but they agreed to a truce of ten years. Mezerai
affirms, that these two great princes never saw one another on this
occasion; and that this shyness was owing to the management of the
pope, whose private designs might have been frustrated, had they come
to a personal interview. In the front of the colonade, there is a small
stone, with an inscription in Latin, which is so high, and so much
defaced, that I cannot read it.

In the sixteenth century there was a college erected at Nice, by
Emanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, for granting degrees to students of
law; and in the year one thousand six hundred and fourteen, Charles
Emanuel I. instituted the senate of Nice; consisting of a president,
and a certain number of senators, who are distinguished by their purple
robes, and other ensigns of authority. They administer justice, having
the power of life and death, not only through the whole county of Nice,
but causes are evoked from Oneglia, and some other places, to their
tribunal, which is the dernier ressort, from whence there is no appeal.
The commandant, however, by virtue of his military power and
unrestricted authority, takes upon him to punish individuals by
imprisonment, corporal pains, and banishment, without consulting the
senate, or indeed, observing any form of trial. The only redress
against any unjust exercise of this absolute power, is by complaint to
the king; and you know, what chance a poor man has for being redressed
in this manner.

With respect to religion, I may safely say, that here superstition
reigns under the darkest shades of ignorance and prejudice. I think
there are ten convents and three nunneries within and without the walls
of Nice; and among them all, I never could hear of one man who had made
any tolerable advances in any kind of human learning. All ecclesiastics
are exempted from any exertion of civil power, being under the
immediate protection and authority of the bishop, or his vicar. The
bishop of Nice is suffragan of the archbishop of Ambrun in France; and
the revenues of the see amount to between five and six hundred pounds
sterling. We have likewise an office of the inquisition, though I do
not hear that it presumes to execute any acts of jurisdiction, without
the king's special permission. All the churches are sanctuaries for all
kinds of criminals, except those guilty of high treason; and the
priests are extremely jealous of their privileges in this particular.
They receive, with o