A diplomatist's wife in many lands

I

I i

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE

IN MANY LANDS

Vol. I

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SARONY L90E

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE
IN MANY LANDS

BY

MRS. HUGH FRASER

AUTHOR OF "A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN JAPAN," "A LITTLE
GREY SHEEP," "MARNA'S MUTINY," ETC.

WITH FRONTISPIECE

Vol. I

NEW YORK

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1913

Copyright, igio
By Dodd, Mead and Company

Published, November, 19 10

BY WAY OF PREFACE

On the closing night of the Nineteenth Century I found
myself in the Parish Church of Sant' Angello di Sorrento,
kneeling in the thick crowd that, filling nave and aisle and
side chapel, recited the Rosary in unison as the last mo-
ments of the hundredth year were knelled away far over-
head by the bells in the tower.

With the hush that fell just before midnight a sense
of all that the expiring century had meant to me and mine
swept over me in a reality of triumphant possession
mingled with much visible loss. The beloved and the
revered, the great minds and the holy souls that I had
known, these I would find again; but the ancient beauty,
the tender, half whimsical grace of my earthly world
was gone forever, together with the quick enthusiasms
and responsive sympathies which made the Nineteenth
Century a period of renaissance less definite than, but
almost as valuable as, either of the two that had pre-
ceded it.

All that was permanently needed of that period has
doubtless survived, for intellect and holiness and expe-
rience are immortal; but its settings and surroundings
have changed or vanished, some gently withdrawn by
the shadowy passing of Time, some crashing into pitiful
ruins under the assaults of gross material forces. Time,
at any rate, is an indulgent destroyer, and had been kind

V

BY WAY OF PREFACE

to the city of my birth, restoring with one hand what it
took with the other, clothing her ruins with flowers, her
traditions with veneration, veiling her stricken splendour
with hazy gold; so that a little child, running in and out
of regal old gardens, fingering half-effaced Latin inscrip-
tions to learn her letters, offering love and prayers and
roses indifferently to Saint and goddess, nymph and
cherub — all smiling denizens of her wonderful world —
could and did believe that that world, as she knew it, had
existed from the beginning and would exist forever, a
home for her soul when it should cease to be a home for
her body.

Since some excuse will surely be demanded for giving
so much space to the opening chapters of my life in these
volumes, I will venture to offer it in my desire to perpetu-
ate the memory of what I cannot help regarding as a
richer and more beneficent atmosphere than any immedi-
ately succeeding years are likely to produce. It was an
atmosphere in which thoughts grew slowly into deeds,
and Art and Letters were still loyal, though sometimes
blundering, handmaids of truth and beauty; in which
public and private ideals were still dominant; a time
when wit and grace and virtue held thrones that money
has since vainly tried to buy; when Learning went
majestically on its way, content to leave its unadver-
tised achievements to the judgment of posterity; when
Religion was accorded at least outward respect; before
half-grown Science had attempted to substitute the microbe
for the Creator, or the doctrine of the immortality of
matter and the mortality of mind had been generally

vi

BY WAY OF PREFACE

accepted; before modern Art had given us the Poster
instead of the Crucifix.

I have lived to see false Science, false Philosophy,
false Ethics, discredited. Truth has at last drawn her
sword and seems in a fair way to rout her enemies. But
until certain now dormant forces of our inexhaustible
nature shall have renewed themselves sufficiently to pro-
duce another renaissance of spirit, the youth of our
epoch lies dead. It was fair and fine in its day, and I
hope even this small tribute to its memory may be wel-
come alike to those who lived through and with it and
to those who, coming after, can only know it by hearsay
as one of the many fairy tales of Time.

It has been suggested that the title of these volumes
may prove misleading, inasmuch as the first is devoted
to events which occurred before my marriage. I have
nevertheless preferred to let the name stand, partly for
the sake of the many friends I was so fortunate as to
make by my former book, " A Diplomatist's Wife in
Japan," and partly because I was so clearly destined by
fate and training to be a pilgrim of the Despatch Box.
I feel I can never be grateful enough for all that I saw
and learnt in the beloved companionship of one whom
Sir Thomas Moore would have described as " an honest
man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country."

One more word of apology may not be out of place.
Since my own little record was sometimes bound up with
the history of the time, I have included here and there
an account of some great event which influenced it, in
order that the reader may be spared the trouble of trac-

vii

BY WAY OF PREFACE

ing many allusions to their historical source. Where
such digressions occur, great pains have been taken to
make them as accurate and reliable as possible. Fearing
to be biassed by my own strong sympathies on certain
subjects, I have drawn many details and statistics from
the writings of honest historians of the opposing side,
particularly from Edwin Emerson's " History of the
Nineteenth Century, Year by Year," and Dr. Miihl-
feld's " Zwanzig Jahre Weltgeschichte fur das Deutsche
Volk."

My sons, John and Hugh Fraser, have helped me in
many ways, and to them I affectionately dedicate these
reminiscences, which were written solely at their request.

Mary Crawford Fraser.

August 15, 1910.

Vill

CONTENTS OF VOL. I

Pagb

By Way of Preface v

CHAPTER I
Family History

/

History of my Parents and People — A Sarcasm of Destiny — The Bursting Seed
— My Father goes to Rome — Studio and Dissecting Room — "Orpheus " —
The Last Franc-food or Music? — An Unexpected Relief — Subsequent Suc-
cesses— My Mother — Samuel Ward — How the Credit of New York was
Saved — Jacob Astor and the Eggs — Aunt Annie and the Duchess of Sutherland
— My Father and Mother Meet in Rome — "Artist "and Heiress.

CHAPTER II
Rome in the Late Forties 15

My Mother's Early Life in Rome — A False Impression — Augusta Freeman
— A Grewsome Tragedy and an Italian Point of View — An Incident at
Santa Caterina di Siena — Gregory XVI and the Ballet Dancers — Swaddling
the Statues in St. Peter's — Secret Societies — Mazzini — The Origin of the
Carbonari — The Conclave — Pius IX — A Difficult Position — Revolution
in the Air — The Murder of Count Rossi — The Escape of Pio Nono — The
Quirinal Gardens — The Secret of the Grotto — My Father and the Civic
Guard.

CHAPTER III
History, Personal and Otherwise 31

The Villa Negroni — A Disappointing Event — My Sister Annie — "Friends
from China ' ' — " Moro " — A Little Absent Mindedness — An Unrehearsed
Effect — An Adventure in Tuscany — Munich — " Bavaria" — King Louis I
— The Story of Lola Montez — A Title and a Revolution — Lola's next
Appearance. •

^G

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV

Pagb

host Stories and Early Reminiscences .... 43

Frederick Augustus of Saxony — His Queen — An Epidemic and the Black
Lady — A Ghostly Guardian of Teutonic Royalty — The White Lady —
What the Sentry saw — The Fulfilment of the Vision's Prophecy — The
White Lady and Frau von G — Malarial Fever and the Spaniard's Mysterious
Cure — Del Nero — My First Opera — The Bagni di Lucca — The Grand
Duchess of Tuscany and Her gentil' uomo d'onore — " Celso " — Birth of
My Brother Marion — The Cardinal and the Non-conformist Nurse —
Marion's Temper — I discover the Land of Books.

CHAPTER V
A Gallery of Memory Pictures 59

Pio Nono — A Picture of the Holy Father on the Pincian Hill — The Home
of Sixtus V — The Walled up Window — Michelangelo's Cypresses —
Changes — A Beautiful View — A Dreaded Spot — Sixtus V and His Sister

— Princess Massimo — Arsoli — Francesca Massimo — Prince Massimo and
the Postage Stamps — Arsoli's Hansom.

CHAPTER VI

Sights of the Seasons in Old Rome 70

The Pifferari — Our Madonna and her Musicians — Christmas Night — Pal-
estrina's Music in the Crypt — Christmas Day and the Chapel of the Manger

— Twelfth Night — The " Befana " — The Carnival — The " Barberi " —

— Shrove Tuesday — The Moccolo — "II Camevale e Morto ! " — Ash
Wednesday — " Restitution " — Giuseppe and His Easter Offering — Holy
Thursday — The Arrival of the Peasants — The Roman Ladies and the Holy
Father's Guests — Holy Week — " Tenebrae " — A Wonderful Moment

— Mustapha's Miserere — Easter Morning — The Illumination of St. Peter's —
" Did He Come Down Alive."

CHAPTER VII
,TiRST Visit to the United States 82

The Last Christmas with my Father — Pietruccio's Decorations — Traditions
of Sixtus V Duplicated in Tokyo — Paris — The Due de Malakoff — His
Daughter in Vienna — Pearls and Diamonds — The "Fulton" — My First
Sight of a Negro Barber — New York — Uncle Richard and the Indian Clubs

— Bridget and the Burglar — Uncle John and the French Boots — Newport —

X

CONTENTS

Pagb

Aunt Julia Howe — Charles Sumner — The Abolitionists — I take the Other
Side — Sumner and Lincoln — New York in the Winter — The Great Comet

— My Father Leaves us — Bordentown — Adolphe Mailliard — A Terrible
Experience — Nurses and Their Ways.

CHAPTER VIII
^^Stories and Traditions of the Bonapartes . . . 101

Bordentown — M Joseph M — His First-hand Impressions of the Murder of the
Due d'Enghein — Fouche Junior — The Palazzo Bonaparte and Cardinal
Lucien — The Adventure of the Three Bonapartes — "Madame Mere" —
Her Last Sight of the Emperor — May 5th 1821 — Napoleon and the Holy
Father — The Little Girl and Her Catechism — Olivetto and the "Last of
the Soldiers of Napoleon " — The Relics of the Young Pretender — A Fright
in the Chapel — The Haunted Bell.

CHAPTER IX
^-Francis Marion Crawford 124

Marion — "The Month of Great Men" — I Take His Education in Hand

— A Child's Self Discipline — St. Paul's School — Marion Finds His Voice —
His Return to Siena — Essex — "The Tale of a Lonely Parish" — Pig Driv-
ing and its Consequences — His Extraordinary Strength — The "Mercante di
Fave" — An Unearthly Illumination — His Sailor's Candles to St. Antonio —
An Escape from a Shark — At Cambridge — "Immense" — Return to Rome

— His Introduction to Sanskrit — India — "Mr. Isaacs" — Mr. Morley's
Appreciation — The Sorrento Villa — His Religion — His Devotion — * * Good
Friday."

CHAPTER X
A Great Loss and Many New Friends .... 146

My Mother Leaves us — Her Steamer Frozen in in Boston Harbour — My
Books — My Father's Death — The Washington Monument — His Funeral

— "A Pretty Hymn " — Return to Rome — Genzano — A Narrow Escape

— Dr. Sargent — John Sargent — Waldo and Julian Story — A Meeting with
Hans Andersen — Siena — The Brownings — An Awesome Experience.

CHAPTER XI
^/Italy in Transition — 1859 AND J86o 161

Mrs. Browning — Victor Emmanuel — The Real Man — The Florence Ring
— An Insurrection in Perugia and the Adventures of a Party of Americans

xi

CONTENTS

Pagb

Therein — Rome in 1 860 — Revolutionary Literature — The Unity of Italy

— Enthusiasm in Central Italy — Piccolomini's High Note — The Effects
of "Unity" — The Miller of the Sabines — The Rescuing Angels — The
French in Rome — Growing Respect for Pius IX — " Bombino " and the
Queen of Naples — A Sight of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria — " Bomba *'

— The Duke of Terra Nuova's Coach and Four — The Duchess — Mr. Nel-
son and the Bandits.

CHAPTER XII
Summer Life in the Alban Hills 1 86

1861 — Roccadi Papa — The Artistic Temperament — History on the Spot —
The Sunken Barges — An Independent Town — Disciplined Girls — Overbeck

— Assunta Hoffmann — "A Natural Saint" — The Dead Cardinal.

c

CHAPTER XIII

avour, His Contemporaries and Successors . . . 204

The Shadow of Doom — Cavour's Manifesto — Cavour's Character — "A
Free Church in a Free State" and an Explanation — The Freemason Pro-
gramme— An Instance of Masonic Methods — Carducci — Napoleon Ill's
Responsibility for the Death of Cavour — Cavour's End — Minghetti and
Donna Laura — A Gratuitous Attack — A Hopeless Passion — Miss Sewell
— " Garibaldi's Englishman."

CHAPTER XIV
An Old-fashioned English Education 220

Bonchurch — TheThree Aunts - "Cranford" and a Bar Sinister - Early Victo-
rian Principles — The Swinburnes — " Poor Dear Lady Jane " — A Sight of the
Queen — The Marriage of the Prince of Wales — The Queen's Bonnets —
Switzerland — Princess Solms-Braunfels — Prince George and Spiritism —
English Country Life — Annesley — Relics of Mary Chaworth — Old Resent-
ments— Doctor Howe's Memories of Byron — The House with a Burden —
Oxford.

CHAPTER XV
War Clouds and War Stories 245

Return to Rome — The Tiber " Comes Out " — Sorrento — " Terrorizing"
Jennie — War Clouds in the North — Florence — Three Delays — Clara
Novello — The "Petit Mortara " Incident — Fighting near Varese — Erich
von Rabe — A Grim Incident at Koniggratz — Ludwig Benedek.

xii

CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVI

Page

/The Mexican Tragedy and the Danish War . . 275

Italy's Share in *66 — Custozza — The "Conquest" of Venetia — Austria's
Internal Troubles — Lissa — The Mexican Tragedy — Miramar — Napoleon
Ill's Cynicism — Meeting Between the Empress Carlotta and the Emperor and
Empress of France — Final Insanity of Carlotta — King Leopold in Vienna —
The Family Vault of the Hapsburgs — The Coffin of Maximilian — Gozzadina
Gozzadini and Lily Conrad — Dresden — Saxony in '68 — Visit of Frederick
William and Bismarck — The Danish Grandmother and the Invading Prussians

— Von Moltke and Bismarck — "Very Appropriate" — General Wrangel —
A Pretty Compliment.

CHAPTER XVII
^^ Distinguished Foreigners and Famous Americans . 299

Admiral Wrangel — Rudolph Lehmann — Lisa's Debut — Madame Helbig —
Liszt — His Romance — Lothrop Motley — Prescott — Lowell — The Elder
Agassiz — Bayard Taylor — General Grant — Sherman — McClellan — A
Disappointed Man — Longfellow — A Memorable Day at Sant' Onofrio.

CHAPTER XVIII
^Two Popes and a Great Cardinal 318

The Palazzo Odescalchi — Pope Innocent XI — Palazzo Savarelli — « « Tolla "

— Nameless Visitant — The Shadow Ghost of the Ball Room, the Mysteri-
ous Coach, and their Sequel — The Unavenged Chasseur — The Apparition
of the Sham Door — Sights from the Palace Windows — Pius IX and the
Drawer of his Writing Desk — Two Presentations — Cardinal Antonelli —
The Worst Hated Man in Rome — My First Meeting with him at the Vati-
can — The Cardinal's Ring Box — " One might have to take an Unexpected
Journey ! * '

.^The Case of the Due D'Enghien 339

The "Weisse Frau" 350

Xlll

CHAPTER I

FAMILY HISTORY

•

History of my Parents and People — A Sarcasm of Destiny — The Bursting
Seed — My Father goes to Rome — Studio and Dissecting Room — "Or-
pheus"— The Last Franc-food or Music? — An Unexpected Relief —
Subsequent Successes — My Mother — Samuel Ward — How the Credit
of New York was Saved — Jacob Astor and the Eggs — Aunt Annie and
the Duchess of Sutherland — My Father and Mother meet in Rome —
"Artist" and Heiress.

ON the 2 1 st of March, 1811, my father was born, in
New England— -a sarcasm of destiny — for no
child ever came into the world with a character more dia-
metrically opposed to all that the name conveys. My
grandfather, Aaron Crawford, came of old Scotch-Irish
stock; and, in consequence of a quarrel with his people,
crossed over to America, bringing his pretty young wife
and infant daughter, and very little else except a few
books from Dublin University where he had been edu-
cated, and one or two relics of his old home in Bally-
shannon. This was, I think, in the year 18 10, and he and
my good, beautiful grandmother had some rather hard
times afterwards, for no reconciliation ever healed the
family feud, and Aaron Crawford's inheritance passed to
another relative. His daughter, my Aunt Jennie, took
up her father's quarrel in the good old way, and, after
her mother's death, in 1855, destroyed every document
and memorial connected with the Irish Crawfords. But
nothing could eradicate or even modify the Irish tem-
perament as it was transmitted to my dear father. In

I

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

love with all that was picturesque, hearing from his
earliest years the joyous fanfare that life was sound-
ing under other and more glowing skies, urged for-
ward by the passion for production at any cost, his
boyhood was passed in attempts to break into the for-
bidden domain for which his nature clamoured as the
only one where it could come to its growth. My gentle
little grandmother would sit and wring her hands, while
her husband went journeying over the country to find the
young truant, who adored his parents but refused to vege-
tate in their narrow, colourless circle.

Once, when very small, he attached himself to an
itinerant band, and marched in their company for two
or three days, rewarded for all fatigue and discomfort
by the glorious comradeship of flute and cornet. When
a little older he disappeared for some time, and the anx-
iety about him had reached the highest pitch when he
was discovered in the character of an apprentice to a
stone-cutter, in whose workshop he first heard the en-
chanting ring of the chisel on the marble, a music destined
to be the sweetest in his ears to his dying day. He was
making good progress with a mantelpiece when his dis-
tracted parent found him; as he had, although but a little
lad, signed articles, he had to be bought off, and returned
regretfully to the paternal roof. But that experience had
shown him his road, and every hope and effort henceforth
were devoted to what he vowed should be an artistic ca-
reer. Italy was very far from New England in the thirties,
but he prevailed on his family to send him to Rome to
Itudy, and then began a correspondence between him and

2

FAMILY HISTORY

his sister which I wish I had space to transcribe — all the
young man's intoxicated delight in the draught of beauty
held to his lips, his joy in the gay comradeship of fellow
students, and over the encouraging remarks of his masters;
and, on the sister's side, eager sympathy, prophecies of
success, rapturous thanks for some gift " Maso " had
managed to send from the Eternal City, and news of the
old people, and of the home to which it was fondly hoped
he would return some day.

But Thomas Crawford had found his real home and
trusted himself to it with jubilant confidence. If his daily
life was shorn of every luxury, he was no poorer than most
of his friends, the young men who flocked from all over
the world to study drawing under Cammuccini and model-
ling under Thorwaldsen. The first years were all chalk
and charcoal — drawing from the castes, drawing in the
Life school — and, for my father, dissecting and drawing
in the mortuary of the hospital. Horribly repulsive as
this work was, he felt that nothing else would give him the
complete and definite knowledge of anatomy which he
intended to have. Only the other day, in turning over
a quantity of his portfolios, I came upon a mass of sheets
containing drawings, half life-size, of every bone and
muscle and sinew in the human body — gruesome evi-
dence of his gigantic patience and resolve.

