Part 13

Marseilles, the most flourishing of French seaports, is also one of the gayest and most agreeable of French provincial towns. Its inhabitants, active and industrious, have been noted from time immemorial as a hot-headed and turbulent race. Amongst them the peaceful pursuits of agriculture never found encouragement; they were always rough seamen and adventurous traders, bold, enterprising, and warlike. Both in ancient and modern times, they, like all commercial tribes, have ever shown an ardent love of freedom and independence. If they exhibited royalist tendencies, in 1814 and 1815, it was far less from love to the Bourbons than from hatred to Napoleon. The emperor's continental system had totally ruined the trade of Marseilles, and in his downfall the Marseillese foresaw a recommencement of their prosperity. During the blockade a paltry coasting trade was all they retained. At the present day, Marseilles, evidently intended by nature to be the greatest of French trading towns, has far outstripped its former rivals, Nantes, Bordeaux, and Havre. The port is the rendezvous of all the nations of the earth, a perpetual scene of bustle and excitement, resembling a great fair, or an Italian carnival. All varieties of oriental garb, Greek and Armenian, Egyptian and Turkish, are there to be seen; parrots and other exotic birds chatter and scream, apes and monkeys grimace in the rigging of the ships, and huge heaps of stockfish, spread or packed upon the quay, emit an unbearable stench. The water in the harbour is thick and filthy, but the natives proclaim this quality an advantage, as tending to preserve the shipping. The greatest faults to be found with Marseilles, are the want of cleanliness and abominable smells occasioned by want of proper sewerage. Otherwise, as a residence, few in France are more desirable. The streets are well paved, and consequently dry rapidly after rain: the climate is glorious, and although the immediate environs are barren and sandy, and the roads out of the town ankle-deep in dust, shade and verdure may be found within the compass of a moderate drive. Baron Vaerst stands up as a champion of Provence, which he maintains, with truth, has received less than justice at the hands of those who have written of it as a naked and melancholy desert, a patch of Africa transported to the northern shore of the Mediterranean. In the very barrenness of portions of it he finds a certain charm. "Even the environs of Marseilles," he says, "almost treeless and fountainless though they be, have a striking and majestic aspect. The clear deep blue of the heavens, the blinding sun, reflected in a blaze of fire from glittering waves to white chalk hillocks, half-hidden amongst which Marseilles coquettishly peeps forth; the scanty vegetation, of strange and exotic aspect to the wanderer from the north; the elegant country-houses, with their solitary pine trees, whose dark green crowns contrast with the pale foliage of the olive, compose a beautiful and characteristic picture. The chief colours are white and gold; green, more pleasant to the eye, shows itself but here and there, and at times entirely disappears. Those who speak of Provence as one broad barren tract, can know little beyond the naked cliffs of Toulon; are strangers assuredly to the Hesperides-gardens of Hyères, to Nice with its palm trees and never-varying climate, and above all to Grasse. I do not mean the Grasse between Perpignan and Carcassone, but Grasse near Draguignan. The appearance and perfume of this garden defies description. In Grasse the best French pomatums are manufactured, and thence are forwarded to all parts of the world. Vast fields of roses, mignionette, pinks, violets, and hyacinths, swarming with bees, and hovered over by thousands upon thousands of bright-hued butterflies, and plantations of orange trees, covered at once with fruit and blossom, enchant the eye, and fill the air for leagues around with a balmy and exquisite fragrance. But even as the most venomous snakes dwell by preference under the stateliest palms, so is the whole of Provence too often swept by the terrible mistral. This pestilential wind, called by Strabo the black death, withers tree and flower, tears roofs from houses, raises clouds of dust and pebbles, and penetrates to the very marrow of man and beast. To me it was so painful, that it poisoned all my enjoyment of the beauty of the country. I can easily imagine that under the influence of so rough and rude a scourge, men may acquire the like qualities, and may justify the truth of Arago's reproach, that "the manners of the people of Toulon are brutal as the mistral which ravages their vineyards."

