Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/227

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THE FLOWERS OF GRASSE
179

time of warfare was over. It was made up of petty quarrels, of scandals and gossip. Even in the cathedral, the bishop and the dean and the chapter were at loggerheads over the merest trifles—whether two or three coups of the censer should be given to the bishop, whether a bow to him should extend to the hams of the canons. Perhaps the funniest quarrel was about the patronage of the diocese. The bishop issued a pastoral, in which he announced that he had constituted S. Honoratus the patron of the clergy of Grasse, and did not say "with the assent of the chapter." Whereupon the incensed chapter cut the name of Honoratus out of their calendar, and refused to celebrate his festival. Some of the bishops were engaged in incessant strife. When one died, to him might be applied the epigram written on Clement XI.:—

" A vermibus terrae consumendus in tumulo, A vermibus ecclesiae jam consumptus in throno."

"The happy little town of Grasse," says Lenthéric, "seems to be the very home of flowers and perfumes. Its forests Of olives furnish the finest and sweetest oil of Provence; its groves of oranges and lemons yield at the same time flowers in abundance and fruit in maturity. About it are roses, jessamine, mint, heliotrope, Parma violets, mignonette, cultivated over wide tracts, as are also everywhere the common pot-herbs. The transformation of these natural products into perfumery has become the predominant industry of the district; and the neighbourhood of the Alps allows of the addition to this domestic flora of a thousand wild flowers and herbs—thyme, lavender, rosemary—all to be gathered close at hand."