Sculpture was not at its best in the early part of the
Nineteenth Century. Eighteenth Century frivolity had
died a violent death in the Revolution; when the storm
was over and Art rose again, the inevitable reaction came.
David and his imitators laid a pall of cold convention-

3

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

ality, of affectation and timidity, on plastic art, and it re-
quired the courage of genius to escape from its influence.
All that my father produced in that more youthful part
of his career was exquisitely correct and graceful, as be-
came the work of a learner, but it was not until the sense
of tutelage had passed away that he achieved anything
really strong and original. Even then, in his lighter
hours, he lapsed into facile bas-reliefs of classic subjects
in which he gave his redundant imagination full play,
but which had little more than decorative merit. His first
really fine piece of work was the Orpheus, a splendid
figure of the god, one hand raised to shade his eyes as
he peers down the shadowy ways of Hades seeking to
catch sight of his lost Eurydice, the other grasping his
lyre, while Cerberus, already subdued, crouches at his
side. The admirable balance of the whole young body
as it stands poised for a plunge into the depths, the eager
longing and stern resolve on the beautiful face, the hair
and drapery blown back by the very winds of death — the
whole is so true, so strong, yet so Greek in its purity and
restraint that it must always be considered as one of the
finest pieces of modern art.

It cost my father many months of close work and self-
denial; his funds were running alarmingly low, and he
had resolved never to appeal to his family for money
when once he had, as we should say now, learnt his trade.
The all but breathing clay stood day after day in his
studio, veiled in wet cloths; he had no money to put it
into marble. Sight-seers came, as they are always free
to come, at studio hours, and many admired but none

4

FAMILY HISTORY

proposed to acquire the statue. At last, one evening,
the artist found that he had only that and two pauls (one
franc) left in the world. He was very hungry, but it
seemed to him a base thing to devote his last pennies
to mere food. Since he was now convinced that he was
destined to die of starvation he would at least have one
more hour of real happiness. So he spent the two pauls
on a seat at the Opera, where he forgot all his own
troubles and heartbreaks in listening to the divine strains
of the Trovatore. Coming out of the theatre towards
midnight, he pondered for a moment how best to cheat
the night of the despair it was storing up for him, alone
in the cold studio with the veiled thing that he had given
his all to create but which he must leave to crumble into
dust above ground, as he with all his youth and broken
hopes, must crumble into dust below.

A glorious full moon was bathing Rome in a flood
of radiance; the Tiber, close by, ran, a broad river
of silver, twisting like a ribbon round the foot of Castel
Sant' Angelo and breaking into milky spray against
the massive piers of Bernini's bridge. My father turned
from its too living beauty and made his way to the other
end of the town where the marble way leads from the
palace of the Caesars to the Coliseum. Passing under
the arches, feathered then with a mantle of ferns and
flowers that never grew wild elsewhere, he came into the
vast arena where so many thousands have died that every
particle of the soil must have been saturated with human
blood. But only silence and silver peace lay on the
place then. Here he mused for hours, and at last, when

5

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the moon began to sink, went home, and threw himself
down to sleep, too weary to even fear the morrow.

Well, the morrow broke bright and sunny, and the
" postino " going on his first rounds, brought a letter to
the studio door. It was in a strange hand and my father
opened it eagerly.

Out fell a check. The letter contained an order
for the Orpheus with a generous advance payment to de-
fray initial expenses.

There was no more preparing for death after that.
One order followed another and before long the only
danger was that in the joyful buoyancy of youth and suc-
cess the artist would undertake more than he could carry
out. But that doubt did not trouble him at all. Was
there not the night as well as the day? He invented a
queer little headpiece, a ring of metal like a crown, with a
socket for a candle above the forehead. Fitting this on his
head he would often work from dark to dawn, the light
always resting on the spot sought by his eyes. Absolutely
insensible to fatigue so long as he was interested, he over-
taxed both eyesight and strength, and, as it were, set the
doors open for the disease which carried him away almost
before he had reached his prime.

My mother came of a very different stock. The Wards
were English, pure and simple. In the struggle between
Charles I and Parliament the head of the family took
the revolutionary side, fought under Cromwell and fled
to America at the time of the Restoration. His clumsy
old sword was kept as a precious relic in the transplanted
home. Once there, however, old principles prevailed,

6

FAMILY HISTORY

and the Wards were good British subjects in New York
State for over a hundred years, more than one having
been made Governor of Rhode Island. They acquired
a good deal of property, managed to hold on to it during
the revolution, and afterwards rose to considerable prom-
inence in New York City, owning in my grandfather's
time the larger part of the tract which now represents one
side of Fifth Avenue, as well as the rocky island called
" Hellgate " bought and destroyed since by the govern-
ment to remove a dangerous obstruction from the har-
bour. My grandfather, Samuel Ward, married Julia
Rush, a Southern girl with much French blood in her
veins and at least one good forefather of good Revo-
lutionary fame, General Francis Marion, a relative of
Charlotte Corday and a descendant of the great Cor-
neille. My dear mother was exceedingly French in ap-
pearance, in a thousand little refinements of thought and
conduct, and above all in the quality known among French
people as " du coeur," a very different thing from what we
call "heart." Her loves and friendships filled her life;
she never neglected, never forgot. To be received into
that high and sacred circle of hers was to become half im-
mortalised here. It meant that, with all the seas between,
her enchanting letters would never fail, her exquisitely
thought out little gifts and greetings would reach their
destination at the appointed moment, year in, year out,
after the separation of a lifetime. On a cold bitter day in
a Northern clime the post would bring to some lonely soul
a box of Roman violets or the golden " gagia " — the
fluffy balls of caged sunshine which keep their perfume for

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

a decade. Each attractive book she read — and she was a
great reader — would travel on to the one of her friends
or children who would most enjoy it, to be discussed
afterwards in the wonderful letters on which I, for one,
lived, during the years that I was parted from her. She
had the very genius of sympathy, and developed, as time
went on, a delicately balanced critical sense which classed
characters quite unerringly.

Her mother died when she was only two years old,
leaving four sons and three daughters behind, a serious
charge for my grandfather. He was a silent, rather stern
parent, as they knew him; the death of his young wife
had cast a gloom over his life which was never quite dis-
pelled. Her he had worshipped with all his heart. On
the occasion of their marriage he had been a little in
doubt as to the proper fee to offer to the parson, and,
with characteristic directness asked him what it should be.

" Would you think a hundred dollars too much, Mr.
Ward? " the reverend gentleman diffidently inquired.

" Sir," said Samuel Ward, " I should be ashamed to
offer less than five hundred dollars to the man who had
married me to such a wife ! " So five hundred it had to be,
though the good parson manifested some hesitation about
accepting it.

The love of display was considered an unpardonable
vulgarity in those days, and my grandfather sternly re-
pressed any tendency towards it in his children. The little
girls were provided with the most expensive underclothing,
the finest linen and lace that money could buy, but the
frock that covered it all had to be dark and plain. My

8

FAMILY HISTORY

mother said it nearly broke her heart to have to go to
a smart family wedding in bottle green merino, with a,
petticoat like a balldress hidden away inside it! It was
a wonder that she and her sisters ever grew up at all,
for, whatever the temperature in the depth of a New
York winter, a young lady could only wear silk stockings
and the thinnest of little sandals, indoors or out, while
all the dresses had low necks and short sleeves. My
mother suffered from constant sore throat and told me
that she would be running about for weeks at a time with
a roll of flannel pinned round her neck and her poor little
shoulders quite bare.

She and her sisters had nothing to complain of in the
matter of education, however. My grandfather distrusted
feminine methods and procured for his daughters a learned
tutor who taught them just what he would have taught
to boys, Latin, mathematics, and to my aunt Julia, who
insisted upon it, Greek. The tutor, Mr. Cogswell, was
still alive when my mother took me to America, and I was
much impressed by his affection and admiration for her.
I do not think she ever went into higher mathematics, but
she found much recreation in working out problems of
which I never could understand a single figure. I have
often come out to speak to her at her breakfast (as a
family we have all and always breakfasted alone) and
found her with a slate in her hand, so immersed in some
long calculation that I was ashamed to interrupt her.

While she was still almost a child a great financial
crisis swept over the country and several States of the
Union decided to repudiate large loans obtained from

9

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

England and then due. The New York Legislature,
after much anxious discussion, came to the same decision;
there was no money in the Treasury to meet the claim.
My grandfather opposed the transaction with all his
might, but the votes were against him. New York was
bankrupt and the debt could not be paid. Then he rose
in his place and said: " Gentlemen, this disgrace shall not
fall upon our State ! I and my partner will give our last
penny to save the honour of New York."

The firm was Ward & Prime, and Mr. Prime was
of my grandfather's way of thinking. They were two
of the richest men in the city. My uncle, Sam Ward,
who was quite young at the time, said that for some days
he watched the porters climbing the steps into the bank
with bags of gold on their shoulders. Within a week
the heads of the firm had converted their entire private
fortunes into bullion and shipped it to England. My
grandfather's portrait certainly has a right to the place
of honour it occupies in the New York Stock Exchange,
and old men still raise their hats as they pass it.

He died when my mother was only sixteen, and the
insane etiquette of the period plunged her and her sisters
into something like widow's mourning for three whole
years. A second death in the family caused much grief
and perplexity just then. My Uncle Sam had married
Emily, the daughter of " old " Jacob Astor, the founder
of the Astor fortune. He was a quaint old man, very
keen (as fortune founders have to be I suppose) about
saving money. When my mother and aunts were staying
in his house after Uncle Sam's marriage, he used to come

10

FAMILY HISTORY

and knock at all the bedroom doors before breakfast,
calling out in his strong German accent, " How many-
eggs will you each haf, my dears? " Then he would go
down and tell the cook the total, and woe to any capri-
cious guest who left one uneaten and wasted after that!

Poor Emily died in giving birth to a little daughter, and
the question arose as to who was to take care of the child.
Other members of the family had planned a tour in Eu-
rope, but my dear mother, with characteristic unselfishness,
renounced the pleasant journey and remained at home to
look after little Madeline. The latter in due time
grew up and married Mr. Chanler, of Washington fame,
and became the mother of a very large family, dying her-
self when the twelfth was born. Her death was a blow
to my mother, who loved her most dearly, and to whom
Maddy's constant and faithful letters had always been a
great pleasure.

My mothers first journey to Europe took place when
she was about eighteen. She crossed the Atlantic in a
sailing vessel which took thirty days to make the transit,
and told me that she enjoyed every moment of that lei-
surely voyage. She was fortunate in being a born sailor,
never experiencing the slightest touch of either sea sick-
ness or timidity. I remember when she was quite elderly,
and much crippled with rheumatism, that she loved to ac-
company my brother Marion in his wild sailings round the
Bay of Naples. The rougher the weather the better she
liked it. The rest of us used to shiver at seeing the two
set forth, not even in a felucca, but in the " Margherita,"
a little open boat that Marion particularly liked. My

II

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

•

mother could not walk at the time, so she was carried
down the long rocky stairway to the quay by the sailors
and deposited, armchair and all, in the boat. The arm-
chair was made fast between two thwarts, and then away
they would go, mother and son, both perfectly happy,
riding out over the breakers to make for open sea, return-
ing after some hours (during which neither had spoken a
word) drenched to the skin, but saying that they had had
" an enchanting time.,,

My mother's first visit to Europe was made under the
guidance and guardianship of my aunt Julia and her hus-
band, Doctor Howe. The youngest sister of the three,
my aunt Annie, was of the party, and the experience was
a revelation of delight to the two girls. They made the
usual " grand tour," finishing up with England, where
Doctor Howe had many friends, so that his wife's pretty
sisters saw all that was most attractive in English society.
They were quite fresh and unspoiled; indeed their simple
American ways amused their new acquaintances a good
deal. My aunt Annie, who was only sixteen, could not
get accustomed to the use of titles. On the first evening
of her stay at Trentham, when the party dispersed at
bedtime, she stood up, picked up her skirt carefully at
precisely the right angle, and, making her deep school-
girl courtesy to the Duchess, said, " Good-night, Mrs.
Sutherland. Thank you for a very pleasant evening."

It was in Rome that my father and mother met and
became engaged to be married, much to the wrath of the
Ward clan in New York, to whom the word " artist "
suggested everything impecunious, unstable, suspicious.

12

FAMILY HISTORY

My mother and her sisters were regarded as heiresses in
those sober days, and their uncle, John Ward, who had
taken over the management of their affairs after their
father's death, entirely refused his consent to the mar-
riage. He was the most conscientious and faithful of
trustees, but he had not my grandfather's clear intui-
tion in business matters. Landed estate was to him an
unattractive and uncertain asset; he did not agree with
his brother, who, foreseeing the impending expansion of
the city and the consequent rise in the value of property,
had bought up whole districts in the desert north of Wash-
ington Square. His own first house had been at the Bat-
tery, just where the Standard Oil building now stands;
my mother was born there, but he soon moved up town
to the then unfashionable quarter of Bond Street, where
the old " Ward Mansion " is pointed out to visitors to
this day. Uncle John accompanied him in this migration
and built his own residence close to his brother's, but im-
mediately after that brother's death he sold all the other
landed property and placed his nephews' and nieces' for-
tunes in stocks, the only security which commended itself
to his judgment. Even so, a very goodly portion came
to each, and Uncle John was fiercely averse to letting
the nieces be carried off by poor men. In his estimation
such were, without exception, fortune hunters. So the
course of true love did not run smoothly for Thomas
Crawford and Louisa Ward until the latter came of age.
Then they were married, my father making it a condition
that his wife's fortune should be entirely her own and
its management left in Uncle John's hands. He never

*3

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

touched a penny of it, having, indeed, no need to do so,
for his prosperity was quite assured before she became his
wife.

The wedding took place in New York on November 2,
1843, and soon afterwards the young couple came to
Rome, intending to remain only one year, during which
time my father could complete certain important works.
After that he proposed to remove his interests and be-
longings to New York so that his wife might live among
her own people and her own friends.

But Rome had taken them both to herself and never
let them go. After each visit to the United States my
mother returned more thankfully to the real home under
the kinder Italian skies. There all the best years of her
life had been passed, there love, and motherhood, and
sorrow too, had found her, and there the little that
is mortal of her is now laid to rest under the warm
Roman sunshine, where the west wind she loved blows
in from the Campagna and the sea, to sing overhead in
the cypresses, and the roses already clamber high round
the cross that marks the last, long chosen point of her
earthly pilgrimage.

14

CHAPTER II

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

My Mother's Early Life in Rome — A False Impression — Augusta Freeman
— A Grewsome Tragedy and an Italian Point of View — An Incident at
Santa Caterina di Siena — Gregory XVI and the Ballet Dancers — Swad-
dling the Statues in St. Peter's — Secret Societies — Mazzini — The
Origin of the Carbonari — The Conclave — Pius IX — A Difficult Posi-
tion — Revolution in the Air — The Murder of Count Rossi — The Escape
of Pio Nono — The Quirinal Gardens — The Secret of the Grotto — My
Father and the Civic Guard.

MY mother did not find life very gay in Rome dur-
ing the first two or three years of her marriage.
Suddenly transplanted from a great circle of friends and
relations in America, young and painfully shy, she made
few friends outside the little ring of artists who were my
father's contemporaries, and altogether repulsed the ad-
vances of the Roman ladies, who, having known her dur-
ing her first visit, would have been glad to receive her
again. There lay the trouble — they expected her to
come to their receptions and parties, and be content, as a
very young and untitled woman, to have them leave cards
in return for her own visits. But she, who had belonged
to the funny, old-fashioned supremacy of New York, re-
fused to admit that Roman princesses should treat her as
a person of minor importance. Absolutely unworldly,
quite untrained in the customs of foreign society, and hav-
ing no one to guide her through that complicated laby-
rinth, she withdrew into herself, refused to bow to the
great ladies who had left cards at her door (as they had

15

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

at those of most of their friends, for day visiting was
little the fashion in the Rome of those times, most visits
being paid on reception evenings) and earned for her-
self the reputation of a rather cantankerous and unman-
ageable foreigner who disliked the people among whom
she had chosen to dwell.

American girls were strictly chaperoned in those pre-
historic days, and before her marriage my mother had
never been in the street alone, nor did she venture on that
experience for some years afterwards. She was remark-
ably beautiful, and in Rome of all places it was necessary
that she should have a staid looking companion. My
father had to devote most of his daylight hours to his
work, but whenever it was possible he took her for long
walks and drives, in the course of which she came to know
the city and its history (the latter supplemented by avid
reading) very thoroughly. Her love of languages fur-
nished her with another interest and gave her the ex-
quisite conversational and epistolary Italian which it was
always a joy to us in later years to draw forth. But until
the nursery began to fill, her daily life depended for
amusement and relaxation on one correspondence, that
with her sister Annie, a correspondence so vast that
no detail of the slightest interest seems to have been
left out of it on either side — and one friendship, that
of Augusta Freeman, the wife of a gifted but erratic
painter who had been one of my father's earliest
friends.

Dear Mrs. Freeman was such a familiar figure in my
childhood's home that I can hardly recall my own early

16

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

years without seeing her bright, kind face, or hearing the
echo of all the quaint Neapolitan songs she used to sing
as she twanged her old guitar, while Polly, her tyrannical
green parrot, sat on her shoulder and chimed in with
soft little chuckles, interrupted when the fancy seized him
to pull bits out of the gauze turban which had remained
to her from the fashions of her youth and which she
would never abandon. She was a Neapolitan of the Nea-
politans, though her father, Doctor Latilla, had taken
refuge in America after being mixed up in some of the
revolutionary troubles with which the early years of the
last century were so rife.

A seventh child of a seventh child, Augusta Freeman
had the traditional gift of healing; whether it were a
sick baby, a dog with a broken leg, or a beggar shaking
with fever, she took the invalid into her tiny apartment
if she could, in any case placed it in safety, and then nursed
it back to health. She was an artist too, in a very charm-
ing way, modelling, to satisfy the maternal instinct which
had not found its natural outlet, only children, enchanting
" putti " rioting round bowls and vases which, cast in
bronze or silver, were gladly bought by rich amateurs.
Quite in her old age she completed a statuette of one of
my boys, which was quite a little work of art. My last
glimpse of her was just before her death, when a niece
and nephew had persuaded her to come to England; she
was still serene and full of fun, and modelling away
busily, but I am sure that the change from her own sunny
southern atmosphere shortened her life. She died almost
immediately after hearing the news of the death of my

17

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

mother, which unfortunately was imparted to her with-
out sufficient preparation.