Upon inquiry it appeared that an English steamer would leave Lisbon for Madeira on the 1st of December. But the only possible way to reach Lisbon in time was by means of a Spanish boat, then lying in the harbour of Marseilles, and the Baron had little taste for that mode of conveyance. Only a few days previously, the boiler of the Secundo Gaditano, belonging to the same company, had burst far out at sea, when several persons were dangerously hurt, and the vessel was compelled to return to Marseilles, instead of prosecuting its voyage to Barcelona. Its successor, the Primer Gaditano, had good English engines, and seemed well appointed, and at last the three travellers engaged berths. The vessel was warranted to sail on the 23d November; but in spite of this promise, and of passengers' remonstrances, the faithless consignees detained her till the morning of the 27th. Of course there was no chance of getting to Lisbon in time for the packet, but there was a possibility of meeting it at Cadiz, where it was expected to touch; and the Baron and his companions, having paid for their places, took their chance. To their surprise and annoyance, when the overladen boat groaned and puffed its way out of the harbour, its prow was turned, not towards Spain, but towards Toulon and Italy. This strange circumstance was soon explained by one of those extraordinary laws peculiar to Spanish legislators, intended, we presume, to encourage the shipping interest of Spain, but which, to any but its framers, certainly appears wonderfully ill adapted to the end proposed. Spanish vessels, arriving from foreign ports, at a certain distance from the Spanish frontier, pay much lighter dues than those whose point of departure is nearer home. Marseilles is within the high duty limit, and accordingly the Gaditano wasted a day in sailing to the little port of Ciotat, to have her papers countersigned there, and obtain the benefit of the low rate. A pretty specimen of what are commonly called _cosas de España_. "This," exclaims M. Vaerst, with righteous indignation, "is what Spaniards call encouraging their trade and shipping. A compilation of the various contradictory commercial edicts and regulations propounded in Spain during the last few centuries, would add an instructive chapter to the history of the misgovernment of that unhappy country." And he cites a few glaring examples of blind and stupid legislation. If one sovereign gave wise decrees, and did not himself revoke and nullify them, his successor was sure to repair the omission. Thus we find Ferdinand the Catholic forbidding the importation of raw silk from Italy, in order to encourage the native silk-grower. Fifty years later, under Charles the Fifth, a law was published prohibiting the export of silk goods, and allowing the import of the raw material. By such absurd enactments, directly opposed to the true interests of the country, the rapid decline of Spanish prosperity was prepared and precipitated. Many of the acts of Ferdinand and Isabella were directed to the encouragement of commerce. They improved roads, cut canals, built bridges, quays, and light-houses. Under the judicious rule, Spain grew in wealth and strength; her merchant fleets covered the seas, her navy was the first in Europe, her enterprising mariners discovered and conquered a new world. Now, how are the mighty fallen! Impoverished and indebted, without a fleet, almost without colonies, her commerce in the dust, her people, in misery, her rulers ignorant and corrupt, not a vestige of her former splendour remains: And foreign fishermen, intruding unopposed into Spanish waters, cast their nets in full view of that Cantabrian coast, whose hardy inhabitants were the first to chase the whale in his distant ocean haunts. A more melancholy picture it were difficult to find, and it is the more painful to contemplate, when we remember that no natural causes can be assigned for such a decline, which must be attributed to the influence of evil governors, worse counsellors, and a crafty and bigotted priesthood.

Although the weather was fine, and wind favourable, most of the passengers by the Primer Gaditano were grievously sick. Two Spanish prebendaries especially distinguished themselves by extremity of suffering, and at one of them the Baron, albeit an excellent seaman, feared to look, lest he should vomit for sympathy. The unfortunate _clerigo_ had tucked the corner of a napkin under his huge black shovel-hat, and the cloth hung down over his shoulder and breast, contrasting with the cadaverous yellow of his complexion. He was the very incarnation of sea-sickness. At night, although the weather was cool, the berths were hot, and most of the passengers lay upon sofas in the cabin, where, when the wind rose, the state of affairs was neither comfortable nor savoury. The Spaniards would fain have smoked, but, fortunately for their companions, the prohibition affixed to the cabin-wall was rigidly enforced by the captain. The dinner was hardly of a nature to soothe squeamish stomachs. It was cooked Spanish fashion, with a liberal allowance of rancid oil and garlic-flavoured sausage. At last, on the evening of the second day, the steamer ran into the harbour of Barcelona. It was only half-past six o'clock, but the lazy quarantine and custom-house officials deemed it too late to perform their duty, and not till the next morning were the Baron and his friends allowed to land and take up their quarters in the Locanda de las Cuatro Naciones, which a Spanish colonel had assured them, with more patriotism than veracity, was equal to the first Parisian hotels. Although the best in Barcelona, it by no means justified such a comparison, but still it was excellent when contrasted with the majority of Spanish inns; and, moreover, it looked out upon the Rambla, a magnificent promenade, answering to the Boulevards of Paris and the Linden of Berlin. The edibles, too, were capital; the game and poultry and roasted pig's feet delicious, the dates fresh, the American preserves of exquisite flavour, the red Catalan wines objectionable only from their strength. And all these good things were supplied in an