A Book of The Riviera

“To Caius Vilius Ligur, this is dedicated by his mother Maxima.”

Then comes Greek: —

“This tomb had been constructed for those much older; but Destiny, under the influence of the country and climate, has smitten a child of seven years. His parents, his father and mother, have buried him whom they brought up. Vain are the hopes of men here below.”

It is noticeable that this child bore the name of Ligur, living and dying among the Ligurians of the coast. Possibly the family had this native blood in their veins and were not ashamed of it. Another tomb is all in Latin: —

“Agrippina Pia to the Memory of her Friend Baricbal. He lived forty years. She who was his heiress has constructed this monument for him and herself.”

And underneath are a pair of clasped hands.

What was the story? The name Baricbal is Barac Baal, the Blessed of Baal, the name of a Phœnician. The young heiress undertakes to be buried in the same tomb with him later. But she was an heiress, and she was young. I doubt if her resolution held out, and she did not clasp hands after a year or two with some one else.

The cathedral is not particularly interesting; it is of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The baptistery is earlier, and sustained by eight Corinthian columns of granite taken from a Roman building. The cloisters are good, the arches resting on pairs of columns. Fréjus has produced some remarkable men. First of all comes Agricola, the father-in-law of Tacitus, who wrote his life. From that biography we see what an honourable, true, and in every way upright man an old Roman could be. Agricola was born in A.D. 37 and died in 93. His life is of special interest to us, as he spent so much of his time in Britain, carried the Roman arms into Scotland, and sent an expedition round the coast and established the fact that Britain was an island. He was moved to this by the following circumstance. A body of Germans had been levied on the Rhine and were sent over to serve under Agricola. But after having murdered a centurion and some soldiers who were drilling them, they seized on three light vessels and compelled the captains to go on board with them. One of these, however, escaped to shore, whereupon these Germans murdered the other two, put to sea, and sailed away without one of them having any acquaintance with the sea and the management of ships. They were carried north by winds and waves, and landed occasionally to obtain water and food and to plunder the natives. They circumnavigated the north of Scotland, and then were carried out to sea and suffered terrible privations. They were driven by starvation to kill and eat the weakest of their number and to drink their blood. At length they were wrecked on the North German coast, where they were seized on as pirates, and sold as slaves to the Romans on the left bank of the Rhine. Here they talked and yarned of their adventures, and the news reached Agricola; so he fitted out his expedition and proved the fact that Britain actually was an island. Finally, owing to his success, he fell under suspicion to the jealous tyrant Domitian and was recalled to Rome, where he died; whether poisoned by the Emperor or died a natural death is uncertain. Tacitus himself does not venture to pass an opinion.

Another great native of Fréjus was S. Hilary of Arles. He was born of noble parents in the year 401, and was a relative of Honoratus, abbot of Lerins. Honoratus left his retirement to seek his kinsman Hilary and draw him to embrace the monastic life; but all his persuasion was at first in vain. “What floods of tears,” says Hilary, “did this true friend shed to soften my hard heart! How often did he embrace me with the most tender and compassionate affection, to wring from me a resolve that I would consider the salvation of my soul. Yet I resisted.”

“Well, then,” said Honoratus, “I will obtain from God what you refuse.” And he left him. Three days later Hilary had changed his mind, and went to Lerins to place himself under the discipline of Honoratus. In 428 S. Hilary was elected Archbishop of Arles. He was a man of a very impetuous and wilful character, and got sadly embroiled with Pope Leo the Great, whom he defied on behalf of the liberties of the Gallican Church, speaking out to him, as his contemporary biographer asserts, “words that no layman would dare to utter, no ecclesiastic would endure to hear.” He had after this to escape from Rome, where assassination was to be feared – by knife or poison – and hurried back to Arles. Leo retorted by writing a letter to the bishops of the province of Vienne denouncing the audacity of Hilary in daring to set himself up against his authority, and releasing them from all allegiance to the see of Arles.

Soon after this a fresh quarrel broke out. A bishop Projectus complained that when he was ill, Hilary had rushed into his diocese without inquiring whether he were yet dead, and without calling on the clergy and people to elect a successor, had consecrated another bishop in his room. This was the best possible medicine for Projectus. He tumbled out of bed, pulled on his clothes, and in a screaming rage wrote a letter to the Pope. Thereupon Leo wrote sharply to Hilary to bid him mind his own business in future, and not meddle out of his diocese. And then the Pope wrung from the feeble Emperor Valentinian an edict denouncing the contumacy of Hilary against the apostolic throne, and requiring him and all the bishops of Gaul to submit as docile children to the bishop of the Eternal City. Hilary died in 449, comparatively young.

Sieyès was born at Fréjus in 1748, and was trained for orders at S. Sulpice. In 1788 he was sent as member for the clerical order to the Provincial Assembly at Orléans. He saw what was the trend of opinion and what must inevitably happen, and he wrote his trenchant pamphlets, Essai sur les Privilèges and Qu’est-ce que le tiers-état, 1789, that acted as firebrands through France. He was elected by Paris as representative at the General Assembly that met at Versailles. There, looking at the nobles in their sumptuous attire, the curés in their soutannes, and the representatives of the Third Estate in their humble cloth, he said, “One people! – We are three nations,” and he it was who, on July 20th, on entering the Assembly, exclaimed, “It is time now to cut the cords,” and sent an imperious message to the other two Houses to enter and sit along with the Tiers État.

He strove hard against the abolition of tithe without some compensation to the clergy, but was overborne. The general feeling was against this. As he saw that anarchy was resulting from the conduct of the Assembly he withdrew from taking any further active part; but he was elected by the Department of Sarthe to sit as deputy in the Convention.