Our friend's maiden name recalls a grewsome tragedy
which had fallen upon her people a generation or two be-
fore her time. The head of the Latilla family died at
his villa near Naples, I think, of cholera, in one of the
first visitations of that scourge. It was at any rate some
alarmingly contagious disease which carried him off quite
suddenly. His remains were hastily consigned to the
family mausoleum where his ancestors reposed, far away
at the most distant end of the large park. • In south and
central Italy the horror of death is something of which
Northerners have no conception. It has given rise to the
mistaken belief that the dying are abandoned to the doctor
and the priest as soon as their doom is pronounced. I
believe that one or two such instances are stated as facts
in the somewhat unreliable diaries of English travellers
in Italy long ago. I can only say that in all my life no
such case has come under my own eyes or those of any
of my acquaintance. On the contrary, I have always seen
the most assiduous tenderness shown to the dying, but
when these have breathed their last, all personal bonds
are broken. I remember when some humble friends of
mine had lost their father, for whom the sincerity of their
grief was shown by long years of mourning and of devout
and constant prayers for the repose of his soul, my desire
to visit his grave was met by this reply, " Does the Signora
really wish to do that? We will go to San Lorenzo and
find out where it is."

This digression will explain how it came to pass that

18

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

the Latilla mausoleum was carefully shunned by his
family and servants for quite a year after the unfortunate
Marchese had been carried thither. At the end of that
time his widow, who had either just been married again or
was preparing to do so, summoned the courage to go and
have a look at it. Imagine her horror on beholding, be-
hind the heavily grated windows, a ghastly almost-skel-
eton, with fingers twisted, as in a last agony of despair,
around the iron bars.

That she did marry and live on for some time after-
wards, proves that her nerves were exceptionally strong,
or exceptionally callous. The story must have come under
the notice of Marie Corelli in her early days, for it forms
the groundwork of her book, " Vendetta," completed by
a superstructure of contradictions and impossibilities such
as only the ardent and imaginative ignorance of youth
would have dared to present as a picture of south Italian
life.

As a refreshment after recalling the horrible story of
the Latilla mausoleum, my mind returns to a lovely sight
upon which my father and mother chanced in the course
of one of their walks in Rome, I think about the year
1846. Mounting towards sunset the steps of the little
church of Santa Caterina da Siena, just below the Aldo-
brandini garden (diminished now by the Via Nazionale)
they entered, meaning to rest awhile before returning
home. The church was quite empty, but at the far end
of it, on the pavement before the high altar, lay an open
coffin. All around was the stillness of death. Awed,
they came and stood over the low coffin, and beheld an

19

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

exquisitely fair young nun, her hands crossed on her
breast and a smile of perfect peace on her face, while
the last rays of the sun fell softly on her waxen beauty.
Long my father knelt and gazed at her, and in after years
often spoke of the profound impression the sight had
made upon him. By some accident the church doors had
remained unlocked after the body had been brought in,
to lie, as is customary, in the church, during its last night
in the world of the living. When my father and mother
stole away at dusk the church was still empty, the little
lun still alone in her dreamless sleep.

That year, 1846, was marked by great events. On the
1 st of June Gregory XVI died at the age of eighty-one,
leaving a very troubled condition of affairs to be handled
by whoever should be elected to succeed him. He was not
a popular Pontiff, and the outspoken Romans indulged in
various ribald jokes on the announcement of his demise.
" Pasquino " displayed, the next morning, a drawing rep-
resenting the deceased Pope as arriving confidently at
Heaven's gates with what he supposed to be the Pontifical
Keys in his hand. St. Peter was looking out doubtfully
and apparently shaking his head. The Pope then dis-
covers that, in his haste, instead of the keys he has seized
a flask of wine. He will have to go back and look for
the Keys!

Whether the accusation of a weakness for the " fias-
chetta " were founded or no (and this popular tra-
dition is unsupported by the testimony of his intimates)
Gregory XVI was anxious to maintain a high level of
public morals, and showed his zeal in that direction by or-

20

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

daining that the dancing-girls of the Opera should wear
green Turkish trousers reaching to their ankles, whatever
the rest of their costume might consist of. My mother
used to say that the effect of a company of young women
pirouetting gravely on one toe, with short tulle skirts
flying straight out from their waists while the rest of their
limbs were swathed in floppy green silk, was one of the
funniest things she had ever beheld. A more barbarous
step in the interests of propriety was taken early in the
ensuing reign, when Montalembert represented to the
Pope that nude statues were out of place in St. Peter's,
and persuaded him to have the splendid figures which or-
nament the tomb of Paul III (executed by Guglielmo della
Porta, under the supervision of Michelangelo) swaddled
in cast-tin draperies painted to match the colour of the
marble.

Poor Pope Gregory had heavier anxieties than the
morals of the Romans to carry to his grave. For many
years past the Papal States had been seething with dis-
content fanned to constant yet evanescent flames by the
machinations of secret societies which honeycombed the
dominions from end to end. These were directed chiefly
by Giuseppe Mazzini, from London, where countless
plots were being hatched against the badly shaken peace
of southern Europe. At the moment of the Pope's death
the papal prisons were full to overflowing with political
undesirables whom the Pontiff had considered it unwise
to send into an exile where they could only increase the
ever swelling numbers of active malcontents and con-
spirators who had given serious trouble so early as 1831,

21

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the year of his accession. It was in that outbreak that the
" Carbonari," after disappearing from public ken for
some hundreds of years, gained an unenviable notoriety,
to which sinister lustre was added by Fieschi's attempt, in
July, 1835, on the life of Louis Philippe, "the first of
eight plots against his life which had not been discovered
before the accomplishment of this one."

I have so often been asked to explain the connection be-
tween charcoal burners and revolutionaries that it may
not be amiss to recall the origin of the too well-known
name. Some time during the eleventh century, when the
long struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline had just be-
gun, the Guelphs, proscribed and hunted by the powerful
machinery of the Emperors, were only able to meet in the
depths of the forests, where a charcoal burner's hut was
often utilised as a shelter for their discussions. Hence
the name of the dreaded society, which, founded by the
most loyal partisans of the Papacy, to defend the Tem-
poral Power, was revived, eight centuries later, to over-
throw not only the Temporal Power of the Popes, but
a score of other thrones as well, succeeding at last in
imposing the acceptance of its democratic principles as
the only condition on which in our own days sovereigns
can retain their power at all.

Great anxiety prevailed in Rome when the Conclave
sat debating as to who should succeed the sixteenth
Gregory, but the discussion was a very brief one. The
Prelates went into Conclave on Sunday, the 14th of June,
and on the morning of Tuesday, the 16th, my father and
mother, waiting in the vast concourse assembled outside

%%

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

the building where the consultation was taking place, be-
held, ascending from its chimney, the thin spiral of smoke
which meant that the die was cast and the votes were
being burnt. Intense excitement was felt until the Dean
of the Sacred College came out on the balcony to an-
nounce the name of the new Pope. When he at last
appeared and, in the ancient formula, declared " Mag-
num gaudium annuntio vobis," etc., the name with which
it closed was hailed with general delight. What he did
not tell them was that it belonged to the very Cardinal
deputed to count the votes, and that he, on realising their
meaning, was so terrified at the burden about to be im-
posed on him that he faltered for a moment, and cried,
" My brothers, have pity on me, have pity on me ! I am
not worthy! " However, when the time came for the
Cardinal Sub Dean to put the question, " Dost thou ac-
cept the election which has been made of thee to the office
of Sovereign Pontiff? " Cardinal Ferretti replied that he
was ready to conform to the will of God, and would take
the name of Pius IX. A comparatively young man, Gio-
vanni Mastai-Ferretti was already beloved for his genial
disposition and his earnest charity. As Bishop of Imola he
had sold all his plate to relieve the necessities of the poor,
and no one in distress ever appealed to him in vain. But
mere practical Christianity would have done little to ren-
der him popular with the aspiring politicians of Italy had
it not been generally known that he held widely liberal
views on public matters. This must have been the result
of thought and conviction, for, the son of an old noble
and most pious family in Sinigaglia, he had been brought

23

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

up in a strictly conservative circle. As a young man he
had served in the Noble Guard, and was, they say, unusu-
ally good looking. Tall and well built, with fine features
and brilliant dark eyes, he must have presented a splendid
appearance in the gorgeous uniform of that corps. While
he was wearing it he lost his heart to and captured the
affections of a beautiful English girl, whose parents, how-
ever, objected to the match, on the grounds of religion.

Religion claimed him a little later, but he brought with
him into her service an independence of thought and
sympathy with progressive ideas which he had acquired
during his sojourn in the lay world. His first official act
after being installed as Pontiff was to publish an edict of
universal amnesty for all political prisoners in the Papal
States. Hundreds of men who were serving life sentences
were set at liberty, a benefit which some, like Giuseppe
Galetti, the son of a barber in Bologna, acknowledged
with exuberant gratitude at the time, and repaid by be-
coming the foremost to drive the Holy Father out of
Rome very shortly afterwards.

Like so many other enthusiastic reformers, Pius IX
found that he had underrated the strength and mistaken
the quality of the forces which he had let loose. The
story of the first three years of his reign is the story of dis-
illusion complete and final. An ardent patriot and de-
siring with all his heart the liberation of Italy from Aus-
trian rule, he yet knew that to declare war upon Austria
at that time would be fatal to Italian independence, would
rivet the alien bonds more firmly than ever, since Italy in
her weakness and dissension was in no condition to cope

24

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

with a strong and settled power. It is an ungrateful task
to charge the memory of such a man as Pius IX with vacil-
lation, but his policy at this crisis cannot be otherwise de-
scribed. Unwilling to refuse the eager demands of his
people that he would join the Piedmontese in their efforts
to expel the Austrians, he sent his troops to the North, but
immediately afterwards attempted to avert disaster by for-
bidding them to do more than defend his own frontier.
They recklessly disobeyed his command — as perhaps he
should have foreseen — but when Durando, their leader,
brought them back to Rome, routed and broken, no punish-
ment was inflicted upon him for his flagrant insubordination.

The Pope's promise of granting a constitution was
made in the honest belief that the people had a right to
possess one; but when it came to framing the plan for
representative government it was found to be extremely
difficult to combine that method with the authority of the
Head of the Church in the religious centre of the world.
But Pius IX would not abandon the idea, and hoped, I
fancy, that it would allay the excitement caused by his
forced withdrawal of support to the cause of Italian in-
dependence. The sincerity of his intentions was mani-
fested by his choice of Count Pelegrino Rossi, a man of
the highest character and education, combined with well-
known liberal convictions, to be the President of the
Chambers, a post which Pius IX decreed should be united
with that of the Head of the Ministry.

But revolution was in the air. The Papal States were
torn with factions ; disorder, fermented by the emissaries
of Mazzini and Cavour, reigned everywhere; Rome

25

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

itself was crowded with violent radicals who aimed at
destroying all authority and proclaiming a universal re-
public. " War with Austria " was their party cry and
they counted a number of adherents not only among
newly elected deputies, but in the Ministry itself. Count
Rossi's quiet but firm repression of disorder, his project
of peacefully forming a united Italy by bringing about a
national confederation of States which would be strong
enough to dictate terms to Austria, a project which he
had already begun to put into execution — all this did not
appeal to the passions of the revolutionaries, and they
decided that the Prime Minister should be removed. The
promise of constitutional government was to become a
reality with the opening of the Chambers on the 15th of
November, 1848, and that was the day selected for
Count Rossi's murder. He knew of his danger, forbade
his two sons to accompany him, and went to meet his fate
with the utmost serenity. The sixty conspirators were
waiting round the entrance of the Palazzo della Can-
celleria; as Rossi descended from his carriage a man
advanced towards him and touched him with a stick on
the shoulder. Rossi turned to look at him — and was in-
stantly stabbed in the neck. He fell without a cry, rose
resolutely, " put a handkerchief over the wound, and,
smiling at his servant, ascended mechanically the first
steps of the staircase, which were bathed with blood.
Then he fell, never to rise again." *

* Italy. J. Higginson Cabot, Ph.D. in the series, " The History of Nations."
The writer gives an excellent account of this disturbed period, but falls into
many errors in describing subsequent events.

26

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

The crime horrified the Romans. When my mother
drove past the Cancelleria the next morning they were
standing in crowds round the steps (still red with that
true, brave blood) bewailing the loss of the best friend
the country had. But the revolutionists were in the
ascendant and reiterated their demands with threatening
persistence. The Pope, dismayed at the storm his pro-
gressive measures had let loose, resisted. A priest who
ventured to defend him was murdered, and a few days
later Pius IX, who was then living at the Quirinal palace,
was besieged by the mob. The windows were fired at,
and one of his attendants, Monsignor Palma, was shot
dead in the room next to him. With the city in the hands
of the murderous insurgents and a sack of his own resi-
dence imminent, the time had come for flight, and Pius
IX, assisted by Count Spaur, the Bavarian ambassador,
made his escape from Rome on the night of November
the twenty-fourth.

When I was a child we had a standing permission to
play in the Quirinal gardens and every step of the way
the Pope must have taken to leave the Palace was famil-
iar to me. The pile itself stands on something like a
precipice on the hill whence it looks down on the city, a
precipice masked by a huge mass of masonry utilised to
provide stables as well as to house the guards on duty.
From the foot of this great wall a street, of steps so wide
and shallow as to be scarcely perceptible, leads up to the
imposing front entrance on the Piazza del Quirinale, while
the palace itself and beyond it the high walls of the gar-
dens run back on level ground the whole way to the

*7

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Piazza di Termini where my own home was situated.
The gardens were very old; there were box walls six
feet thick and thirty feet high; an entire theatre, pro-
scenium, wings and auditorium, all grown in box; endless
avenues and fountains and statues; and, what delighted
me most in those days, at the end of the great Terrace
from where one could see all Rome, an enormous hall
built to imitate a grotto, fringed with stalactites and moist
with the spray of many fountains where marble nymphs
crouched under wreaths of maidenhair fern. The grotto
had a marvellous secret, known only to us and the wizened
little old man who was the gardens' chief guardian. If
I had been very good he would lead me to the entrance
and leave me there, forbidding me to come a step further;
disappearing into the dusky depths, he would turn a key.
Then from far, far away, the softest, strangest old music
came welling forth, filling the dark dome with sounds of
unearthly sweetness, and at the same time from the mosaic
pavement a thousand jets of water sprang into the air,
crossing each other in perfect geometrical curves, high
overhead, catching the light from the sunny terrace in
their magic arcs till the whole space was a veil of weaving
diamonds through which I could only dimly see the
shadowy greenness of the fern clothed walls, the dim
white of the naiads' statues all gleaming under their fairy
bath.

When the music died away and the jewelled sprays
had sunk back into the ground I used to feel bitterly sad.
Life had nothing more for me that day.

We often lost ourselves in the endless labyrinths of the

28

ROME IN THE LATE FORTIES

deep alleyed gardens, though I fancy we knew them better
than did Pius IX, when he stole down on that November
evening, feeling, I am sure, very uncomfortable in his
decorous disguise of a private gentleman, to find his way
to the one postern door far up the street, through which
he might pass unobserved. It was the same door by
which we always entered, very small and low, so distant
from the regular entrances that it had escaped the atten-
tion of the besiegers and their cannon; so unnoticeable
that Count Spaur's travelling carriage could wait near by
quite safely until the Sovereign, accompanied by one ser-
vant, slipped out and jumped into it with what must have
been a sigh of very heart-felt relief. There was still the
city gate to pass, but even the Civic Guard, now in charge
as the troops of the revolutionaries, did not venture to
interfere with a foreign Ambassador, whatever whim
might be carrying him along the Via Appia at that time
of night. The Ambassador's coachman drove fast and
furiously and the Pope was safe in Gaeta, among friends,
before his flight was discovered.

I am sorry to say that my dear parents — as perhaps
was natural for born Americans — had distinctly repub-
lican tendencies, and I was brought up to think it quite
an heroic act in my father to join the Civic Guard a little
later, when Europe had undertaken to reinstate the
Pontiff on his throne and General Oudinot was besieging
Rome with that object, and Garibaldi, with four thousand
of his volunteers was trying to keep him out. A big
sword, a brass helmet and a beautiful crimson sash, the
souvenirs of my father's short service, had a cherished

29

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

place among our playthings; and when our mother used
to tell us of her terrible anxiety when " Papa " was help-
ing to defend the city walls, my heart beat fiercely in unison
with all things free and republican. When I became ac-
quainted later in life with the record of the same body of
braves, who committed numberless excesses, I was a little
less proud of the connection, although I knew that my
father had nothing to do with their lawless outbreaks. I
fancy he learnt much in those months, for to him as to
all other right thinking persons, it was a great relief when
the siege, and republic, and "Junta" tension were over,
when the Pope had come into his own again, and the
pretty French officers with their amazing uniforms and
gay faces, were making the old city once more safe and —
amusing !

30

CHAPTER III

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

The Villa Negroni — A Disappointing Event — My Sister Annie — " Friends
from China" — "Moro" — A Little Absent Mindedness — An Unre-
hearsed Effect — An Adventure in Tuscany — Munich — "Bavaria" —
King Louis I — The Story of Lola Montez — A Title and a Revolution —
Lola's Next Appearance.

MY father took the Villa Negroni a year or two be-
fore I was born. Two little girls, my sisters
Annie and Jennie, one six years old, the other three and
a half, were playing in the big blue nursery when I made
my appearance on the 8th of April, 1851. Both my par-
ents naturally desired a boy, and my aunt, Julia Ward
Howe, who was paying them a visit at the time, came
into my mother's room backwards when the disappoint-
ing event was announced to her, exclaiming, " Louisa Craw-
ford, I am ashamed of you ! " But my dear father and
mother forgave me my mistake and took me to their
hearts quite as tenderly as if I had fulfilled all their
wishes.

For something over three years I reigned supreme in
the house, only disapproved of by my sister Annie, who
was a weird, contradictory little creature, very difficult to
manage even at that early age. She had the greatest dis-
like to authority, and when she was about four years old
invented a plan by which she could obey orders, when they
suited her, without renouncing her independence. She de-
clared that she had friends from China staying with her,

31

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

that they would always remain invisible to the rest of the
family, but that she was obliged to consult them about all
her actions. An accomplished governess had been en-
gaged for her, as she was not a child to be left with the
easy-going Italian servants, but whether it were Miss
Watson or anyone else who told her to do something, she
always retired to consult her Chinese friends before com-
plying. As she was a very delicate little thing, physical
coercion was out of the question, and she was so portent-
ously self-willed that neither mother nor governess could
drive her except in the direction of her choice. My
father made it a principle to leave the entire management
of the children to his wife, and during the few years that
he was spared to us not one of us could remember a word
of reproof or a stern look from him. Of course we
adored him, and when he would break in on our play
(always at unforeseen moments, just as the fancy took
him) looking so big and handsome, and laughing his ring-
ing, boyish laugh, we went wild with happiness. He de-
voted himself particularly to me ; there is somewhere still
in existence a box in which is an infinitesimal slipper with
an inscription in his big handwriting, " May's first shoe,"
together with the flowers which he gathered for my chris-
tening so many years ago. I am thankful for the unusual
precocity of my memory which clearly recalls his teaching
me to walk, an accomplishment which I had attained
when I was a year old.

He used to carry me down to the orange viale, set me
on my feet and then pull oranges off the trees and roll
them down the avenue to induce me to run after them.