abundance astonishing to men accustomed to the scanty delicacies and make-believe desserts of most German table-d'hôtes, where dainties appear only when the guests have properly gorged themselves with bouilli and gherkins. Such sumptuous fare consoled the invalid Baron in some measure for insufficiency of furniture and absence of bed-curtains; and after dinner he strolled out upon the Rambla, which he found thronged with cloaked Dons, yellow-jacketed soldiers, and those pretty Catalan women, whose eyes, according to M. de Balzac, are composed of velvet and fire, and who paced to and fro, shrouded in the elegant mantilla, and going through the various divisions of the fan-exercise. The theatre in the evening, and a visit to the strong fortress of Moujuich, consumed the short stay the travellers were allowed to make in Barcelona, and they returned on board the steamer, which sailed for Valencia. They had got as far as Tarragona, when the engines suddenly stopped. All attempts to set them going were in vain; they were completely out of order, and the unlucky Primer Gaditano lay tossing at the mercy of the waves, in imminent danger of going ashore, until an English ship hove in sight and towed her back to Barcelona. Here the Baron and his companions, heartily sick of Spanish steamers and captains, finally abandoned their Madeiran project, and resolved to cross the Pyrenees and winter at Pau. Notwithstanding the many alarming reports of ferocious highwaymen and recent robberies--reports of which every traveller in Spain is sure to hear an abundance--the German consul assured them they might proceed with perfect safety by the route of Gerona and Figueras. The diligences on that road had not been attacked for a whole year, and a terrible brigand, guilty of one hundred and seventeen murders, and known by the nickname of Pardon, because he never pardoned or spared any one who fell into his hands, had recently been captured. Having received a dangerous wound, he had betaken himself, with vast assurance, and under an assumed name, to a public hospital, and whilst there, an accomplice betrayed him. Baron Vaerst gives some curious statistical details concerning the number of murders annually occurring in Spain, with a list of the most remarkable persons slain in cold blood since the commencement of the civil war, and various particulars of the different styles of thieving practised in Spain. Some of his notions concerning the addictions and habits of highwaymen are rather poetical than practical. "It is strange," he says, "but not the less a fact, that brigands always abound most in beautiful countries. They require a bright sky, romantic cliffs, picturesque valleys, smiling plains, umbrageous palm-trees, and fragrant orange groves, and an olive-cheeked mistress, fanciful and fascinating, with raven-locks, and bright-glancing eyes. Thus we find them most numerous in the fair regions of Italy; and in that Spanish land so richly endowed by nature, that after all its wars and revolutions it still shows more signs of wealth than of desolation. Frederick the Great is said to have once asked which was the richest country in the world. Some guessed Peru, others Chili, but lie replied that Spain was the richest, since its rulers had for three centuries done their utmost to ruin it, and had not yet succeeded." It might have occurred to the worthy Baron, and we wonder it did not, that the very wars and revolutions he speaks of, added to gross misgovernment and absurd prohibitory tariffs (affording encouragement to the smuggler, who is the father of the highwayman) have much more to do with the multiplication of robberies, than the picturesque scenery and orange trees; more even than gazelle-eyed she-banditti, his idea of whom is evidently derived from the green-room of the Breslau theatre. From an old campaigner, who served under Marshal VORWAERTS, came up at La Belle Alliance to decide the fight, and has since rolled about the world in various capacities and occupations likely to quench romance, such fanciful notions were hardly to be expected. But the Baron takes a strong interest in the predatory portion of Spain's population, and has collected amusing stories of notable outlaws, amongst others of the celebrated NAVARRO, whose memory still lives amongst the people, perpetuated by hundreds of popular songs, and by numerous _sainetes_ played at half the theatres in Spain. He was quite the gentleman, possessed considerable talents and some education, despised the vulgar luxury and ostentation of his subordinates, and rode the best horses in Andalusia. He would walk at noon-day into the country-house of some rich proprietor, order the poultry-yard to be stripped to supply dinner for his followers, and the fattest fowl of the flock to be stuffed for himself, not with truffles, but with gold quadruples. If he found the stuffing not sufficiently rich, he demanded a second bird, and left the house only when his appetite was fully satisfied, and his pocket well filled. He once stopped a jeweller on his way from a fair, took from him a sum of four thousand francs, and then inquired if he had no jewels about him. The man at once admitted that he had, and that he had sewn them into his clothes, not, however, to preserve them from gallant cavaliers of the road, but from the vile _rateros_--an inferior class of thieves, operating on a small scale, who prowl in quest of isolated and defenceless travellers. He produced his treasure, and then, without waiting orders, took from off his mules a richly wrought silver service, at which Navarro was greatly pleased, and swore that in future he and his soldiers (he assumed at all times the style of a military chief) would in future dine off the elegant workmanship of the Castilian Cellini. Finally, having stripped him of every thing else, the robbers made the unlucky jeweller give them wine from his _bota_. It was very bad. "You are a miser," cried Navarro angrily, "and do not deserve your riches. With treasures of gold and silver in your coffers, you drink wretched country wine, like the meanest peasant!" "Alas! noble sir," replied the man of metal, "I am very