On
The Other Side, There Is A Curious Manufacture For Twisting Or
Reeling Silk; A Tavern, A Coffee-House, And Several Other
Buildings, For The Convenience Of The Sea-Faring People.
Without
the harbour, is a lazarette, where persons coming from infected
places, are obliged to perform quarantine.
The harbour has been
declared a free-port, and it is generally full of tartans,
polacres, and other small vessels, that come from Sardinia,
Ivica, Italy, and Spain, loaded with salt, wine, and other
commodities; but here is no trade of any great consequence.
The city of Nice is provided with a senate, which administers
justice under the auspices of an avocat-general, sent hither by
the king. The internal oeconomy of the town is managed by four
consuls; one for the noblesse. another for the merchants, a third
for the bourgeois, and a fourth for the peasants. These are
chosen annually from the town-council. They keep the streets and
markets in order, and superintend the public works. There is also
an intendant, who takes care of his majesty's revenue: but there
is a discretionary power lodged in the person of the commandant,
who is always an officer of rank in the service, and has under
his immediate command the regiment which is here in garrison.
That which is here now is a Swiss battalion, of which the king
has five or six in his service. There is likewise a regiment of
militia, which is exercised once a year. But of all these
particulars, I shall speak more fully on another occasion.
When I stand upon the rampart, and look round me, I can scarce
help thinking myself inchanted. The small extent of country which
I see, is all cultivated like a garden. Indeed, the plain
presents nothing but gardens, full of green trees, loaded with
oranges, lemons, citrons, and bergamots, which make a delightful
appearance. If you examine them more nearly, you will find
plantations of green pease ready to gather; all sorts of
sallading, and pot-herbs, in perfection; and plats of roses,
carnations, ranunculas, anemonies, and daffodils, blowing in full
glory, with such beauty, vigour, and perfume, as no flower in
England ever exhibited.
I must tell you, that presents of carnations are sent from hence,
in the winter, to Turin and Paris; nay, sometimes as far as
London, by the post. They are packed up in a wooden box, without
any sort of preparation, one pressed upon another: the person who
receives them, cuts off a little bit of the stalk, and steeps
them for two hours in vinegar and water, when they recover their
full bloom and beauty. Then he places them in water-bottles, in
an apartment where they are screened from the severities of the
weather; and they will continue fresh and unfaded the best part
of a month.
Amidst the plantations in the neighbourhood of Nice, appear a
vast number of white bastides, or country-houses, which make a
dazzling shew. Some few of these are good villas, belonging to
the noblesse of this county; and even some of the bourgeois are
provided with pretty lodgeable cassines; but in general, they are
the habitations of the peasants, and contain nothing but misery
and vermin.
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