Besides the chapels above mentioned, there is a French Protestant church (_Eglise Evangélique_) in the town, ministered to by a much esteemed pastor—the whole body of Protestant clergy in the place uniting to carry out objects of common concern. For the accommodation of the Protestant community, a portion of ground at the public cemetery, on the top of the hill surmounting the old town, has been specially set apart as a burying-ground. It is provided with a neat mortuary chapel, to which bodies are brought shortly after decease, and where they may remain for any reasonable length of time previous to interment. This fact in itself may tend to soothe the feelings of those whose relatives chance to die at Mentone. All is done becomingly according to the usage of the English, and ordinarily a small party of visitors interested in the deceased attend in honour of the obsequies. If there be such a thing as cheerfulness in a burying-ground, it is at the slip of terrace appropriated as a necropolis some hundreds of feet above the sea-level. The elevated spot is sunny, secluded, and beautiful. How solemnly is borne on my remembrance the circumstance of attending the funeral of a young Englishman from one of the midland counties, who had sunk under a mortal ailment, and was here interred with the usual service of the church! His grave occupies the edge of the declivity, and on it rest the last rays of the sun as it declines in the blue waters of the Mediterranean. [Illustration] CHAPTER VI.