poor, and live hardly and sparingly; I have eight children, no money, but some credit, and nothing of what you found on me belongs to me." "Sergeant," cried Navarro, "a glass of our best Malaga to the gentleman." The order was obeyed, and whilst his men finished the bottle, the captain again addressed the goldsmith. "See here," he said, showing him a list of the concealed jewels, "my last courier brought me this. Had you kept back a single stone, it would have fared ill with you. But I take nothing from honest men and skilful artists. Pack up your things, take this pass, give your wife and children a kiss for Navarro, and if you are robbed upon the road, come and tell me." Without wishing to calumniate the philanthropical M. Navarro in particular, or his fraternity in general, we will remark, that such stories as these may be picked up by the score in Spain by any one curious of their collection. As, in Italy, industrious rogues, with aid of file and verdigris, manufacture modern antiques for the benefit of English greenhorns, so, in Spain, a regular fabrication of robber-tales takes place; the same, when properly constructed and polished, being put into speedy circulation in diligences and coffee-houses, on the public promenades, and at the _table-d'hôtes_, for the delectation of foreign ramblers, and especially of the French, who gulp down the most astounding narratives with a facility of swallow beautiful to contemplate. For the Frenchman, cynic and unbeliever though he be, entertains extravagant ideas on the subject of Spain. It is rare that he has been in the country, unless his residence be within a very few leagues of its frontier, and he pictures to himself an infinity of perils and horrors, to be found neither in Spain nor any where else, save in his imagination. "Since the war of Independence," says Baron Vaerst, "the French nourish strong prejudices against the Spaniards; and old soldiers, especially, who fought in that war, are apt to consider a large majority of the nation as habitual murderers and poisoners. For certainly at that time, murder and poison were proclaimed from every pulpit as means approved by Heaven for the extermination of the arch-foe. The exiled Spaniards whom, one finds scattered over France, especially over its southern provinces, are more apt to confirm than to contradict such stories. Discontented with their own country, they represent its condition as worse even than it really is, and, like most unfortunate persons, add blacker shades to what is already black enough." In Spain, the land of idlers, not a town but has its gossip-market, an imitation more or less humble of that celebrated Gate of the Sun, where the newsmongers of the Spanish capital daily meet to repeat and improve the latest lie, much to their own pastime, and greatly to the consolation and advantage of the credulous correspondents of leading London journals. In provincial towns, whither palace-chronicles and metropolitan gossip come but in an abridged form, the report of a diligence stopped or a horseman fired at affords all agreeable variety, and is eagerly caught, magnified, and multiplied by the old women in cloaks and breeches, who hold their morning and evening confabulations in the sunshine of the Alameda, or beneath the _plaza's_ snug arcades. Of course, the itinerant _gavacho_, the Parisian tourist on the look out for the picaresque and picturesque wherewith to swell future feuilletons, gets the full benefit of such reports, expanded and embellished into romantic feats and instances of generosity, worthy of a Chafandin or a José Maria. The tourist, in his turn, superadds a coat of varnish to give glitter to the painting, which is subsequently retailed in daily shreds to the thirty thousand _abonnès_ of the _Presse_ or _Débats_. In his capacity of an old soldier, who has run real dangers, and despises the terrors (mostly imaginary) of gaping blunderbusses and double-edged knives, Baron Vaerst does not condescend to make himself the hero of an encounter or escape, although his last journey in the Peninsula led him through districts of evil repute and small security. In Arragon, where there had been no political disturbances for some short time before his visit, "the roads were so much the more dangerous, and could be considered safe only for muleteers, who have generally a pretty good understanding with the knights of the highway. I met several thousand mules going from France to Huesca, where a great cattle fair was held; this made the road lively. Muleteers, suspicious-visaged gentry, many of them doubtless smugglers or robbers, were there in numbers. The country people fear the robbers too much to betray or prosecute them; the authorities are feeble and inefficient; the rich proprietors pay black mail as protection against serious damage. And if robbers are captured, they at once become objects of general sympathy. There are places where the jailer lets them out for a few days on parole, and sends them to work unguarded in town or country, distinguished only by an iron ring upon the ankle. The true gentleman-highwayman, however, keeps his word of honour, even as he is gallant to the fair sex: he leaves the plundered traveller the long knife, without which the Spaniard rarely travels, and which is necessary, as he naively expresses it, to cut his tobacco. He leaves him also his cigarette, and often as much cash as will procure a night's lodging. If, favoured by fortune, he rises to be leader of a band of smugglers, be comes to a friendly understanding with the authorities, and agrees to pay a price--usually, it is said, a quadruple or sixteen dollars--for the unimpeded passage of each laden mule. For this premium the contraband goods are often escorted to their destination by soldiers. When the smuggler is unsuccessful, and finds himself with nothing but his tromblon and knife, he turns robber, the ultimate resource of this original class of men." There is here some exaggeration, especially as regards the military escort of the smuggled lace and cottons; but there is also much truth in this broadly pencilled sketch of how they manage matters in the Peninsula.