At the trial of Louis XIV. he voted for his death – “La mort – sans phrases.” When in 1798 he was commissioned by the Directory as Ambassador to Berlin, he sent an invitation to a German prince to dine with him. The prince wrote across it, “Non – sans phrases.” He was elected into the Council of the Five Hundred. At this time it was that the half-crazy fanatical Cordelier Poule attempted to shoot him. Sieyès struck the pistol aside, but was wounded in the hand and shoulder. Poule was sentenced for this for twenty years to the galleys, and died on them. Sieyès was a member of the Directory. He was a great man for drawing up schemes for a Constitution. The Directory had lost all credit; France was sick of its constituent Assemblies, Legislative Assemblies, Conventions, and Directory. This latter, at one moment feeble, at the next violent, seemed to be able to govern only by successive coups d’état, always a token of weakness. It had brought France to the verge of bankruptcy. In its foreign policy it had committed gross imprudences, and now a new coalition had been formed against France, and the armies had met with reverses in Italy and Germany. At this juncture Napoleon landed at S. Raphael. As he travelled to Paris he was everywhere greeted with enthusiasm as the expected saviour of the country. But on reaching Paris he behaved with caution; he seemed only to live for his sister, and for his wife, Josephine, and for his colleagues of the Institut. But he was watching events. Everyone was then conspiring; Sieyès in the Directory, Fouché and Talleyrand in the ministry, a hundred others in the Conseils, Sieyès said, “What is wanting for France is a head,” tapping his own brow, “and a sword,” looking significantly at Napoleon. He was to learn very soon that head and sword would go together.

The 18th Brumaire was contrived by Sieyès; but he was in his coach, outside S. Cloud, when Napoleon entered to dissolve the Council of the Five Hundred. In face of the tumult within Bonaparte lost his confidence and was thrust forth by the Deputies. He found Sieyès in his carriage, to which were harnessed six horses, ready to start at full gallop should the coup fail. “Do they seek to outlaw you?” asked Sieyès. “Man, outlaw them yourself.” Napoleon recovered himself and re-entered the hall at the head of his soldiery. The situation was saved.

Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger-Ducros were nominated Consuls. The Revolution had abdicated into the hands of the military. That same evening Sieyès said to his intimates, “We have given ourselves a master.”

Afterwards, Bonaparte, as first Consul, took him into the Senate, and granted to him the domains of Crosne. Later, it was said —

“Bonaparte à Sieyès a fait présent de Crosne,
Sieyès à Bonaparte a fait présent de trône.”

Under the empire Sieyès was created a count.

During the Hundred Days, Sieyès took his place in the Chamber of Peers, but at the second restoration he was banished as one of the regicides. He went to Brussels, but after the Revolution of 1830 returned to Paris, where he died in 1836.

To finish with one more worthy, of a character very different from the rest: Marc Antoine Désaugiers. Born at Féjus in 1772, he died in 1827. He was the soul of the Caveau Moderne.

The old Caveau had been founded by Piron, Collé, and others. They met twice a month at the wine-shop of Landelle, where they produced songs, stories, and epigrams they had composed, dined and drank together. This réunion began in 1737, and lasted over ten years.

After the 9th Thermidor, and the fall of Robespierre, the Terror was at an end. Men began to breathe freely, lift up their heads, and look about for amusements to indemnify themselves for the reign of horrors they had passed through. Then some choice spirits renewed the reminiscences of the old Caveau, and met near the Theatre of the Vaudeville, opened in 1792. The songs that were sung, the stories there told, flew about. The public desired to share in the merriment, and in Vendémiaire of the year V. (September, 1796) appeared the first number of the Caveau Moderne. The tavern at which the company met was “Le Rocher de Cancalle.” A complete edition of the songs was published in 1807. The tunes to which the songs were set were either well-known folk-melodies, or opera-house airs.

Désaugiers was a large contributor.

As a specimen of his style I give some stanzas of his “Carnaval.”

“Momus agite ses grelots,
Comus allume ses fourneaux,
Bacchus s’enivre sur sa tonne,
Palas déraisonne, Apollon détonne,
Trouble divin, bruit infernal —
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.

“Un char pompeusement orné
Présente à notre œil étonné
Quinze poissardes qu’avec peine
Une rosse traine: Jupiter les mène;
Un Cul-de-jatte est à cheval;
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.

“Arlequin courtise Junon,
Columbine poursuit Pluton,
Mars Madame Angot qu’il embrasse,
Crispin une Grace, Venus un Paillasse;
Ciel, terre, enfers, tout est égal;
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.

“Mercure veut rosser Jeannot,
On crie à la garde aussitôt;
Et chacun voit de l’aventure
Le pauvre Mercure à la préfecture,
Couché, – sur un procès verbal;
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.

“Profitant aussi des jours gras,
Le traiteur déguise ses plats,
Nous offre vinaigre en bouteille,
Ragoût de la vieille, Daube encore plus vieille:
Nous payons bien, nous soupons mal;
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.

“Carosses pleins sont par milliers
Regorgeant dans tous les quartiers;
Dedans, dessus, devout, dernière,
Jusqu’à la portière, quelle fourmilière!
Des fous on croit voire l’hôpital;
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.

“Quand on a bien ri, bien couru,
Bien chanté, bien mangé et bu,
Mars d’un frippier reprend l’enseigne,
Pluton son empeigne, Jupiter son peigne:
Tout rentre en place; et, bien ou mal,
V’là c’que c’est que l’Carnaval.”