32

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

The oranges looked as big as pumpkins to me and I got
many tumbles in chasing them, and continuously lost the
blue shoes, but he used to pick them up gravely and put
them on again, and when I was quite breathless would
lift me to his shoulder and let me throw the oranges for
the little floss-silk spaniel, our other playmate, to run
after instead. Behind us usually stalked " Moro," a
black cat of enormous size and corresponding dignity,
who so loved my father that when the hour approached
for him to leave the studio and return to the house, Moro
would glide down the long, stone stairs and sit by the
porte-cochere waiting for him, and would never touch
food if the master were absent. At meals he perched on
the back of my father's chair, motionless as a cat of basalt,
until some morsel which struck him as appetising was be-
ing raised on the fork. Then an unerring black paw shot
out, lifted it delicately off, and carried it to his own mouth
so silently that my father himself, always talking interest-
edly, would not notice the theft until his teeth encountered
the naked metal, when of course we children would go
off into ecstasies of laughter.

Papa's little absent-mindednesses were a constant joy
to us, and our delight knew no bounds when, one evening,
being enchanted with a particularly sweet rose and in-
tending to blow out a candle, he puffed vigorously at the
flower and smelt the flame so enthusiastically that his
beautiful nose showed marks of the contact for some days
afterwards. Though after I was five years old I only saw
him once for a very short time, his personality was so dis-
tinct in my mind that to this day I cannot see a pair of blaz-

33

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

ing blue eyes under a broad, white forehead without
recalling his beloved face, cannot touch very fine batiste,
such as he always used for his handkerchiefs, or smell a
particular brand of Havana cigar, without thinking of
him.

He was a wonderful mimic and took pleasure in reck-
less tours de force which amounted to genius. One even-
ing, at a public dinner of artists and literary men, there
was some heated discussion about classical languages,
which was followed by a call for a speech in Greek. My
father knew nothing of Greek, but had, at some time or
other, taken pleasure in hearing it read for the sake of
its noble sound. Instantly he sprang to his feet and spoke
for some twenty minutes with such fluency, fire, and fidelity
to sound and pronunciation that no one dreamed the
words were made up as he went along. Those present
who had some knowledge of the ancient tongue imagined
that he was giving them either a very modern or else a
remotely archaic dialect; the sentences had been poured
forth so rapidly that they thought it was their own fault
if they had not understood them. Before he had become
acquainted with German he had amused himself by per-
forming the same feat in that language, to the woful
perplexity of some Germans present. My brother Marion
inherited his faultless ear, but added to it such an exten-
sive knowledge that of the twenty or more languages with
which he was familiar, he spoke several so as to be taken
for a native of the country in which he happened to be
travelling.

My father's love of things German began in Thor-

34

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

waldsen's studio where he and Schwanthaler were pupils
together and formed a lasting friendship. I think it was
Schwanthaler who persuaded him to desert marble for
bronze, a material in which he himself preferred to see
his work produced. His colossal statue of " Bavaria "
had been erected in Munich, when, after his death my
father, having modelled the Washington monument,
found it necessary to visit that city to make arrange-
ments for the casting. As Rome was uninhabitable dur-
ing the summer, we were always taken away for three or
four months ; the year before we had travelled in Switzer-
land, and had spent some time at Zurich, but all I remem-
ber of that episode is some very big white mountains and
the fact that whereas till then I had been called " Mimi "
(my father allowed no one but himself to use the pet name
of "May") the Swiss maids changed it to "Mimli";
this on our return to Italy became " Mimoli," and is the
only name I have answered to ever since.

A journey from Rome to Munich was a serious matter
of about three weeks' duration when I made my first trip
to that place. An enormous travelling carriage accommo-
dated my parents, three restless little girls, the governess,
the maid, my nurse, and the courier, besides all the prop-
erties it was necessary to take with us. The whole expe-
dition was an excursion into fairyland for me, and often,
in recent years, when whirling round the earth on trans-
continental trains, I have thought with longing regret of
the leisurely progress through beautiful countries, of the
stopping to pick flowers, of the comfortable, picturesque
inns, of the stories and games with which our kindly elders

35

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

beguiled the days. But the method had occasional draw-
backs. I think it was on the return journey from Munich
that my father's charitable instincts placed the family in
a very awkward predicament. We were already in Italy
and had put up for the night at a posting inn in some small
town in Tuscany. While the women and children of the
party were preparing to go to bed, my father amused
himself by watching three men who were playing cards in
the public room. He soon realised that two of them were
cheating flagrantly, to fleece the third. After waiting long
enough to take in the intricacies of the game, he told the
victim to give up his hand to him ; he would win his money
back for him. Only too gladly did the man consent and
my father took his place.

For a time all went gaily enough, but as soon as the
two sharpers perceived that the stranger was sufficiently
sure of himself to be a little careless, they began to rob
him as cleverly as they had robbed the first man. My
father's venturesome blood was up ; he would not acknowl-
edge himself defeated; roll after roll of louis crossed the
table, and at last he found that he had lost every penny
he was carrying. In wild dismay he rushed up to my
mother to tell her what he had done. Poor mamma,
awakened out of her first sleep by this announcement of
bankruptcy, had to evolve a plan of rescue. No one must
suspect the facts, so she arranged to be taken ill towards
five in the morning, when papa, in great anxiety about
her, would borrow a horse and ride to the nearest big
town to consult a physician and if necessary bring him
back. The project was carried out; my father, recom-

36

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

mending his wife to the innkeeper's most watchful care,
dashed away in the dawn and rode hard all day. He re-
turned two days later; the doctor had been found in the
person of the American consul, and his prescription had
been made up by the nearest banker. Mrs. Crawford
had already recovered sufficiently to laugh at the adven-
ture, and the only result of her illness was that from that
day forth she took charge of the travelling funds herself.

My father had visited Munich once or twice before
he took us all there, and had been enthusiastically received
by Schwanthaler, Voigt and his brother artists. He was
made a member of the " Kiinstler " corps, and greatly en-
joyed their jovial hospitality. A memento of their pro-
digious " Kneipe " used to stand on his writing table, a
silver lined bronze drinking cup which exactly reproduced
the last joint of the little finger of Schwanthaler's colossal
statue, the " Bavaria." It was some fourteen inches high
and must have required quite a gallon and a half of the
famous " Miinchener Brau " to fill it. Papa was usually a
rather abstemious man but I believe that he successfully
passed the test of initiation into the artist's club by empty-
ing this Viking goblet at a draught.

The one vivid impression which remained to me of that
summer was the strange experience of being carried up
the winding stair which led to a chamber in the head of
the gigantic figure. I fancy there was a further exit
above, for I distinctly remember Mr. Voigt holding me
in his arms and pausing three steps above where my
two sisters were sitting on red velvet seats, looking out
through the low, oblong windows cut in Bavaria's eyes.

37

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Voigt said something to someone behind us on the stairs,
and then began to gently sway his body backwards
and forwards. Instantly the whole towering figure re-
sponded to his movement and rocked in unison. Some
trick of the foundations provided for this delicate elas-
ticity. I clung to his neck in terror, somebody screamed
and he laughed, such a deep, joyous laugh, at the fright
he had given us. Then came a long, dark descent, still in
those strong arms, and I remember no more.

During one of his former sojourns in the home of mod-
ern German art my father had become a great favourite
with King Louis I, the son of old Maximilian, the stoutest
monarch in Europe and the last to wear earrings. King
Louis reigned from 1825 to 1848, and while priding him-
self on being a poet, a sculptor, and a virtuoso of all the
fine arts, left, as a ruler, much to be desired. With the
money wrung from his subjects he attempted to found a
new Athens on the Iser and to renew the glories of Peri-
cles, but those same subjects, even within a few miles
of his capital, were living in a condition of the deepest
ignorance and illiteracy. As for morals, he had none,
and seemed to triumph in publishing the fact, but he must
have had a very charming and magnetic personality which
made it easy — as, after all, it usually is for Royalty —
to persuade those near him to condone his exceedingly
flagrant lapses from virtue.

The most glaring of these, however, brought about his
fall. A lovely Spanish woman, Lola Montez, originally
a street singer and dancer, had, after a variety of ad-
ventures, made her way to Germany. Her first triumph

38

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

came to her in Berlin, where she captured the heart of
the noble and puissant Prince, Henry the 7 2d of Reuss-
Lobenstein-Ebersdorf, ruler of dominions just six miles
square in extent.* But Lola was not satisfied with the
potentate's affections; she wanted to try her pretty hand
at governing, and attempted to ease him of the cares of
sovereignty by taking them upon herself. The royal
sensibilities were alarmed; the throne was really not big
enough for two. So Henry the 7 2d looked around for
another home for his inconvenient enchantress. With
fine perspicacity he decided on Munich, gave her two
thousand thalers for journey money and sent her off
thither by way of Heidelberg. The young woman seems
to have accepted his views with fair resignation; King
Louis I was just the man to be captivated by her rare
beauty, and as a protector would be much more satisfac-
tory than her recent one. She stayed long enough in Hei-
delberg to restore her drooping spirits by various unreport-
able adventures among the students, and then went on to
Munich, to besiege the affections of the poetic king. Her
journey was entirely successful and resulted in one of the
greatest scandals of the century, bringing about, as it did,
the Bavarian revolution which cost King Louis his throne.
Lola's domination over the Monarch was complete and
unsparing and gave the deepest offense to the devoutly
Catholic Bavarians. When Louis announced his intention

* In the three remaining branches of the Reuss family only one name, Henry,
is ever given to the sons. The numeration of the Dynasty does not pass from
father to son but begins anew for each line with each century. " Henry " is
the first or the hundredth according to the number of male relatives who have
or have not preceded his entrance into the world since his century began.

39

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

of bestowing upon her the title of Countess Landsfelt, his
Minister, Von Abel, a religious man, refused his confirma-
tion of the patent and resigned, rather than affix it. The
Bavarians applauded his courage, but the King, in his
blind infatuation, laughed at his scruples and declared
that with his retirement the " Jesuit Regime " was over in
Bavaria. Von Abel's place was filled by one Von Mauer,
a man, who, a short while previously, had, at a sitting of
the Council, protested against a grant of money to Lola
as " the greatest calamity that could have befallen Ba-
varia." These righteous sentiments were not proof
against the temptation of promotion and royal favour.
He instantly countersigned the patent for the dancer's
ennoblement, but seems to have been unprepared for the
next step imposed by Louis upon him and his colleagues
in the new Ministry. This was the command to proceed
forcibly against the Jesuits who conducted the high
school of Munich and whose character and teachings fur-
nished a living protest against the King's disregard of
public decency. The Monarch's instructions were so far
carried out that one of the best loved of the Jesuit pro-
fessors was retired with great indignity. The students,
furiously incensed, assembled before his house, on March
i, 1848, to give him an ovation of cheering and to de-
nounce Lola, and such a riot ensued that the troops had
to be called out to quell it.

The effect of their intervention was but temporary;
one disturbance followed another until at length the Uni-
versity was closed. This was too much for the good
citizens, who made common cause with the students and

40

HISTORY, PERSONAL AND OTHERWISE

united with them in a riotous demonstration against Lola,
whose shamelessness had by this time overstepped all
bounds. But her day was over; she was obliged to fly
from Munich; unfortunately her departure came too late
to appease the fury which the King's cynical conduct had
aroused. The news which just then arrived from Paris
gave the reformers courage and hope ; their murmurings
were now openly and personally directed against Louis,
who attempted to soothe them with high-sounding, fatherly
proclamations. Then it became known that the obnoxious
Spanish woman had only removed to a refuge a short
distance away, whence she nightly visited her royal friend.

At this revelation a storm of public indignation broke
forth and the people clamoured unanimously for the Sov-
ereign's abdication. Louis recognised the impossibility
of further resistance, and, on March 20, three weeks after
the expulsion of the Jesuit teacher from his post, abdi-
cated in favour of his son, Maximilian, the cousin, on their
mother's side, of the Empress of Austria and the Queen
of Naples. Louis had repeatedly said: " My Kingdom
for Lola ! " and he was made to keep his word.

Lola Montez wisely disappeared for a time and her
next apparition was a sufficiently surprising one.

I fancy my dear father must have seen her in his first
visit to Munich, and, admiring her outer loveliness, had,
like a true artist, remembered only that and forgotten her
moral disqualifications. However that may be, when we
found ourselves in America, some eight or nine years
after her downfall, her name came to my sharp little
ears in tones of commiseration, falling from the lips of

41

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

two of the most exquisitely virtuous Christians in the
world, my mother and my aunt Annie Maillard. A little
later my nurse, a Wesleyan Methodist, who ruled me with
a rod of iron and daily convinced me that I was doomed
to eternal fire unless some miracle occurred to change the
black wickedness of my heart, gave me, as profitable read-
ing for my six-year-old mind, a thick little tract, describ-
ing the conversion of one Lola Montez, a sweet, warm-
hearted creature who had been somehow mysteriously
wronged in the past and who, out of humility, declared
that she had been a great sinner (as of course all were
who had lived in non-Wesleyan darkness) but who was
now a shining light in a community where every member
was so sure of Heaven that all relations with the Deity
consisted in allaying His impatience for their arrival by
assuring Him that they were coming along just as fast as
proper considerations of convenience and comfort would
permit.

I think the instructive tale ended by the picture of the
new saint's deathbed where she exhorted her weeping ad-
mirers to resignation at her loss. My stern-faced, hard-
handed nurse fed me on deathbeds (all the stories of
angelic little children ended with one) and it was not till
many years later that I realised that poor Lola's penitence
for sin was not an altogether superfluous exercise of
humility.

4*

CHAPTER IV

GHOST STORIES AND EARLY REMINISCENCES

Frederick Augustus of Saxony — His Queen — An Epidemic and the Black
Lady — A Ghostly Guardian of Teutonic Royalty — The White Lady —
What the Sentry saw — The Fulfilment of the Vision's Prophecy — The
White Lady and Frau von G — Malarial Fever and the Spaniard's Mys-
terious Cure — Del Nero — My First Opera — The Bagni di Lucca — The
Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Her gentil' uomo d'onore — "Celso" —
Birth of My Brother Marion — The Cardinal and the Non-conformist
Nurse — Marion's Temper — I discover the Land of Books.

THE mention of Louis of Bavaria has reminded me
of some curious circumstances connected with the
death of his brother-in-law. It is the story of the only
ghost provided for by State regulations in the most prac-
tical of modern Kingdoms, and I will write it down be-
fore the sun rises over the hills and banishes it from my
mind.

Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony, the husband of
Marie, daughter of Max Josef of Bavaria, died on August
9, 1854, in the midst of an epidemic that ravaged the
country (as it was ravaging various others) and spread
consternation in the bright little city of Dresden. All
who could do so departed hastily at the approach of the
scourge, and the entire royal family, with the exception of
the King himself, fled to the castle of Pillnitz, having ex-
tracted a promise from the Sovereign that he would follow
them thither as soon as affairs of State should permit.

On the evening of their arrival at their destination,
the Queen was sitting in the salon after dinner with her

43

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

three ladies, one of whom was reading aloud. Suddenly
the reader's voice died away and she stood transfixed, her
eyes dilated as if staring at some terrible sight.

" What is the matter? Are you ill? " cried the Queen,
whose nerves, like those of her companions, were already
strung to the highest pitch of excitement and apprehension
by terror of the disease.

The lady-in-waiting, regaining her self-control, man-
aged to falter out an excuse for her strange behaviour,
but it was so manifestly inadequate that the Queen would
not accept it. At last, under pressure of her questions,
the still trembling woman described what had occurred.
As she was reading, she had happened to look up from
the page, and, to her amazement, saw that where there
had been but four persons present, including herself, there
was now a fifth, slowly crossing the room behind the
Queen. The newcomer was a tall woman whose face she
could not see, but whose costume instantly attracted her
attention on account of its sinister uniformity with the cir-
cumstances of those weeks. The figure was dressed in
full Court mourning, a heavy veil concealed its head and
face; it wore long black gloves and carried the regulation
black fan.

The ladies were all terrified, and the poor Queen was
completely overcome. Too often in the history of her
family had the fatal presage of such visits been fulfilled.*

" It is the Black Lady you have seen ! " she moaned.
" It is for me that she has come — I feel sure of it ! "

She passed the next few hours in agitation which her

* See note at end of Vol. I.

44

EARLY REMINISCENCE

attendants strove in vain to allay. But the call was not
for her. The next day brought a messenger from Dres-
den with the terrible news that the King had died in the
night.

Another such fearfully impressive warning bestowed
by the shadowy guardian of Teutonic royalty, this time
under her other and more usual guise of the "White
Lady " was still much talked of, when my husband, then
a very young man, was attached to the British Legation
in Dresden. In the month of July, 1857, Frederick Wil-
liam IV of Prussia and his Queen had stopped on their
way from a " cure " at Marienbad, to visit the King and
Queen of Saxony, and were staying in the Royal Palace
at Pillnitz.

It was a strangely still night; the moon was shining
brightly overhead, but a thick fog, rising several feet
from the ground, hung round the palace. Towards one
o'clock in the morning, through the dead silence around
him, the sentry on guard at the entrance was suddenly
aware of the distant sound of footsteps, regular and
heavy, as of soldiers marching towards him out of the
moon-lit haze, across the gravelled space in front of his
sentry box. Presently he began to distinguish the out-
lines of a company of some kind, advancing ever at the
same slow, even pace. Then, to his horror, it resolved
itself into five figures — a woman in white, followed by
four men carrying a long, heavy object on their shoulders
— carrying it very easily, for all four were headless !

Dumb and frozen with terror, the sentry was unable
to articulate a challenge as the Weisse Frau and her

45

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

ghastly companions passed by him. Without a pause,
they entered a smaller side door of the palace and dis-
appeared.

For a few minutes he stood distracted by doubts as to
how to act. Ought he to give the alarm? Had he gone
mad? Was he awake or dreaming? Before he could
determine these questions, however, the postern door was
pushed open and from it issued the same incredible pro-
cession of five figures, the headless men with their burden
this time preceding the White Lady, who followed a few
feet in rear of them. They passed quite close to the
sentry, who saw that what they carried was an open coffin,
and that it contained the body of a man dressed in a
General's uniform, sparkling with orders and decorations
amongst which he recognised that of the Black Eagle.
But where the head of the body should have been, there
was nothing but a royal crown which filled the space be-
tween the shoulders. The body was headless even as
were those of its phantom bearers.

The sentry's knees knocked together, but, to his ever-
lasting credit, he remained at his post, and mustered suf-
ficient self-control to note every detail of the terrifying
vision. Slowly the four bearers moved away into the
night, followed by the White Lady; and the man, when
he made his official report, said that he " saw the figures
gradually disappear from the feet up. The fog rose and
hid first the lower parts of the men carrying the coffin,
while the moonlight still glinted on the crown within it.
The woman's figure followed them and disappeared the
last of all."

