nts allowed to his officers.
The president has about three hundred pounds per annum; and the
intendant about two. The pay of the commandant does not exceed three
hundred and fifty pounds: but he has certain privileges called the tour
du baton, some of which a man of spirit would not insist upon. He who
commands at present, having no estate of his own, enjoys a small
commandery, which being added to his appointments at Nice, make the
whole amount to about five hundred pounds sterling.

If we may believe the politicians of Nice, the king of Sardinia's whole
revenue does not fall short of twenty millions of Piedmontese livres,
being above one million of our money. It must be owned, that there is
no country in Christendom less taxed than that of Nice; and as the soil
produces the necessaries of life, the inhabitants, with a little
industry, might renew the golden age in this happy climate, among their
groves, woods, and mountains, beautified with fountains, brooks,
rivers, torrents, and cascades. In the midst of these pastoral
advantages, the peasants are poor and miserable. They have no stock to
begin the world with. They have no leases of the lands they cultivate;
but entirely depend, from year to year, on the pleasure of the
arbitrary landholder, who may turn them out at a minute's warning; and
they are oppressed by the mendicant friars and parish priests, who rob
them of the best fruits of their labour: after all, the ground is too
scanty for the number of families which are crouded on it.

You desire to know the state of the arts and sciences at Nice; which,
indeed, is almost a total blank. I know not what men of talents this
place may have formerly produced; but at present, it seems to be
consecrated to the reign of dulness and superstition. It is very
surprising, to see a people established between two enlightened
nations, so devoid of taste and literature. Here are no tolerable
pictures, busts, statues, nor edifices: the very ornaments of the
churches are wretchedly conceived, and worse executed. They have no
public, nor private libraries that afford any thing worth perusing.
There is not even a bookseller in Nice. Though they value themselves
upon their being natives of Italy, they are unacquainted with music.
The few that play upon instruments, attend only to the execution. They
have no genius nor taste, nor any knowledge of harmony and composition.
Among the French, a Nissard piques himself on being Provencal; b