At Toulon they visited the arsenal and navy yard.

“We saw many ships of all classes in various states of equipment, and every indication, from the activity which pervaded every department, that great attention is paying by the French to their marine.  Their ships have not the neatness of ours; there seems to be a great deal of ornament, and such as I should suppose was worse than useless in a ship of war.

“We noticed the galley slaves at work; they had a peculiar dress to mark them.  They were dressed in red frocks with the letters ‘G a l’ stamped on each side of the back, as they were also on their pantaloons.  The worst sort, those who had committed murder, had been shipped lately to Brest.  Those who had been convicted twice had on a green cap; those who were ordinary criminals had on a red cap; and those who were least criminal, a blue cap.

“A great mortality was prevailing among them.  There are about five hundred at this place, and I was told by the sentinel that twenty-two had been buried yesterday.  Three bodies were carried out whilst we were in the yard.  We, of course, did not linger in the vicinity of the hospitals....

“On Saturday, January 30, we left Toulon in a voiture or private carriage, the public conveyances towards Italy being now uncertain, inconvenient, and expensive.  There were five of us and we made an agreement in writing with a vetturino to carry us to Nice, the first city in Italy, for twenty-seven francs each, the same as the fare in the diligence, to which place he agreed to take us in two days and a half.  Of course necessity obliges us in this instance to travel on the Sabbath, which we tried every means in our power to avoid.

“At twelve we stopped at the village of Cuers, an obscure, dirty place, and stopped at an inn called ‘La Croix d’Or’ for breakfast.  We here met with the first gross imposition in charges that occurred to us in France.  Our dejeuner for five consisted of three cups of miserable coffee, without milk or butter; a piece of beef stewed with olives for two; mutton chops for five; eggs for five; some cheese, and a meagre dessert of raisins, hazel nuts, and olives, with a bottle of sour vin ordinaire; and for this we were charged fifteen francs, or three francs each, while at the best hotels in Paris, and in all the cities through which we passed, we had double the quantity of fare, and of the best kind, for two francs and sometimes for one and one half francs.  All parleying with the extortionate landlord had only the effect of making him more positive and even insolent; and when we at last threw him the money to avoid further detention, he told us to mark his house, and, with the face of a demon, told us we should never enter his house again.  We can easily bear our punishment.  As we resumed our journey we were saluted with a shower of stones.”

The journal continues and tells of the slow progress along the Riviera, through Cannes, which was then but an unimportant village; Nice, at that time belonging to Italy, and where they saw in the cathedral Charles Felix, King of Sardinia.  It took them many days to climb up and down the rugged road over the mountains, while now the traveller is whisked under and around the same mountains in a few hours.