46

EARLY REMINISCENCE

What the vision foretold was not long left in doubt.
Frederick William IV had been unwell for some time past,
and during this visit the first certain signs of the malady
which was to deprive him of his reason showed them-
selves. About three months later, on the eighth of Octo-
ber, he was struck down with a brain seizure, and al-
though every effort was made to minimise the gravity of
the case, his condition was such that on the twenty-sev-
enth of the same month the Prince of Prussia, known to
us as the Emperor Frederick William the First, was re-
luctantly forced to assume the Regency.

For three years the King lingered with occasional in-
tervals of reason, until even these stray flashes died down
into an unvaried darkness. Death put a merciful end to
his sufferings on January 2, 1861.

Only one story of the Weisse Frau ever moved me to
laughter — an injury which it is said she bitterly resents.
Somewhere in the late Seventies my sister Annie, living
in the wilds of Prussian Poland, went to see a dear friend,

Frau von G , who had just come through a terrible

siege of illness in the family. The G 's home was

as lonely as Annie's, a grim old castle of nameless age
and harrowing inconvenience, subject moreover to visits

from the famous White Lady. Frau von G related

to my sister that while the children were dangerously ill
with scarlet fever, the master of the house, in an equally
critical condition with pneumonia had, so as to lessen the
danger of contagion for him, been placed as far away
from the little ones as possible. In order to go from them
to him she was obliged to pass through the enormous cen-

47

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

tral hall which divided one wing of the castle from the
other. Late one night, torn with anxiety about her many
invalids, she was rushing through this hall to carry some-
thing to her husband, when her progress was suddenly
barred by the White Lady, who stood directly in her
path, in a menacing attitude.

At any other time she would probably have fainted
with fright, but at that moment a fury of anger took pos-
session of her. After all she had gone through such a
horrid intrusion was more than she could bear.

" Auch dass!" (This too!) she cried indignantly — *
and without deigning to even turn aside, walked straight
through the spectre.

Her invalids recovered, and the Weisse Frau must have
understood the situation, for as far as I know Frau von
Gordon was never made to suffer for her temerity.

Treve aux revenants! They have carried me too far
from the tracks of my record and I must retrace my steps
and pick up the few clear milestones which mark the
early years, dear to me because of a presence all too soon
withdrawn. When I was born, my father had achieved
many of his ambitions; life smiled on him — and so it
smiled on me. Day followed bright day in the old palace ;
I cannot remember a sad one even when in the winter or
spring after our return from Munich, I was fastened upon
by a now obsolete form of malarial fever known as a
" double tertian." The orthodox tertian chills and burns
only every other day — this scourge had a double lash,
each freezing and scorching on its own days and hours.
So I wasted away in my little cot, always covered with

48

EARLY REMINISCENCE

pretty playthings, and got so weak that I liked better to lie
and look through the wide windows of my mother's room
over to the Sabines, whose jewel colouring still delighted
me. Doctor Pantaleone — long years afterwards a pillar
of progressism in the Parliament that is supposed to rep-
resent that impossible thing, a united Italy, — came and
gave me much quinine and was greatly displeased to find
that my stubborn malady would not yield to it. My
mother was worn to a shadow with nursing me, my father
distracted with anxiety, for I was slipping away before
his eyes. Then a queer Spanish artist who loved him
much, said:

" Amigo, I can cure your little girl ! But you must
not ask me what the cure is, for I am under oath not to
reveal it."

And he went home and prepared his medicine and came
back, and my father brought him to my bedside. Then he
undid a package and took out two broad bracelets of
softest white leather and wrapped one round each of my
wrists. In a few moments they had stuck there as close
as the skin they covered.

" Do not touch them," said this mysterious friend,
" when they have sucked away the fever they will fall
off."

In a very little while they did uncurl and fall off, and I
was quite cured. Moreover from that day to this, al-
though I have had to brave climates and conditions where
malaria was rampant, no touch of it ever caught me
again. The Spanish artist died, and his secret with him.
But I got well and had a very happy time that year, en-

49

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

joying particularly the attentions of two middle-aged gen-
tlemen who united to spoil me very delightfully. One
was my godfather, Mr. Hooker, such a well-known figure
in Rome for fifty years that it seems superfluous to de-
scribe him. Once a week he used to come and spend the
afternoon alone with me, either in the garden or upstairs
in the red drawing-room, which witnessed the most amaz-
ing games of romps, and on Sundays I was solemnly sent
to have breakfast with him. Perched on a high chair
opposite to him at table, I used to discuss with him the
affairs of the universe — entirely from a three-year-old
point of view. Afterwards he took me for a drive, or,
when I was old enough, to church, and returned me to
my people at the end of the day, always with the same
solemn assurance that I had been " very good." Kindest,
simplest, most genial of men — with a great empty place
in his child loving heart, a place kept for me to his last day
— who could be anything but "very good " with him?

My other friend was Del Nero, a distinguished violin-
ist, who used to send me ceremonious invitations to din-
ner. Then, my long-suffering Maria would dress me in
my best frock, and take me down to his queer, dark little
apartment in the Corso, and call for me towards Ave
Maria. We had a wonderful twelve o'clock dinner —
dishes which would have slain any child not born in Rome,
I think; and then Del Nero would bring out his violin
and play to me till I fell asleep on the horsehair sofa.
And when I woke up, there were bonbons to take home
with me and always some queer little toy which the dear
man had kept hidden away to console me for our parting.

5°

EARLY REMINISCENCE

Also in the spring of that year I heard my first opera.
On the Thursday in Carnival week the ic Veglione," or
masked ball, took place in the evening, and the only
matinee of the whole year was given in the afternoon.
So all the children went, and enjoyed themselves im-
mensely, regardless of the fact that the management dis-
dained to suit the performance to their tastes in any way.
The opera I assisted at was very like the " Forza del Des-
tino " which Verdi produced much later, for the first
time I witnessed that gloomy production it brought back
every scene of the memorable Carnival afternoon. I
saw myself and my two sisters in gay silk frocks, with
fur trimmed capes over our bare shoulders; I saw my
own fat, pink face crowned with a wreath of tiny roses,
and Maria's dark one behind it as she held me up to
the glass, saying, " My angel, you are more beautiful
than the sun or the moon! "

Then came the great, crowded opera house, the
music, the lights, the amazing persons on the stage, who
seemed to be in such deep affliction and yet sang so pleas-
antly — it was an unforgettable glimpse of Heaven,
never renewed after the complaisant Roman attend-
ant had departed to make way for the Lancashire
Methodist, whose horror of theatres made her dissuade
my mother from letting me be contaminated by entering
them.

There was to be no crossing the Alps in that summer
of 1854. A villa was taken at the Bagni di Lucca and
there, among the chestnut woods and along the banks of
the lovely river Lima, I had my first donkey rides, and

Si

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

very delightful they were. Maria had left me for some
reason (we always remained the best of friends and the
dear old woman came to see me regularly after I was
grown up) and I was handed over to a pretty little maid
called Lalla, the daughter of the handsome, hot-tempered
cook, Margherita, who was one of my most faithful allies
when at home. She had put the fear of death on her
daughter regarding the care of my important little self,
and nobly did Lalla fulfil her charge. Being accustomed
to displace a good deal of atmosphere, I imagine I was
a little de trop in a house where my successor was ex-
pected, and I used to be sent away in the morning with
Lalla and the donkey, Giuseppe following on foot to see
that we came to no harm; so we three spent day after
day in the woods, Giuseppe patiently filling my silver mug
with wild strawberries whenever I was hungry and pro-
ducing more solid food from his pocket at the appointed
hour.

In these excursions we constantly met a fair, rather
stout lady and a smiling young gentleman, both of whom
were very good to me. The lady was the Grand Duchess
of Tuscany, spending the summer at her chateau near the
hot baths, and her companion was the Marchese Celso
Bargagli, a Sienese potentate, for many years her " Gen-
til'uomo d'onore." The Grand Duchess was fond of
children and was, I suppose, struck by the appearance of
florid health so common among those of northern races,
but much rarer in the Italian little ones with their darker
skins and more nervous temperaments. She could never
go past me without patting my legs and exclaiming with

5*

EARLY REMINISCENCE

devout admiration, " Che belle ciancotte ! " a Tuscan
phrase which I had never heard before.

I liked her, but with Celso I fell in love at once and for
always. He made the acquaintance of my people and
came constantly to see me, explaining gravely that the
visits were intended for me; nothing could keep me out
of the drawing-room when I knew he was there. I used
to sit on his knee and listen to the stories he could tell so
delightfully, and I have a happy recollection of a won-
derful doll for which he sent to Florence, all a fluff of
pink silk and fair curls, and with blue eyes like Celso's
own. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship,
which just missed becoming a much closer relation. As I
grew bigger he used to come down to Rome from time
to time to see how I was turning out; the year I was fif-
teen he stayed some weeks and then, to my regret, went
away and returned no more. I found out later that he had
approached my people with the intention of carrying me
off at last to his palace in Siena, and I was quite angry
to hear that my mother, without consulting me, had re-
plied that I was a mere baby and that she had no inten-
tion of letting me get married for several years to come.
I was really sorry, for, although he was twenty years
older than myself, the man was so true and kind, that I
felt sure that I should have been very happy with him
and — I had known him all my life !

Two or three years later he married a far better and
sweeter girl than I — Ermellina Douglas-Scotti, of Milan,
and quartered the bleeding heart on his own wildly fan-
tastic escutcheon.

53

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

We happened to be spending the summer at Siena that
year, and I saw a good deal of him and his gentle, dark
eyed bride. She was as young as I was — and it had
been a manage de convenance. She had not known and
loved the man as a good friend for years and years.
Celso adored her, but he was too old; the palace was
very huge and sombre; her anxious relatives had pro-
vided her with an elderly maid who looked after her
as a capable nurse looks after a child; she needed
youth and brightness, poor little thing, and, wanting
these, she faded away and died when her baby was
born.

To Celso it was a crushing blow; he transferred all his
hopes and affections to the boy, but was terribly puzzled
over the problem of bringing him up. The last time
I saw him — and then I had sons of my own — we
talked it over, and as he went away he said sadly,
" Nothing ever makes up to a boy for the loss of his
mother! "

Alas, the boy turned out badly and my dear Celso —
who deserved so much happiness in life — died of a
broken heart. Things get strangely sorted out in this
world and there never is quite enough poetical justice to
go round.

The summer at the Bagni di Lucca, the fourth in my
life, since I was an April child, was marked by a great
event. On the second of August my brother Marion
was born, and the whole family at once felt that " the
true master of the house " had arrived. My father was
beside himself with joy and showered presents on all of

54

EARLY REMINISCENCE

us to make us understand and share it. I had been so
long alone in the nursery, my two elder sisters being al-
ways with the governess, that I was delighted with the
idea of having a companion. I gathered up all my dear-
est possessions — a woolly parrot and some white silk
shoes into one of which Papa had just dropped a big sil-
ver dollar — and carried them as offerings to the new
baby; but when I found that he took no notice of them
and refused to come down on the floor and play with me
I was deeply offended and could not imagine why so much
fuss had been made over him.

I very soon found out, for from that day my reign was
over and I was relegated to wholesome obscurity, doubt-
less the best possible discipline, but trying, all the same.
Fortunately my rather sore little heart opened to Marion
— or Frank, as he was called then — and I became the
most faithful of his subjects. Of course I knew more
about him than any one else and soon began to watch his
progress with elder sisterly anxiety, much distressed at
his raging little tempers and triumphantly pleased with
the applause he everywhere elicited. He was so beautiful
that, after our return to Rome, our nurse was constantly
stopped in the street to answer questions about him.
Once however he obtained a blessing not intended for
him at all. It was the twenty-first of January, the feast
of St. Agnes, and on that day the Campagna shepherds
brought the firstlings of their flocks, all curled and be-
ribboned, to the Church of St. Agnese fuori le mura,
where the poetical ceremony of blessing the lambs took
place.

ss

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

That day the officiating Cardinal was a very old man,
and his sight was dim. When the English nurse, curious
to see everything, pushed forward, with Marion, a bundle
of fluffy whiteness, asleep in her arms, the good Eminenza
thought she was carrying a lamb, and, exclaiming "Che
bell' agnellino ! " gravely bent over the baby with mur-
mured prayer and blessing hand. The woman knew no
Italian and could not explain matters, and, in spite of her
Non-conformist principles, was delighted at the mis-
take, believing that it would bring good luck to her
charge.

But Marion's disposition was anything but lamblike.
He had a most imperious temper, combined with the
stubborn resolve to do nothing for himself that other
people could possibly be coerced into doing for him. My
time for years was spent in picking up his toys and giving
them back to him. He absolutely refused to learn to
walk, and by the time he was eighteen months old was so
big and heavy that his unfortunate bearer (no self-re-
specting woman would push a baby carriage in the streets
of Rome) was puzzled as to how to get him about. If
she let him down for a moment his wrath broke loose in
a storm of protest, and the most humiliating moment of
my life came on a day when we were climbing the Via
Quattro Fontane on our way back from the Pincio.
Mary's aching arms could carry master Marion no longer
and she stood him on his feet for a moment. He imme-
diately s?,t down in the middle of the street, roaring with
rage, and a friendly policeman had to pick him up and
bring him home, fighting and struggling all the way, while

5*

EARLY REMINISCENCE

I followed in deep abasement, sadly carrying a shoe that
he had kicked off in his indignation.

The next care to assail me was the question of my
brother's education. I talked what I considered sense
to him, and could never get a reasonable reply. By the
time he was two years old the terrible conviction forced
itself upon me that he was going to be an idiot! But I
never spoke of this secret sorrow; since the English
nurse ruled me I had learnt never to tell my thoughts, and
nobody inquired after them.

Under the daily oppression of a morose and tyran-
nical character my natural exuberance and expansiveness
had been schooled to a watchful silence and self-control.
Only away from her did I ever let myself go, when things
were really too much for me. One of my bitterest dis-
coveries was that there were books in the world and I
could not read them. It was one winter day when I was
four years old; I had strayed into the schoolroom and
found my sister Annie, looking very happy, with a book in
her hand.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

" Reading a fairy story to myself," she answered
proudly.

I collapsed in a heap on the floor and wept in speech-
less grief. My mother, Miss Watson, and all the family
came and stood around me in dismay, while I sobbed in
trouble too deep for words. When at last I could an-
swer their inquiries I pointed to Annie who was looking
scornfully on at this exhibition of weakness.

II She can read and I can't ! " I cried. " Why? Why? "

57

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

" You shall read too," my mother said, and dear Miss
Watson took me in hand then and there. The process
was such a gentle and delightful one that I remember
nothing of it except that on my fifth birthday I found that
the world was full of books and I could read them all.

58

CHAPTER V

A GALLERY OF MEMORY PICTURES

Pio Nono — A Picture of the Holy Father on the Pincian Hill — The Home
of Sixtus V — The Walled up Window — Michelangelo's Cypresses —
Changes — A Beautiful View — A Dreaded Spot — Sixtus V and His
Sister — Princess Massimo — Arsoli — Francesca Massimo — Prince Mas-
simo and the Postage Stamps — Arsoli's Hansom.

IT can occur but rarely that a child's imagination is
dominated by one great historic figure ever in the back-
ground of events and only emerging from time to time,
in enchanting splendour, into the realities of life. Yet to
me, the Roman-born daughter of American parents, non-
Catholics, severed in tastes and circumstances from every-
thing connected with the Vatican circle, Pius IX was for
many years the most important personality on my horizon,
a living power, a centre round which fancy and tradition
wove rainbow after rainbow of thought.

I must have seen him many times before the occasion
which my memory counts the first, for in those safe and
happy days he was constantly to be met, driving through
the city, or taking his walks in the villas and suburbs, at-
tended by his Cardinals and Noble Guards, and followed
by the court carriages with their slow stepping black
horses and solemn servants. But I have always been
grateful for the particular picture of him which precedes
all the others in my recollection.

It was a bright winter's morning, and my brother
Marion and I had been sent to take our airing on the

59

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Pincian Hill. The gardens, for some reason, were al-
most empty, and we had romped joyfully in and out
among the flower beds, launched paper boats on the dim-
pling crystal of our favourite fountain, played hide and
seek among the hundreds of bust-crowned pillars, thrown
kisses and rose petals to Marcus Aurelius and the young
Augustus, and, I am sorry to say, made naughty faces
at Socrates and Seneca because they were so ugly. Sun
fed, breathless, steeped in the joy of a Roman morning,
we had sobered down and were walking obediently beside
our nurse along the wide, central avenue, when a won-
derful vision broke on our sight.

Coming straight towards us out of the swimming
radiance of the noonday, with all Rome lying low behind
him and St. Peter's in the distance, was a tall, benign
looking man in robes of snowy white. On either side of
him walked a Cardinal in sweeping geranium silk, and
around and behind these three a detachment of Noble
Guards marched in fan formation, white plumes tossing
from their gleaming helmets, silver cuirasses blinking daz-
zlingly in the sun, sabres and spurs clanking royally, and
the blue and silver and gold of their uniforms spreading
away from the central group like rays from a prism.

We stood still and watched this splendid company ap-
proach, and I heard my nurse exclaim in an awed whisper,
" The Pope ! " The next moment he too stood still, and
beckoning to one of the Noble Guards, sent him to bring
us to him, for Pius IX never passed little foreign children
in his walks without pausing to give them his blessing.
My brother ran forward eagerly, and I seem even now

60

A GALLERY OF MEMORY PICTURES

to see his golden curls shining in the sun as he took the
officer's hand and trotted beside him across the open space
to where the Pope was waiting for us. I thought his face
the kindest and most beautiful I had ever seen. It was
nearly as white as his robes, and illuminated by dark eyes
full of benevolent light; on his lips was the gentlest of
smiles; and, as I knew later, in his heart he was breath-
ing a prayer that the alien lambkins might be brought into
the One True Fold. Tenderly he laid his hand on my
brother's head, blessed us in God's Holy Name, asked
whose children we were, and passed smiling on his way.

For days afterwards we could think and speak of
nothing else. When I was allowed to go and sit alone in
our old drawing-room from whose open windows I could
look over the whole Campagna — windows through
which the sun poured on vast stretches of crimson carpet,
giving me a heavenly sense of magnificence and solitude,
— I used to dream that the Holy Father would open the
door and come and sit in the big, gilt chair and tell me all
I wanted to know about himself.

Our villa had been the home of another Pope, Sixtus
V, whose arms were painted all over the stairways and
ceilings, and I felt that it would be quite a proper place to
receive his successor in. One Pope — I think Gregory
XVI — had paid a visit to our neighbours, the Strozzis,
and from my nursery I could see the window in their
palace through which he had deigned to look out —
walled up now, so that no less august presence should ever
desecrate it, and ornamented with a magnificent piece of
mosaic simulating a gold embroidered carpet, hanging

61

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

far down from the sill. But the Strozzi palace seemed to
me a small and modern affair compared with the one in
which I had been so fortunate as to first see the light.

