of San Remo by an English
fleet during the war of the Austrian Succession, and by the perfidy with
which Genoa crushed at a single blow the freedom she had respected for
so many centuries. The square Genoese fort near the harbour commemorates
the extinction of the liberty of San Remo in 1729. The French revolution
found the city ruined and enslaved, and the gratitude of the citizens
for their deliverance by Buonaparte was shown by a sacrifice which it is
hard to forgive them. A row of magnificent ilexes, which stretched along
the ridge from the town to San Romolo, is said to have been felled for
the construction of vessels for the French navy.

Some of the criticism which has been lavished on San Remo is fair and
natural enough. To any one who has been accustomed to the exquisite
scenery around Cannes its background of olives seems tame and
monotonous. People who are fond of the bustle and gaiety of Nizza or
Mentone in their better days can hardly find much to amuse them in San
Remo. It is certainly quiet, and its quiet verges upon dulness. A more
serious drawback lies in the scarcity of promenades or level walks for
weaker invalids. For people with good legs, or who are at home on a
donkey, there are plenty of charming walks and rides up into the hills.
But it is not everybody who is strong enough to walk uphill or who cares
to mount a donkey. Visitors with sensitive noses may perhaps find reason
for growls at the mode of cultivation which is characteristic of the
olive groves. The town itself and the country around is, like the bulk
of the Riviera, entirely without architectural or archaeological
interest. There is a fine castle within a long drive at Dolceacqua, and
a picturesque church still untouched within a short one at Ceriana, but
this is all. Beneficial as the reforms of Carlo Borromeo may have been
to the religious life of the Cornice, they have been fatal to its
architecture. On the other hand, any one with an artistic eye and a
sketch-book may pass his time pleasantly enough at San Remo. The
botanist may revel day after day in new "finds" among its valleys and
hill-sides. The rural quiet of the place delivers one from the
fashionable bustle of livelier watering-places, from the throng of
gorgeous equipages that pour along the streets of Nice, or from picnics
with a host of flunkeys uncorking the champagne.

The sunshine, the colour, the beauty of the little town, secure its
future. The time must soon come