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Updated: May 18, 2025
I saw some subterranean passages, which seemed to have been common sewers; and a great number of old walls still standing along the brink of a precipice, which overhangs the Paglion. The peasants tell me, that they never dig above a yard in depth, without finding vaults or cavities.
The celebrated engineer Vauban, being commanded by Louis XIV to give in a plan for fortifying Nice, proposed, that the river Paglion should be turned into a new channel, so as to surround the town to the north, and fall into the harbour; that where the Paglion now runs to the westward of the city walls, there should be a deep ditch to be filled with sea-water; and that a fortress should be built to the westward of this fosse.
It is drawn from wells; and for the most part so hard, that it curdles with soap. Our linnen is washed in the river Paglion; and when that is dry, in the brook called Limpia, which runs into the harbour. In mentioning the water of this neighbourhood, I ought not to omit the baths of Rocabiliare, a small town among the mountains, about five and twenty miles from Nice.
Nice is charmingly situated in a small plain near the French frontier at the foot of the triple-ridged mountains, which shelter the city on the north and east against northern winds, while the river Paglion bounds Nice on the west. Far beyond stretch the snow-clad peaks of the Maritime Alps. In the cold season thousands of foreigners, especially the English, visit this winter paradise.
There is a stone-bridge of three arches over it, by which those who come from Provence enter the city. The Paglion being fed by melted snow and rain in the mountains, is quite dry in summer; but it is sometimes swelled by sudden rains to a very formidable torrent.
This was the case in the year 1744, when the French and Spanish armies attacked eighteen Piedmontese battalions, which were posted on the side of Montalban. The assailants were repulsed with the loss of four thousand men, some hundreds of whom perished in repassing the Paglion, which had swelled to a surprising degree during the battle, in consequence of a heavy continued rain.
On the west side of this mountain, and in the eastern extremity of the amphitheatre, stands the city of Nice, wedged in between a steep rock and the little river Paglion, which descends from the mountains, and washing the town-walls on the west side, falls into the sea, after having filled some canals for the use of the inhabitants.
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