Collet accordingly departed; went to Rochebeaucourt, where he took up his lodging with the commissary of the police. In the meantime accurate descriptions of Collet had been sent throughout France to the police, and this commissary had received them. Yet never for a moment did it occur to him that the gentleman of aristocratic appearance and with a purse well lined, who paid so promptly and liberally for his _pension_, could be the man so much sought for. From Rochebeaucourt Collet went to Le Mans, where he figured as a well-to-do bourgeois, devoted to charitable actions; a man of irreproachable life. But there, finally, he was arrested, tried, and sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour, and to be branded as a felon. In prison he remained for twenty years, and died on the eve of the day when his chains were to be struck off, in November, 1840. This extraordinary story does not so much prove how gullible men are, as how good and trustworthy most men are, so that when we do come across a rogue who takes advantage of us, it is like an earthquake that shakes us out of our moral equilibrium. Some very interesting excursions may be made from Nice to places accessible by electric tram or by train. [Illustration: VILLEFRANCHE] Cagnes was a castle of the Grimaldi. The little town occupies a hog’sback, the summit of the hill is crowned by the château, and the one street leading to it runs up the spine of hill, with houses on each side clinging to the steep sides. The castle is not very picturesque, but it has in the midst a quaint court, surrounded by galleries and stairs. The great _salle_ had its ceiling painted by Carlone in the seventeenth century. It represents the fall of Phaeton, and is one of those subjects in the debased style of the period that are _tours de force_ in perspective. It represents an arcade of Corinthian pillars with windows between them painted on the flat surface, seen in perspective from a single point only. The castle was occupied by the Allies in 1815; a Piedmontese garrison was placed in it, and the soldiers amused themselves with firing at the head of Phaeton. The painter spent three years over this absurd work, and when leaving it complete he wept and said, “Bella mea cascata di Phaëton, io non piu te vedere, mai, mai, mai!” It is really not worth looking at, save as an example of the degradation of art. The castle no longer appertains to the Grimaldi; it has been sold.