Some years ago a Turinese lawyer, looking over his father’s private papers, discovered that he was the legitimate heir to the Lascaris titles and estates, which had been left unreclaimed for many centuries.  This gentleman, on proving his claim, assumed the grandiose title of Prince Lascaris del Comneno, grand duke of Macedonia.  His glory was short-lived.  His wife went to Rome and obtained a full recognition of her rights from the Holy Father and admission into the first circles of Roman society, but was subsequently expelled from the city for plotting against the papal government; but she returned with the Piedmontese occupation in 1870, only, however, to get into a still worse pickle by exposing herself to the charge of defrauding Flaminio Spada’s bank of a large sum of money.  During the trial she mizzled, and has not, I believe, been heard of since.  This lady is the famous “Princess Mopsa” about whose adventures the Roman papers have entertained their readers considerably during the last year or so.

The churches are usually in the Italian style, having heavy facades, plain brick sides and queer but rather picturesque bell-towers.  Internally, they are gaudy and tasteless, the altars ornamented on high days and holidays with innumerable wax candles, festoons of red, white and blue drapery, and huge pyramids of paper roses with gold foliage.  Ecclesiastical affairs are presided over by Monsignor Pietro Sola, a charming old bishop, who is the essence of kindliness and charity.  He was formerly one of the spiritual directors of Queen Adelaide of Austria, the late wife of Victor Emmanuel.  The number of priests, monks and nuns is very considerable.  There is a very large Franciscan monastery up at Cimiez on the hill, and a rambling old Capuchin convent at St. Bartolome.  The Nice Capuchins are a splendid body of men, and a goodly sight to see marching in a procession with their chocolate-colored hooded robes and long, flowing beards.  Their present prior is a marquis Raggi of Genoa, a man of high family and rank, who some years since abandoned a world he had known only too well, gave all his fortune to the poor, and turned monk.

There is a street in the old part of Nice which is perfectly unique.  It is nearly a mile and a half long, runs parallel with the sea, and consists of a double row of low, one-storied houses having a paved terrace on their roofs, to which you ascend by several handsome staircases.  The terrace forms a very popular promenade of an evening, and from it are enjoyed lovely views of the bay and mountains.  Between these two rows of houses is the fish-market, where are frequently seen displayed monsters like Victor Hugo’s famous pieuve sprawling out their dozen glutinous legs fringed with eyes and deadly weapons in almost supernatural hideousness, to the admiration of a group of English or American tourists.  Hard by the fish-market is the Corso, a shady promenade round which the gala carriages drive in Carnival time,