Far on the upper outskirts of the city this stood, a
great pile, golden-grey with age, its enormous windows
set four-square to the world, its topmost terrace open to
the winds and commanding a view of the entire city be-
low. Soracte and the " dark Ciminian hills " lay to the
north; the Sabines, jewelled with villages, to the east; the
exquisite lines of the Alban hills to the south; and to-
wards the fairy west the wide stretches of the Campagna
rolled softly to the sea, their gold and purple emptiness
touched here and there with the shaft of a ruined watch
tower where shy, dark eyed shepherds herded their flocks
at night. The Campagna was so near, the villa so vast,
that the gardens stretched away and lost themselves in it
long before their boundary was reached.

In all the years that we played there my brother and
I never got outside the grounds on the southern side,
though we walked our little feet tired in trying to find out
where they ended. But long before our time the outlying
spaces had ceased to be gardens and had been turned to
agricultural uses. They were dotted with the stone huts
of the peasants who patiently planted cabbages and let-
tuce, fennel and Indian corn, round broken fountains and
tumbled pedestals, who used the Temple of Minerva
Medica and a beautiful but deserted Renaissance palace
on the outskirts as store houses for grain, and who some-
times crept into the gardens proper on dark nights, to
steal the fruit from the old orange trees in the " Viale "

62

A GALLERY OF MEMORY PICTURES

which ran the whole length of the distance from the
Piazza di Termini (now Delle Terme) to the Piazza of
Santa Maria Maggiore, now called the Esquiline. At
right angles to this Viale, a quadruple avenue of enormous
cypresses slowly rose, to terminate, far away south, in a
steep artificial hill crowned with the " Belvedere," the
pavilion commanding the widest possible view, without
which no pleasance would have been complete for the
beauty-loving magnates of the latter Renaissance.

The cypresses were everywhere in that old garden ; for
century after century they had shed their needles on the
ground till the soil around their huge, upstanding roots
was as velvety and fragrant as powdered sandalwood;
but their newest topmost plumes waved in feathery fresh-
ness at the level of our upper windows, delicate, dark lace
against the matchless Roman sky.

The house itself was built of materials filched from the
Baths of Diocletian, whose huge, sulky looking arches
covered several acres of ground near us. There is no de-
stroying that titanic masonry, and though many a palace
has been built with the stone and marble that could be
removed, even the Vandals who have ruled Rome since
1870, have had to utilise and build round the masses of
bricks and concrete which nothing short of dynamite
would dislodge.

My dear father, who loved old grandeur and needed
much space, fell in love with the Villa Negroni and took
it on a lifelong lease from the owner, Prince Massimo,
who reserved for himself a vast warren of rooms on the
first floor and gave up all the rest to us. He only brought

63

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

his family there in the spring and autumn for a short
time; the winter saw him housed in the forbidding
Palazzo Massimo, down in the oldest part of the city,
and the summer months were spent at Arsoli, his feudal
castle in the Sabines. He gave my father permission to
erect a series of studios on the eastern side of the house,
over the ancient reservoir of the Baths of Diocletian, and
in these studios I often took refuge from nursery tyranny
and sat for whole days among the shining white statues,
perfectly happy with a ball of clay and a modelling stick,
listening to the delicate ring of chisel on marble, still to me
the sweetest music in the world.

My father joyfully abetted me in these escapades, and
I remember when people came to look for me, that he
used to lift me up and hide me away, far above their
heads, in the body of the charger which had been cast in
sections for the Richmond monument.

From the studios, I could slip out through a dark ilex
grove, always full of singing birds, and climb a little hill
on which sat a colossal statue of Roma Imperatrix, look-
ing down with stony eyes on her vassal city, while above
her head waved the spires of some giant cypresses planted
by Michelangelo — who, it is said, used to walk in
these gardens with his friend the great Pope Paul III,
when they were planning the completion of St. Peter's.
Up in the crimson drawing-room I wanted to see Pio
Nono, but here, under his own trees, I wished Michel-
angelo would come and talk to me and tell me why I
loved his statues and was so horribly afraid of his
paintings.

64

A GALLERY OF MEMORY PICTURES

It is all gone now. The railway runs where the ilex
grove broke in gold and green rustlings over my head;
the railway station stands on the site of our studios;
gone are the orange walk and the cypress avenue, and
the lovely fountain court, guarded by stone lions and en-
circled by cypresses wreathed to their crests with climbing
roses. The fountain had been playing for three hundred
years — and the place was so quiet and remote that when
we children looked down from our nursery windows on
moonlit nights we used to see a ring of little Campagna
foxes drinking silently out of the low, marble basin. In
our days life had ebbed away from the old villa, but it
had, in its earlier splendour, enjoyed its full share of
dramatic and picturesque incident.

It had been the home of one of the worst women who
ever lived — Vittoria Accoramboni, a beautiful fiend, who
married Francesco Peretti, the remarkably handsome
young relative of Sixtus V. Wishing to replace him by
another man, who had wooed her formerly without suc-
cess, she sent him out from this house to be assassinated
by the bravos whom the old admirer complacently hired
for her. He paid his own penalty, for she soon tired of
him and made away with him too, and was very properly
murdered herself, a month later, for the sake of the great
wealth he had left her. She lived, I imagine, on the first
floor of the palace and her ghost did not walk in our
part of the house, but all through my early years, with-
out any knowledge of the story, I had the sense of a bad
feminine presence about the place, and connected it, in my
small mind, with a spot on our side of the high wall which

65

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

divided the orange walk from the Via Strozzi. Here the
plaster had scaled off, leaving on the fiery red of the bricks
the form of a woman writhing in some hideous torment.
Just below it I once found a long, black snake coiled many
times round the trunk of an orange tree, with hanging yet
protruded head — the image of the serpent whom all the
pictures represented as beguiling Eve. Ever afterwards
I raced past that spot as fast as my feet would carry me !

After Vittoria Accoramboni had met her doom, a much
more respectable lady — Camilla, the sister of Sixtus V
— made her home at the villa. She, it seems, was some-
what uplifted by her brother's advancement and went to
visit him in the costume of a Roman princess. The Pon-
tiff, who had no mind to forget that he had herded swine
in his youth, refused to recognise her in such garb and
she departed, abased, to don once more the peasant dress
which she had always worn. When she presented her-
self in this the Pope received her gladly, and gave much
thought and money to making the villa a delightful res-
idence for her.

The Massimo apartment downstairs was full of long
galleries and dimly gorgeous rooms. We used to play
there sometimes with Donna Francesca and her brother,
but there was sadness in the very air. They had beau-
tiful Eighteenth Century toys — one a small travelling
carriage, complete in every detail, which we amused our-
selves with rolling up and down a gallery a hundred feet
long. But at one end of the gallery was a small chapel
whence tall candles and some dark old pictures looked
out at us from behind heavv grated and gilded doors;

66

A GALLERY OF MEMORY PICTURES

and from the other Princess Massimo occasionally
emerged, a tall, pale woman with a very sad face, so un-
like my own mother's smiling countenance that she fright-
ened me a little, gentle and kind though she always was.
Her life was one which a woman of her position could
only with difficulty lead now, a long chain of prayer and
duty. Devoted to her children, she made it a point never
to leave them alone with the servants, and we could see
her every morning going out of the house at eight o'clock
to walk with our playmate, Filippo, or, as he was usually
called, Arsoli, to the Noble's college where he was re-
ceiving his education.

Before returning she heard Mass in a neighbouring
church, then came home to remain with Francesca and de-
vote herself to household duties till the hour of the after-
noon drive, which is still as much a part of the Roman's
day as sunrise or sunset; then the old-fashioned, open
carriage with hammercloth, and coachman, and lacqueys
hanging on behind, all " done " in grey and magenta,
came round to the front door, and the Prince and Princess
and Donna Francesca climbed in and drove straight to the
Noble's college, to pick up the boy who, I fancy, would
much have preferred a game with his companions to the
solemn drive twice around Villa Borghese, twice up and
down the Corso at a foot's pace, in the procession of
coaches which crowded it in the late afternoon, the horses
of one carriage almost resting their noses on the hood of
the one in front — and then home, to get through the
time as best he could till ten o'clock, the invariable hour
for supper. Old-fashioned Romans like the Massimos

67

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

still dined at twelve in those pre-historic days and took
nothing more till the late supper at which even the young-
est of the children assisted.

Arsoli was a funny little object in his school costume.
All pupils of the Noble's College (and there were boys
of seven in the youngest class) had to appear in full
evening dress — long black trousers, tail coat, white tie
and white gloves. In the street they wore the voluminous
double caped black cloak, which the Romans have only
relinquished of late years; one end was thrown over the
left shoulder and the whole was crowned with a very high
tall hat. The " internes " were taken for daily walks by
their preceptors, who were all priests, and the long pro-
cession of solemnly clad manikins marching two and two
in the most dignified manner, was one of the most famil-
iar sights in old Rome.

The daughters of noble families were generally edu-
cated in the convent, but Francesca Massimo was a ter-
rible pickle and never stayed long without being sent home
to repent of her sins for weeks at a time. She was very
fond of coming up to our nursery, where she scandalised
us by licking all the jam off other people's bread, and made
me furious by taking possession of my rocking-horse and
leaving me only the wooden tail to ride upon. Later in
life she added various chapters to the more sensational
chronicles of the town, and I met her again in after years,
naughty and amusing as ever, with a most unorthodox
lazy twinkle in her black eyes, and the old impertinent
drawl in her voice, though even then her life hung by a
mere thread and she was rarely out of pain. Her father

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A GALLERY OF MEMORY PICTURES

was a most unregenerate robber — of postage stamps.
He was for many years Postmaster General and utilised
his facilities to make a valuable collection. America was
a long way off from Rome at that time, and every letter
that my people received from the United States had had
the stamps boldly cut out of the envelope before it was
handed over to the postman.

His son, Arsoli, had anything but pious tendencies,
though his appearance was almost severe in its propriety,
a cross between that of a confidential butler and a parish
priest. When I returned to Rome four years after my
marriage, I found him the proud possessor of a real
hansom cab, the only one in Italy. This he had imported
from London, and had had it painted and lined in the
greenish grey and sickly magenta which were the family
colours; whenever he could, he inveigled his women
friends into taking tete-a-tete drives with him, and he
came to me, I remember, and entreated me, for the sake
of old times, to accompany him on a " trottata," adding
by way of inducement, that the event would be commem-
orated by the inscription of my name on a silver tablet
which hung inside the vehicle, recording the name of
every lady who had thus favoured him !

Though I was still young enough to enjoy anything in
the shape of a lark, I managed to resist this alluring
temptation. The vision of my frivolous self, driving down
the Corso with Arsoli's unbeautiful countenance beside
me and those awful colours for a background was really
more than I could contemplate.

CHAPTER VI

SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

The Pifferari — Our Madonna and Her Musicians — Christmas Night —
Palestrina's Music in the Crypt — Christmas Day and the Chapel of the
Manger — Twelfth Night — The "Befana" — The Carnival— The "Bar-
beri" — Shrove Tuesday — The Moccolo — "II Carnevale e Morto!" —
Ash Wednesday — "Restitution" — Giuseppe and His Easter Offering —
Holy Thursday — The Arrival of the Peasants — The Roman Ladies and
the Holy Father's Guests — Holy Week — "Tenebrae" — A Wonderful
Moment — Mustapha's Miserere — Easter Morning — The Illumination
of St. Peter's — "Did He Come Down Alive."

PRINCESS MASSIMO'S Catholic heart yearned over
my pretty mother and the young family growing up
outside the pale of the Church, and she did all that she
could to bring us into the fold; but early tradition and
the violent prejudices of various Protestant friends made
any conversion impossible at that time. Nevertheless the
Catholic ceremonies were too interesting and splendid to
be overlooked, and our year was clearly marked off by
them, each season bringing its special pleasures and spec-
tacles, which we were allowed to enjoy even when we
were tiny children.

The year began for us with the first Sunday in Advent,
when hundreds of " Pifferari," the bagpipe players from
the mountains of Romagna and the Kingdom of Naples,
entered the city in little companies to play their wild
haunting music before the many street shrines where, in
those days of faith, the lamps were kept burning and the
flowers fresh all the year round. Almost every great

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SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

house had one such shrine somewhere on the outer wall
of dwelling or garden, displaying generally a painting of
the Mother and Child. The picture was usually set in
a deep niche and protected by a wire screen (always
locked for fear of sacrilege), behind which the lamp
burned night and day and vases of flowers made constant
sweetness.

During the weeks of Advent the Pifferari, in their pic-
turesque costumes, played before one after another of
these open air sanctuaries, all day long, their quaint old
hymns filling the city with music and reminding all good
Christians that the birth of Christ was at hand. I re-
member one group that constantly came to our Madonna ;
there was an old man with white hair and flowing beard,
a fine young fellow who was evidently his son, and a
bright-eyed little boy who accompanied the bagpipes on
a reed flute — the original pipe of Pan. All were dressed
in the peaked hat, scarlet vest, gold-buttoned jackets and
white goat-skin breeches, which constituted the mountain
costume, and were shod with sandals and twined leg
straps called " cioccie " — whence the name " Ciocceria "
for the Abruzzi district where they are still universal.
With devout concentration they would execute their can-
zona, some air which had been taught by father to son for
a thousand years past, full of gay bird voices with an un-
derstrain of melancholy and longing, so simple that the
shepherds might have sung it as they made their way to
Bethlehem on the first Christmas night, yet so poignant
that the heart of humanity seemed to be crying through
it for the promised Redeemer. When the last note died

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

away the little boy's hat would come off, and he would
look round at the bystanders for sympathy — and pen-
nies, which were always freely given; so that the devout
musicians, while gaining much merit, made a useful har-
vest to take home to the family waiting for their return
in the " castello " far away in the hills.

With Christmas night came the wonderful Nativity
music in the crypt of St. Peter's, when, in the darkness
under the heavy arches which guard the tomb of the
Apostles, every voice of nature seemed to sing its paean
of praise. One heard the wind rustling in the trees, the
river dancing on its way, the twittering of birds in the
dewy dawn, the triumphant joy of watching angels; and
even a child's heart could not help responding, " Oh,
all ye works of the Lord, praise ye the Lord! "

Then on Christmas Day there was the visit to the
Chapel of the Manger in Santa Maria Maggiore, our
own church, the " Mother of all Churches," whose noble
front we could see through the ironwork of the gate
which divided the orange avenue from the Piazza. There
was the very Manger itself, with a smiling Bambino Gesu
reposing on the straw, his sweet Mother and St. Joseph
kneeling in adoration, and the shepherds with their lambs
crowding eagerly forward to look at Him — all life-sized
figures, so natural and charming that we never needed
any other teaching about the Christmas Mystery.

On Twelfth Night came the " Befana," the great
Epiphany Fair in Piazza Navona. With wildly beating
hearts we used to depart, accompanied by a trusty body-
guard of servants, to drive through the dark streets until

72

SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

the crowd made further progress for a carriage imprac-
ticable. By that time the air was full of the wildest din,
tin trumpets, penny whistles, and strident rattles, all in
full blast, so that speech was impossible, and we could
only hold tight to guiding hands and let ourselves be
led round the Piazza, stopping at every booth on the way
to spend our money on the bright, tin toys and strange
sweets which were the specialty of the season. We had
hardly heard of Santa Claus, but the " Befana," the kind
witch who walks on the housetops and brings toys to
good children and rods to naughty ones, was a very real
personage to us.

A few weeks later the excitement of the Carnival illu-
minated life for ten days. To be dressed in a real
domino and stand on a balcony in the Corso, flinging
bushels of confetti and hundreds of posies at all and
sundry, was something to dream of for the rest of the
year. Every window in the street was hung with tapes-
tries and garlands; the bands were playing in every
square; the towering cars, wreathed with flowers, and
filled with men and women in dazzling costumes, passed
up and down in endless procession; the crowd below
surged, and screamed, and danced a thousand antics, till
the great moment struck when a company of mounted
Dragoons came pounding along to clear the way. Breath-
less silence followed their passage. Then far away, from
the Piazza del Popolo, sounded a muffled thundering of
hoofs and a roar of voices, ever nearer and nearer, more
and more deafening, till the " Barberi," the riderless race-
horses, wild with fear at the yells of the populace and

73

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the clattering of tinsel hung all over their bodies, swept
into sight, flew past, and were lost to view as the crowd
broke and closed in behind them — and the day was
over! Only on Shrove Tuesday did the festivities begin
again after the race. Then every man, woman and child
flourished a " m6ccolo,,, a lighted taper, and tried to
keep it burning while extinguishing as many as possible
of those around. For a couple of hours the street was a
river of shifting light, and when it died out, thousands of
voices joined in the dirge of the dying Carnival, " II Car-
nevale e morto! Chi lo sepellira?" (The Carnival is
dead — who will bury it?)

With Ash Wednesday the city turned to its prayers
with a will. Our pleasant, talkative servants, who had
been smilingly robbing us all through the year, began to
be strangely silent and to wear anxious faces. The Eas-
ter confession was imminent and there would be no ab-
solution without restitution! This was tactfully made in
the form of presents and offerings; but it was not until
later in life that I discovered why the dear old butler, Giu-
seppe, used to bring me a really pretty piece of jewellery
about Easter time. On the other hand, during Lent, the
extremely pious woman who was my mother's maid for
forty years, wore an air of joyful insousiance which must
have been most irritating to her less scrupulous colleagues.
She went to Confession all the year round, and would not
have taken a pin to save her life !

On the Fridays in Lent the " Stations " were preached
and prayed by Capuchin monks in the arena of the Col-
iseum, when thousands of penitent sinners knelt on the

74

SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

soil which had received the blood of the Martyrs. Holy
iWeek, I must confess, was one long chain of heavenly
dissipation to us. We had been taught little or nothing
of its religious meaning, but the music, the lights, the pro-
cessions, were something to which we looked forward
with palpitating excitement.

By Holy Thursday many thousands of pilgrims from
all parts of Italy, but more especially from the South,
had arrived in Rome ; foreigners from all over the world
flocked to the hotels, but little notice was taken of them.
The housing and caring for the poor peasants, some of
whom had walked two hundred miles or more, in great
companies, praying and singing hymns all the way, oc-
cupied all the attention of the authorities. They were the
personal guests of the Holy Father, and were made to
feel that they were his very beloved children. The vast
building of the " Santo Spirito," which ran all the way
from the Castel' Sant' Angelo to the Piazza of St. Peter's,
was portioned out into dormitories and refectories where
food and lodging was provided for all who had brought
the necessary recommendation from their Parish Priest.
The women and children were housed separately from
the men; and it was one of the proudest privileges of
the Roman Princes and Princesses to wait upon them,
for no others might share in this labour of love and
humility.

