Nice; but the reader would have no patience with all the petty troubles—great to those who endured them—which afflicted Nice and its vicinity through many centuries. Now it enjoys peace, and thrives, not only as a city, doing a large business, but also as a vestibule to Monte Carlo. The cathedral, that once stood near the castle on the rock, was demolished in 1656, and the present building—a rococo construction in the barbaric taste of that period—was erected below the rocky height. On December 16th, the Bishop Désiré de Palletier was contemplating the dome that was in process of construction, when some of the material fell on his head and killed him. In 1705, on March 16th, a bomb fell in the cathedral and exploded, killing many people. If it had blown the whole church to atoms it would have caused no loss to art.
Curiously enough an accident happened of a somewhat similar character to the church of the Port. The design for this monstrosity was sent by a Turin architect. The cupola was to be of wood, covered with lead. But the clerk of the works, in carrying out the design, substituted stone for wood. The result was that, one Sunday morning, just after the consecration of the church, the cupola fell in. Happily it was during the first mass. The priest at the altar, hearing a cracking above him, bolted into the vestry. An old woman, who was the sole assistant, fled into the porch, and no lives were lost when the whole structure collapsed.
Nice has produced some men of note—as Massêna, "L'enfant chéri de la victoire"—whose real name was Menasseh; he was the son of a petty Jewish taverner, and was born in 1756. What a simmering cauldron that was in Europe, which brought to the surface Bernadotte, the
