Page:Book of the Riviera.djvu/274

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216
THE RIVIERA

maintain his honours. He was created Duke of Rivoli and Prince of Esslingen. But he was not grateful, and of all the marshals of France he showed himself most eager to rally to the Restoration and to recognise Louis XVIII. He had sufficient keenness to see that Napoleon's star was in decline, and all that he really was solicitous for was to keep .hold of his hoarded treasures. He died at Ruel, his country seat near Paris, in 1817.

This upstart family still flourishes on the accumulated plunder, and still retains the titles of Duke of Rivoli and Prince of Esslingen, but is no longer of the Jewish persuasion.

The great square at Nice is called after Masséna, but another square bears a far more reputable name that of Garibaldi, who was also a native of Nice, born there on July 4th, 1807.

General Marceau's ashes rested for some years at Nice. He fell near Coblenz in 1796, and his body was burnt and transported, as he had desired, to Nice, to lie beside the body of his sister Emma, when it should be her time to depart this life. She died at the age of eighty-one in 1834, and was laid beside the ashes of her brother. Marceau had never been shown the smallest token of love by his mother, and he had been brought up by his sister, to whom he was devotedly attached. His last words were: "Je ne regrette qu'elle. Je lui dois ce que je puis valoir."

It is a pity that his wishes were so far disregarded that in 1889 his remains were disinterred and transferred to the Pantheon, at Paris.

Nice has produced a poet, the Jasmin of this part of Provence; his name is Rancher, and he was born in