers. "Ha! you are no longer Corsicans!" cried Piombo, with a sort of despair. "Farewell. In other days I protected you," he added, in a reproachful tone. "Without me, your mother would never have reached Marseille," he said, addressing himself to Bonaparte, who was silent and thoughtful, his elbow resting on a mantel-shelf.
But in modern times within the last century or so another custom in part has supplanted it in Marseille and Aix and in some few other towns. This is the lighting of candles at midnight in front of the crèche; a ceremony, it will be observed, in which new fire still bears the most important part.
It is useless to repeat the details, which have been given in all the histories of Provence and Marseille, as to this celebrated interview between the Pope and the king of France, which was opened by a jest of the Duke of Albany as to the duty of keeping fasts, a jest mentioned by Brantome and much enjoyed by the court, which shows the tone of the manners of that day.
The thin woollen blanket, full of holes, in which they both rolled themselves up to sleep on the deck of the Sinai, the rations fraternally shared, the long walks through the scorched country about Marseille, where they stole great onions and ate them on the bank of a ditch, the dreams, the projects, the sous put into the common purse, and, when fortune began to smile on them, the antics they played together, the dainty little suppers at which they told each other everything, with their elbows on the table.
There were to be seven such lines radiating from Paris: to the Belgian frontier; to one or more ports on the Channel; to the Atlantic ports; to Bordeaux; to the Spanish frontier; to Marseille; and to Rhenish Prussia. The government has had to concede more favourable conditions to some of these companies than were at first intended, to get the lines constructed at all.
"DEAR SIR, Upon consideration I must return to my original decision. I fear I shall have left Genoa before you receive this, but do not trouble to give me any thanks. The balance of the circular ticket is very much at your service. Yours faithfully, The little beast had done me brown. It was getting on for eight o'clock then. I glanced at a time-table. He was due to leave Marseille at 8.4.
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