All day long the pilgrims, when not assisting at the re-
ligious ceremonies in St. Peter's, wandered about the city,
taking in its thousand wonders to describe on their re-
turn ; but when Ave Maria rang they came crowding into

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the spacious hospice to find a splendid supper prepared,
and good beds for their weary limbs. The men were
marshalled away to their own side where ladies did not
penetrate, so I never watched the proceedings there, but
the women's quarters, to which we had access, presented
a scene of unique interest. The greatest ladies in the
world, in Court dress of black velvet and a long black
veil, and wearing their most magnificent family jewels,
came to do honour to the Pope's guests. They received
the contadine and their babies and led them to the tables
loaded with good things which ran down the hall, guiding
them to their places, where each found her supper sep-
arately laid out. But before enjoying this, the poor dusty
feet that had travelled so far must be washed, and the
Princesses, following Christ's example, went round from
one to another on their knees to perform this kindly act.
The first time I witnessed it I found myself beside the
group under Princess Massimo's care, and I shall never
forget my amazement when I saw that dear and holy lady
stagger forward with a tub of steaming hot water, and
then kneel down and gently remove the sandals and stock-
ings of a young woman who carried a tiny baby in her
arms and who, as I knew by her costume, must have come
from the further fastnesses of the Apennines. The Prin-
cess was wearing the famous Massimo pearls, string after
string of enormous shimmering globes, which hung so far
below her waist that they kept getting hopelessly mixed
up with the hot water and soapsuds. Talking kindly to
the dazzled contadina, she made a very thorough job of
her distasteful task, and when it was accomplished car-

76

SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

ried away her tub like any hospital nurse and prepared
to attend to the next on the bench. For three nights, from
Holy Thursday to Easter Eve, she and her peers rendered
this tribute to poverty and faith, while their husbands and
sons did the same for the men on the other side of the
building.

The next joy of Holy Week was the assisting at " Ten-
ebrae " in the Sistine Chapel. A limited number of tickets
was issued for this, but a most unholy scramble for places
always occurred when the iron gates were opened and the
waiting crowd rushed in. We of course regarded this
as the finest kind of fun, but our poor governess, who
managed somehow to hold on to the three of us until she
had us all safely seated inside, must have had some
anxious moments.

Tenebrae began at three o'clock, but long before they
were over the Chapel was heavy with awesome darkness.
Michelangelo's terrifying Last Judgment overhead was
lost in the shadows, and the only points of light were the
beams of the ever diminishing triangle of tapers near the
altar. As one by one these were extinguished we knew
that the great moment was drawing nigh, and when the
last was taken away breathless silence reigned in the dense
night that had fallen around. Then, alone and with-
out accompaniment, the sweetest and divinest soprano I
have ever heard began the Miserere. Tender, almost
wailing at first, its notes rose higher and clearer, purer
and stronger, till the great dark space was filled with such
a cry for love, for mercy, for redemption, that it seemed
as if Supreme Justice itself must be vanquished at that

77

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

appeal. We forgot that we knew and loved the singer,
forgot that his tall figure and gentle face were familiar
in our home; when Mustapha sang the Miserere, even
we, ignorant little pagans that we were, felt as if the
greatest of the Archangels were calling us from the gates
of Heaven.

He had been a foundling, left at the " Pieta " in his
infancy, with no other dower than that strange Turkish
name pinned to his clothes. But Nature, which had
been stern to him in some ways, had given him a voice
of matchless power, sweetness and compass, and a heart
as sweet and big and pure. Fair as any English girl, with
eyes of radiant blue, and a simple dignity of manner
which was almost regal, he lived and died a mystery, per-
fectly happy in the benign fate which had led him early
in life to be the first soprano in the most perfect com-
pany in the world, the Pope's choir. For some thirty or
forty years he had that joy, and when age came upon him
and the notes, though sweet as ever, grew a little faint,
he smiled at the successor who could never be his equal,
and gently stepped aside to wait for the day when the
heavenly choirs would admit him to sing with them, not
" Miserere mei Deus," but " Te Deum laudamus " for-
evermore. The last time I saw him he was growing feeble
and I had to come close to hear what he was saying, but
there was no sadness in his surrender, only peace and
light, and soon afterwards he passed away.

The Pope's choir was quite separate from that of St.
Peter's, and the beloved Mustapha did not sing in the
church; but his absence was made up for to me on Easter

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SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

morning by the silver trumpets which pealed out Rossini's
chant of triumph far up in the dome at the moment of the
Elevation. I forget how many thousands of people were
supposed to be kneeling around us — I can testify to the
truth of the tradition that no matter what crowds it re-
ceives there is always room for more in St. Peter's. We
had seen Pius IX borne up the long aisle in his pontifical
chair, with the tiara on his head, blessing all as he passed;
the dazzling procession of guards, of Bishops and Car-
dinals, and Nobles in Seventeenth Century costume had
moved slowly by; the long High Mass with its yet in-
comprehensible ceremonial was beginning to tire me, for
I was still a very little girl, when that indescribable music
descended from above* and lifted me away from con-
sciousness for a time. When it ceased I found myself
kneeling on the pavement, crying helplessly, while my re-
calcitrant Protestant guardian, who stood obstinately erect
during the whole service, was trying to pull me to my feet,
and whispering angrily, " You are not to kneel down —
get up at once ! " — the first declaration of hostilities des-
tined to meet me in a thousand shapes and cramp my life
in one way and another for five and twenty long years
afterwards.

But the crowning moment of our whole year came on the
evening of Easter Sunday. Then we climbed the long
twisting stairs leading to the tower terrace, and stood un-
der its open arches, in the soft April darkness, to gaze at
St. Peter's outlined and covered from portico to pinnacle
with stars of silver light. Far away across the vast dusky
city we could trace every detail of cross and dome and

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

column, quivering with mysterious radiance against the
velvet gloom of sky. Not a sound was to be heard — we
knew that the entire populace of the city and the peasants
in every hamlet in the mountains, were watching with us
in that intense silence. Then, from Sant' Angelo, one
cannon boomed out its signal, and ere its echoes died away
the silver summit of the cross on the dome had flamed to
moulten gold which ran in a torrent of glory down, down,
from dome to roof, from roof to pillar, from pillar to
colonnade, till the whole great distant fane was one breath-
ing hive of gold. So it would breathe and glow through
the night, only dying out when the sky paled to dawn.

In all the years that came after, I would never let any-
one tell me by what magic the starlight glowed into sun-
light, though I knew that a man stood by each ray and
that the transformation was the work of human hands.
For me it is magic still, even as it was when we crept
down to our little beds in the friendly old nursery, holding
hands tightly and asking each other, " Did he get down
alive?"

For the task of changing the topmost light on the tow-
ering cross, four hundred feet above the ground, was so
desperately perilous that a condemned criminal was
granted his pardon if he chose to undertake it, and in
those days of faith confession was made and absolution
received before attempting that climb for freedom.

Life has shown me many strange and beautiful things,
and some sad and terrible ones. Its lessons I have
had to learn in many homes — in long exiles — under
alien stars that never shone upon my childhood. Fam-

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SIGHTS OF THE SEASONS IN OLD ROME

ished with nostalgia, I once knelt all night at my porthole
to see the North Star rise over the ocean after being hid-
den from my sight for three long years — to be certain
that, at last, I was coming back to my own people and my
own world; but the one abiding homesickness of my sadly
misspent life has been for the Rome of my childhood;
the saving grace for many a dark hour I have found in
the memory of those full young years given to me in the
Eternal City.

81

CHAPTER VII

FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

The Last Christmas with my Father — Pietruccio's Decorations — Traditions
of Sixtus V Duplicated in Tokyo — Paris — The Due de Malakoff — His
Daughter in Vienna — Pearls and Diamonds — The "Fulton" — My
First Sight of a Negro Barber — New York — Uncle Richard and the
Indian Clubs — Bridget and the Burglar — Uncle John and the French
Boots — Newport — Aunt Julia Howe — Charles Sumner — The Aboli-
tionists — I take the Other Side — Sumner and Lincoln — New York in
the Winter — The Great Comet — My Father Leaves us — Bordentown —
Adolphe Mailliard — A Terrible Experience — Nurses and Their Ways.

THE year 1855 is especially marked for me by its
Christmas season, the last my father spent with us.
After Marion's birth it seemed as if his joy in life were so
complete that he had to give it expression by spreading
happiness around him. After the temporary eclipse of
my importance, during the first few months of my brother's
existence, I again became Papa's companion during many
happy hours in the studio, and when that Christmas came
round he and my mother thought out a hundred ways of
giving me pleasure. When I opened my eyes on Christ-
mas morning I thought I had dreamt myself into fairy-
land. A huge rocking horse stood on its hind legs and
stared at me from the foot of the bed, which was all
spread over with alluring treasures. The very window cur-
tains near it had pretty things pinned all over them, in-
cluding a set of ermine furs and a pair of blue velvet shoes
which at once appealed to my feminine heart. The house
had been decorated by the old gardener, Pietruccio, in a

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FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

fashion of his own which I never saw repeated till our
house gardener in Tokyo — of all places — astonished
me by producing the same decorations, using ripe fruit
instead of flowers to give colour to the garlands.

Pietruccio's fancies must have been handed down to
him with the other traditions of Sixtus V's garden. With
golden oranges and crimson apples and honey coloured
pears he reproduced the frescoed wreaths of Raphael's
Loggie, and the majolica fruit garlands of Luca della
Robbia ; these last I found again, dazzling even in decay,
in the ruins of the Summer Palace which the Jesuit mis-
sionaries built for the great Emperor, Chien Lung, where
the western hills look to Pekin — all familiar links in
the chain that beauty has drawn around the world —
from Italy and back again, and which it has been my
happy fortune to find out and follow.

Beauty was everywhere that Christmas Day in Rome.
In an ecstasy of admiration 1 stood and watched my
mother being dressed for the evening's festivity, her
lovely lips smiling at the reflection of herself in the glass,
which certainly never showed a fairer picture. I took it
all in — the perfect oval face, the dark sweet eyes, the
camellia whiteness of the bare shoulders framed in old
Venetian point that lost itself in the folds of her tea-rose
moire gown, just the tint of her cheeks. She had big
pearls in her ears and a silver girdle knotted round her
waist and falling to her feet. I remember that I caught
hold of the ends and held them tight with some nameless
fear that she might be stolen away from me!

Then came the picture of the Christmas tree, touching

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the ceiling of the great drawing room, and my father
holding up Marion, crowing and dancing with joy, to
snatch at some glittering thing that had caught his baby
fancy, the two faces so close together, so alike in the
blazing blue eyes and noble features, and the man's as
triumphantly radiant as the child's. The room was
crowded with guests, light and laughter were everywhere
— it was the crowning day of what I have since known as
the most perfect epoch of my life.

Early that spring we left Rome on our way to America.
My grandmother, Mary Crawford, was growing old;
my two sisters had been taken to visit her before I was
born, and now she wished to see me, her namesake. But
before we were well on the way — such a long and tedious
one in those days — came the news of her death, a great
sorrow to my father. So he did not accompany us, but
remained behind to finish working at the details of the
Richmond monument; and we, all need for haste being
over, stayed a month in Paris, where I celebrated my
fifth birthday. I had a great many surprises in Paris.
The first was the house we lived in, somewhere near the
Champs Elysees. It was a new house; everything was
very bright, very white, or very gilt, and I was always
slipping up on the polished parquet floors. The contrast
to our Roman home troubled me at first — anything new
and shining struck such an unfamiliar note; but I soon
grew to like it and I particularly enjoyed the out-of-doors
aspect of things. The Champs Elysees made a delightful
playground; there were companies of horsemen in splen-
did uniforms riding through the avenues; the air was

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FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

full of band music, and gorgeous personages in equally
dazzling equipages were driving about, always in a great
hurry as it seemed.

Paris was indeed en fete that spring, the chief subject
of interest being the layette of the Prince Imperial, who
was born a few days before our arrival. But even this
thrilling topic did not quite eclipse the intoxicating tri-
umph of the Crimean successes, and the French were
drinking deep of their favourite (and peculiarly Gallic)
mixture " la gloire." The treaty of peace with Russia
had just been signed; Marshal Pelissier had been made
Due de Malakoff — and I fancy it was about that time
or a very little later that his enchantingly pretty daughter
was born. I came across her in Vienna, I think in 1881,
at an otherwise horribly dull dinner party where she and
I got into a corner and exchanged confidences, I remem-
ber. She had not long been married and was anxious
to avoid advertising her enormous fortune among the
generally bankrupt Viennese aristocracy by any display
of dress or ornament. Very tall and graceful, with a
skin like white azalea petals and a small, spirituel face,
lighted up by dark eyes full of laughter and brilliancy —
with her black hair drawn straight back from her dazzling
white forehead, where it marked the seven points so ad-
mired in the eighteenth century — she must have been the
central figure in any gathering, whatever she wore. But
the desire for simplicity, combined with taste which
amounted to genius, had produced a costume which stood
out strikingly among the rather heavy confections of the
Viennese tailors — a clinging robe of palest rose velvet

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without a single ornament except one long string of huge
and perfect pearls.

" I did want to wear diamonds, " she whispered. " But
you know how it is — if one puts on a few diamonds !
People say, ' There she goes, with all her fortune on her! '
So I fell back on pearls — they are always safe ! "

Well, my dear pretty Paris was left behind all too soon,
and we went on to Havre to embark on what was to
prove the first of my numberless ocean voyages. I have
never forgotten the sufferings of that transit. The
steamer was the " Fulton," a labouring old tub with
paddle wheels, three or four stories deep, only the upper-
most one having light or air. For fourteen mortal days
she wallowed and kicked in the troughs of the Atlantic,
nosing her drunken way through thick fogs, and, for the
last part of the time, in and out among a crowd of ice-
bergs, the danger of which somebody kindly explained to
me. The syren had not been invented yet and the only
signal we could give to other unfortunates in the white
mirk was the tolling of the horrible fog bells, which rang
night and day without intermission. Everybody was sea-
sick except my mother, and, as the governess and servants
were incapacitated, she had her hands full. If it had not
been that my beloved " compare," Mr. Hooker, crossed
with us, I doubt whether I should ever have reached
America alive. Every morning, in the stuffy cabin where
I lay (listening to the agonised cries of a Spanish baby
on the other side of the partition, consumed with fever,
poor mite, and screaming, " Agua ! Agua ! " all the
time) he used to appear, and carried me up the reeling

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stairs to the deck. Then, having tucked me up in my
rugs, he fed me on cold ham and grapes, the only food
I could swallow, and told me funny stories till I forgot
all my woes.

I had one terrible fright on this journey. My mother
wanted to have my hair cut, and, without realising that
I required any warning, led me into the presence of the
black barber, the first coloured man I had ever seen. The
shock of beholding a huge negro brandishing a pair of
sharp shears sent me into convulsions of fear. I was
convinced that the awful scissor-man in " Struwelpeter,"
who cut off poor Johnny Suck-a-thumb's fingers, stood be-
fore me, and that he wanted not only my fingers but my
head as well. His coaxing assurances that he would not
hurt me sounded like the utterances of an ogre, and I had
to be carried away kicking and screaming like a little wild
cat, and landed in New York with my hair much longer
than fashionable little girls were permitted to wear it
in those days.

At last we reached New York, and for some reason
Marion and I and our nurse were deposited for a time
with my mother's bachelor uncles, John and Richard
Ward, in their prim old house in Bond Street, still quite
a fashionable quarter, although people were already be-
ginning to move uptown. My grandfather's house, a
block or two away, was let to a dear old lady, Mrs.
Wurts, who took pity on us and used to have us over there
to spend the afternoon sometimes. There I found some
gleams of sunshine — pretty things to look at — some-
thing to interest me; but in the uncles' grim establish-

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ment there was but one bright spot, the kitchen, where
the great Irish cook gave us our meals and sometimes got
up little surprises for us. Everything in that house was
big — the uncles, two gigantic men, Uncle John kind and
smiling but mostly invisible, Uncle Richard dark and
cross and dreadfully alarming! Our nursery was a vast
bare room at the top of the house, and Uncle Richard had
a bedroom communicating with it by one of those black
closets now gone out of fashion — fortunately for chil-
dren who can no longer be shut up in them by hard
hearted nurses for hours at a time. Once, when con-
demned to such penance, I found the other door of the
prison ajar and peeped through — to shrink back in
terror, for across the room I beheld Uncle Richard with
his back to me, waving some awful looking weapons
round his head, as if preparing to brain the first person
he met. Of course they were Indian clubs, but I could
not know that, and thenceforth one more horrid appre-
hension clouded my life.

I am afraid Uncle Richard had not been a credit to
the family, and dear Uncle John had hard work to make
him appear so, although he made many sacrifices in the
effort, refusing even to marry, in order to devote himself
entirely to the unsatisfactory brother, who, in spite of
all precautions, broke out now and then. I was very
much puzzled by the difficulty Uncle Richard occasionally
had in getting upstairs, and once followed him in great
trembling, torn between my desire to help him find the
way and my certainty that something dreadful would
happen to me if I drew his attention to my presence.

FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

Uncle John was away at the bank all day, and some-
times got so interested in affairs there that he forgot
to come home at all. Then Elizabeth and her colleague,
Bridget, would take charge of the house, get Mr. Richard
to bed, look for robbers — and go round to lock up.
One night when engaged in this duty they found what
they had so long sought for. Sticking out from under
the green baize cover of the dining-room table were the
soles of two big muddy boots.

Finger on lip, the intrepid Irishwomen approached and
examined these curiosities. Sounds of healthy snoring
came from under the table cloth.

" Sure, the villain's asleep," whispered Elizabeth.
" Praise be ! You're the stronger in the arms, and I'm
the stouter, Biddy! Catch hould o' thim boots and pull
um out and I'll sit on his back while ye call the police ! "

With all her might Biddy pulled, and the next moment
the astonished intruder was pinned to the floor by Eliz-
abeth's sixteen stone in the small of his back. He kicked
and struggled, but Elizabeth sat like a rock till Bridget
returned with the policeman, and the owner of " thim
boots " was taken into custody.

A more wily thief drove up to the door one morning
with a furniture wagon, and, ringing boldly, declared that
Mr. Ward had sent him to take away the leather arm-
chairs in the study, as they were to be upholstered anew.
The nice deep armchairs were carried out, piled in, and
driven away, never to return. I believe it was some time
before Uncle John discovered that they had been re-
moved; he was very absent minded, dear man, and my

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mother told me that for many years of her girlhood he
presented her on her birthday with the same old walnut
and silver inkstand off his writing table, always setting it
back in its place again and renewing the ceremony with
perfect gravity the next year. But when he brought his
mind to bear on it he was a munificent giver, and all
through my early girlhood used to send us large sums of
money to spend as we liked. He had never been abroad
until, two or three years after this, my mother induced
him to come over and meet her in Paris, preparatory to
spending a winter with us in Rome. Mamma persuaded
him to buy some clothes in Paris and to have proper shoes
made for his huge feet; the New York footgear was
too offensive to be borne. The boots were brought to
the hotel and Uncle John was delighted with them. Then
the French shoemaker produced a lumpy parcel and held
it out despairingly to my mother.

" For Heaven's sake, Madame," he prayed, " buy the
lasts too ! I had to have them made expressly, and never
in this world shall I find another customer with such a
foot!"

We spent a part of that summer in Newport, near my
aunt Julia's place, Oakglen, where many people were
coming and going, and where one day Charles Sumner
was reverently pointed out to me as a hero and a martyr
of some great cause, then entirely beyond my compre-
hension. He was a tall, fine looking man, but he struck
me as morose and alarming, and I was not at all pleased
at being dragged up to be presented to him. He was
probably bored at being obliged to notice a spoilt child

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and looked at me in a puzzled disapproving manner
which roused all my wrath. Finding that he had nothing
interesting to say, I turned my back on him — even at
that age I never forgave anyone who bored me — and
pondered long on the problem of his popularity in the
house. From my Howe cousins I finally learned that he
was the friend of the noble and oppressed black people,
and had been half murdered a few months before for
espousing their cause; also that Aunt Julia nourished a
tender regard for the slaves, and that she, and Mr. Sum-
ner, and a number of other superior people, intended to
set them free and invite them to dinner. These would-be
deliverers were called Abolitionists, the cousins said, and
I must be an Abolitionist too ! It took me some days to
learn the ugly name — it sounded like a new crime out
of Lancashire Mary's Old Testament, — and then I
boldly took the other side. With my recent fright at the
black barber still in my mind I vowed that I would run
away and starve rather than dine with anything that
looked like him. I wondered how pretty Aunt Julia, with
her blue eyes and red hair, could have such queer fancies,
but Aunt Julia was always a puzzling person to me in
those days, and, if the term does not sound too ridiculous
as applied to the relations of a brilliantly intellectual
woman and a very small, ignorant girl, I would say that
we did not hit it off !

I was supposed to look like her (though red hair was
going out of fashion and mine was daily combed with
a heavy leaden comb to subdue its too bright tint) and
once when her attention was called to this fact in my

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presence she gave me a long searching look and then
turned away with an expression of amused disgust. She
evidently did not consider the comparison a compliment,
and it was a great many years before I forgave her.

Her friend and hero, Charles Sumner, was a really
great man, in intellect, in heart, in principle, and had I
met him when I was a little older, I should have been
proud to have him notice me at all. He was an example
of what a statesman should be, both in nobility of aim
and dogged pursuance of the object in view. During the
long political struggle which preceded the Civil War,
Sumner, so early as 1848, when new states were being
added to the Union, lifted up his eloquent voice in support
of the maxim that " Congress had no more power to
make a slave than to make a king," and that "there
should be no more slave states, and no more slave terri-
tory," and for fourteen years he stood in the very fore-
front of the Free Soil party, an unflinching supporter of
constitutional liberty. His zeal and prominence made
him the chief target for the assaults of the slavery party,
which really received its own death blow when Preston
Brooks, coming upon the Senator for Massachusetts
from behind as he sat writing at his desk in the House,
nearly clubbed him to death. Before that incident some
compromise between North and South still appeared pos-
sible; after it, when the slave-holders rose like one man
to exalt Brooks and congratulate him on his cowardly
deed, the northerners of all parties agreed in their
furious execration of it, feeling rose to such a pitch that
war was inevitable sooner or later.

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Sumner would perhaps have been more than human had
he been able to put all personal rancour aside. A little
of this betrayed itself when the war was over and he
so violently opposed Lincoln's patient and merciful pro-
ject for re-construction. The President would have par-
doned, and restored their constitutional rights to all who
had been concerned in the rebellion, upon their taking the
oath of allegiance to the United States. His southern
brethren were still brethren, much loved and deeply
pitied, and his great heart desired to take them back with
as little humiliation to them as possible. Charles Sum-
ner, on the contrary, advocated political annihilation;
the vanquished were to lose all state rights until severe
punishment should have been inflicted and abject prayers
for pardon should have followed it. The final decision
leaned towards his view rather than towards that of the
President, the Southern States being deprived of their
rights until such time as Congress should see fit to restore
them.

Sumner was great, Lincoln immeasurably greater — yet
how sadly do the heroisms and wisdoms of one epoch
change aspect under the bitter experience of the next !
Who that has in any way come in contact with the colour
problem to-day, does not regret that those who had to
deal with it then could not, or would not, undertake to
settle it less precipitately? One looks with envy at the
quiet record of the suppression of slavery in Brazil, where
such a generous period of time could be devoted to it
that it should more properly be called extinction than
suppression. It was bondage dying a natural death, under

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the wise regulations which prohibited further sale or bar-
ter, declared all unborn generations free, and, while pro-
tecting existing slaves in every possible way, as carefully
avoided loss to their owners.

I suppose I must have been a little confused with the
new surroundings, for I do not remember all the goings
and comings of that first year in America, although
places and people are as distinct in my mind as if I had
seen them but yesterday. We seem to have floated con-
stantly between New York, Newport, and Bordentown.
One delightful week I spent in Baltimore, where my
mother took me to see my godmother, Mrs. Latimer, a
dear woman who was endlessly kind to me. Mrs. Lati-
mer had some pretty old-fashioned ways, long forgotten
in the North, but handed down in the South from Mary
Washington's time. She used the most beautiful china
and silver on her table, and none of the servants were
permitted to handle it. I learned to stand beside her
after breakfast and hold the fine linen towels, while she,
having donned a dainty apron, washed each precious ob-
ject in a little tub of cedar wood bound with silver hoops.
We never spoke during this important ceremony, and she
had such a delicate way of touching the porcelain that it
seemed as if her lingers were apologising for using it at
all.

The winter found us in New York, where I saw snow
fall for the first time — and lie piled high in filthy heaps
on each side of the street (even as it so often does now),
breeding disease, and producing upon me, then as now,
the most despairing depression. The snow was a horror

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— the ice an enemy. I was always slipping down, and I
have a painfully lively recollection of my chin coming in
contact with the frozen pavement, while my cherished
ermine muff rolled away before my eyes, growing blacker
and wetter with every revolution. The cold seemed
frightful, and my one consolation was to go and stand
over the open register (radiators had not been invented)
in the corner of the nursery, and thaw my shivering little
limbs in the gusts of hot air which rushed up from it.
It was in New York that I saw the great comet which,
everyone said, foretold some terrible disaster. Several
times we children were taken down into Bond Street at
night to gaze awe-stricken at the wide trail of fire which
spanned all we could see of the sky between the house-
tops. And it was in New York that I first saw the Aurora
Borealis — a most exceptional phenomenon in that lat-
itude. And what a glorious display it was! The entire
firmament was fused in sheets of rose, and orange, and
silver, that shot long tongues of icy light past the pale
shivering stars right up to the zenith, and descended again
in showers of unearthly cold radiance to be swept hither
and thither in the whirl of winds we could only guess at,
for on our earth the night was deathly still.

But before that wonderful vision was shown to me I
had had one of the silent heartbreaks of childhood that
grown up people never realise or give a thought to. My
father made a flying visit to America in the late summer
of 1856, and came down for a day or two to the farm-
house near Newport where we younger ones were placed
while my mother went on a round of family visits. We

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

had our governess and the dragon Mary with us, and
were well looked after, but my heart was sore for my
father, and when he came at last I thought he was going
to stay with us. The day after his arrival he burst into
our room in his old impetuous way, as if he had come for
a game. " Good-bye, little May," he said, " I am going
back to Rome." And as I clung to him, dazed, he picked
up Marion off the floor and held him high above his head,
laughing happily. The sun was shining right in his face
I remember, and Marion looked all a bundle of white and
gold against the light.

The next moment my father was gone, and I never
saw him again.

The happiest times we had in America were those we
spent at Bordentown. My mother's youngest sister,
Annie, had married Adolphe Mailliard, a handsome and
charming despot who at once captured my affections and
made me the most willing of his subjects. He was a
grandson of Joseph Bonaparte, erstwhile King of Spain,
and, in spite of his bar sinister, was a much more typical
Bonaparte than his easy-going grandsire, or any of his
contemporaries among the acknowledged scions of the
house. He was born with the conviction that it was for
him to rule, for all around him to obey; and he had such
a quietly portentous way of signifying his pleasure that
it would have required more than ordinary courage to
oppose him. Very quietly and firmly he decided that
while we were in America our home should be with him
and my aunt, between whom and my mother there ex-
isted one of those ideal affections for which there seems

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to be no time in these later, more hurried days. To each
other they were " Beata," and " Benedetta," and if ever
the French expression " deux corps et une ame," de-
scribed truthfully the relations of two human beings, it
did so for theirs. They had been the youngest of the
seven children left motherless when my aunt Annie was
born, and they had had only each other to confide in and
seek comfort from during long years of neglected
childhood.

Both were radiant at the temporary reunion, and Uncle
Adolphe did all in his power to prolong it. In his princely
way he added to his already large house a schoolroom
for the elder girls and a model nursery for us. This
was big enough to satisfy even me — I always detested
small rooms — and had four great arched windows with
steps in their alcoves, whence we could peep out over the
safety bars and watch all the interesting sights below.
There were the stables, full of beautiful restless horses,
the garden, the avenue, the steep hill where the happy
"big ones" tobogganed on the snow; and far down at
the end of the grounds, a railway line where the trains
passed every day, a pleasant excitement until we met
with a terrible experience which coloured my dreams
for years after. Mary, who hated the governess and
refused to let us run loose with the elder children, was
fond of taking Marion and me for our constitutional
along the clean, hard railway track, where we could
not soil our shoes or disarrange our clothes. The trains
had been passing for months at the accustomed hours
and it never entered her British head that these could

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

be altered. One bright morning we were sauntering
across a long narrow bridge, just wide enough for the
train itself and no more. On either side was the slight
parapet, and below, the wide deep river.

When we reached the middle of the bridge we heard
the shriek of a whistle behind us, and turned — to see
the volumes of smoke issuing from the funnel of an
approaching engine. I looked up in my nurse's face;
it was a sickly green. But she did not lose her head.
Seizing Marion under one arm like a sack of flour, she
grasped my hand, and we raced, tore, flew, on to the
end of the bridge, the horrible thunder of the train
already shaking it from side to side. Brakes were very
elementary still, and the driver's horror must have been
almost as great as ours. I thought we had been run-
ning for years — it was probably not more than a min-
ute or two — when, sobbing and gasping, we reached
the end and all three rolled down the steep embankment
just in time to escape the wheels of the engine as it
roared by with a long train of cars behind it.

Night after night while we lived in Bordentown, and
long after, I used to lie awake and tremble, hearing that
train whistle at the end of the passage and then crash
through the nursery door; but I had learnt to be dumb
as to everything that happened under my tyrant's rule
and I never spoke of the experience till I was grown up.
The beautiful sunny nursery in Bordentown soon held
other terrors for me. When we had been put to bed at
one end of it and the high gas-lights shut out with
screens, the cousins' nurse and mine would entertain each

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other for hours by relating or reading aloud the most
frightful ghost stories, of which I took in every word.
When the diversion was concluded, my nurse brought a
lighted candle (a thing that Uncle Adolphe had for-
bidden her to use) close to my bedside and peered into
my face to see if I were asleep. If I stirred or opened
my eyes I was instantly severely whipped by way of
calming my nerves. Whippings were inflicted on me day
in, day out, but whatever happened, I was dumb. All
the natural impulsiveness of my nature was schooled to
silent endurance, which so enraged the woman that she
sometimes exclaimed, " You shall cry. I will make you
cry." That triumph she never had, but she succeeded
in turning me into the most perfect little actress, the
most consummate hypocrite that ever lived. I learnt to
simulate sleep so as to deceive even her; I smiled when
I was miserable, ate when food choked me, obeyed with
joyful alacrity, and pretended to like all the tasks she
laid upon me, — tasks which she should have performed
herself. As I believed she was the most powerful per-
son in the house and would flay me if I complained of
her, nobody ever suspected that anything was wrong,
and in the family records of the time I have since found
much laudation of Mary's splendid management of me
and of her success with my training. Indeed she made
me a most convenient child, always obedient, always smil-
ing. Even when, a year or so later, her ignorance and
unkindness brought me to the point of death, I said
no word which could inculpate her. I was too deadly
frightened of the consequences.

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These are all very uninteresting details, but I have
written them down in the hope of saving some unfor-
tunate little child from the sufferings I had to undergo.
Poor Lancashire Mary I forgave even then, and I trust
that her sins against me have long ago been overlooked
by the Recording Angel. But there are many like her
in this world, and I would adjure all heads of families,
as they value their children's souls and bodies, never to
put complete trust in any dependent, however plausible
and apparently satisfactory that dependent may be. In
dealing with children, more than in any other relation
in the world, " une erreur est pire qu'un crime."

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CHAPTER VIII

STORIES AND TRADITIONS OF THE BONAPARTES

Bordentown — "Joseph" — His First-hand Impressions of the Murder of the
Due d'Enghein — Fouche Junior — The Palazzo Bonaparte and Cardinal
Lucien — The Adventure of the Three Bonapartes — "Madame Mere" —
Her Last Sight of the Emperor — May 5th 1821 — Napoleon and the
Holy Father — The Little Girl and Her Catechism — Oliveto and the
"Last of the Soldiers of Napoleon" — The Relics of the Young Pretender —
A Fright in the Chapel — The Haunted Bell.

THERE was one person at Bordentown who inter-
ested me even more than my aunt's husband, and
this was her father-in-law. He was a very quiet, stately
old gentleman, not nearly as tall as his handsome son; he
had a beautiful aquiline nose and very piercing black eyes,
and whenever I saw him, he was dressed with extreme
care, in black frock coat and black tie, with some jewel
in his stiff shirt front, and he always wore a top hat, and
carried a gold-headed cane. I have a distinct recollection
of sitting on the edge of a chair opposite to him, taking
in every detail of his appearance and costume, while he
looked me over with equally grave scrutiny, resting his
very white hands on the end of his cane. Great respect
was shown to him in the family and I felt much honoured
at being the object of his notice for the time.

He did not live with us, but came out from a beautiful
villa which he inhabited at a little distance and which was
the property of a mysterious person called " Joseph " —
pronounced in French fashion, — and often alluded to sotto
voce. Whether this person were alive or dead, I did not

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

know, but there was no doubt about his importance.
Everything connected with my uncle's father and the great
park where we were allowed to play was invested with
a mournful grandeur which strongly appealed to me. He
and it seemed set apart from the everyday life around,
and my vivid imagination decided that my old gentleman
was some great and unfortunate person who chose to be
known by the unassuming name of Monsieur Mailliard.

Yet that was the only name he had a right to bear,
being the illegitimate but much loved son of the brother
whom Napoleon had set, first on the throne of Naples,
and then on that of Spain. He was born in France, I think
in Paris, had accompanied his parent in many journeys
and adventures, and was acting as his page at the critical
moment when Napoleon, having caused the Due d'Enghien
to be kidnapped in Germany, was deciding the fate of that
unfortunate young man. Monsieur Mailliard's recollec-
tions were limited to his personal experiences, but they
added a great weight of testimony to Napoleon's respon-
sibility for the affair and the almost hysterical eagerness
with which he prepared his own exoneration from the
odium which must attach to it. In order to make the
story comprehensible certain facts should be recalled be-
fore relating it.

In 1804 Napoleon, then first Consul, was much dis-
turbed by the unceasing efforts of the Royalists to restore
the Bourbons to power. Fouche, the chief of police, had
fallen into disgrace, and Napoleon had replaced him by
Real, in whom he felt much confidence. Fouche, deter-
mined to be re-instated, left no stone unturned to gain

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his point, and finally, through his complete and extended
system of espionage, was able to bring his old master a
very startling piece of news, early in March, 1804. Pre-
senting himself boldly at Malmaison, he asked for an in-
terview and went straight to the point.

" You think you know where Pichegru is, do you not? "
he said bluntly.

" Of course, I know/' the other answered. u He is in
London," and taking up a memorandum, he consulted it
for a moment. " On the 17th of February Pichegru
dined with the Regent at Kensington Palace," he con-
tinued. " He is in London at this moment."

" He is not," Fouche replied. " Pichegru is in Paris,
intriguing with the Royalists."

He then produced his proofs for the statement, and
seeing that he had made a profound impression on the
First Consul, proffered a piece of advice. " The most
dangerous Bourbon just now is the Due d'Enghien. You
ought to have him in custody. Why do you not bring
him to Paris?"

11 How am I to do that? " Napoleon replied. " He is
living in Ettenheim across the German frontier."

" There has been something like mutiny among your
cuirassier regiments on the frontier," said Fouche.
" What more simple than to send a Commission to enquire
into it? Ettenheim is only about fifteen miles further.
Tell whomever you send to rush a few men into the town
one night and fetch the young man into France."

The advice was too timely to be neglected. A certain
colonel was deputed to investigate the disturbances among

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the frontier garrisons. One dark-night, with some five and
twenty followers and an empty carriage, he rode into the
little sleeping town (all unprepared for such a raid) sur-
rounded a small two storied house half way up its steep
main street, brought out the Due d'Enghien, with his
secretary and his dog, both of whom refused to be sepa-
rated from him, hustled the captives into the carriage and
dashed back across the frontier again before any one in
authority had found out what was going on. The secre-
tary was cast out and left behind a few hours later; the
Prince — and the dog — were brought to Paris as rapidly
as possible, and lodged in the fortress of Vincennes, where
Madame Harel, the wife of the Governor, was exceed-
ingly kind to them both. This was on the afternoon of the
nineteenth of March. The fact of the arrest had already
been known to the Consular circle for a day or two, caus-
ing great excitement. On the morning of the nineteenth,
Joseph Bonaparte, profoundly disturbed, hastened to Mal-
maison to ascertain his brother's intentions regarding the
Prince. (Young Mailliard did not accompany him on
this visit. His experiences were confined to the evening
of that fatal day.) When Joseph reached Malmaison
he was shown into the drawing room where he found
Josephine standing at one of the long windows in great
agitation.

" Do you see? " she cried, pointing to where Napoleon
was walking up and down on the lawn in earnest conver-
sation with Talleyrand. " He is there, and that dreadful
little cripple is with him ! He gives him no peace — and I
am frightened, frightened in my soul! Go to him! la

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STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

God's name, go to him, and get him away from the
cripple."

Joseph obeyed, and when he appeared on the lawn,
Talleyrand withdrew. Napoleon made no secret of the
subject of the recent conversation; he was convinced that
the Due d'Enghien was conspiring against himself and
the Republic, and Joseph understood that the Prince's
doom was already decided upon. Long 'and earnestly
he pleaded in the young man's favor, representing how
much more Napoleon would gain from magnanimity than
from severity. He reminded his brother of the kindness
which the old Prince de Conde, the Duke's grandfather,
had shown to him when he, a poor and unknown youth,
was struggling with adversity and depression at the mili-
tary school at Brienne; how the Prince had encouraged
him to persevere and had prophesied that he would over-
come all obstacles and make a great name for himself in
the end. Then Napoleon yielded, in appearance, perhaps
in reality, for his imagination and his vanity were touched
for the moment.

" Yes, I will do it! " he declared. " I will spare him;
I will make him my aide-de-camp ! I can afford to
do it ! A Conde for my aide-de-camp — that is worth
having! "

Overjoyed at his own success, Joseph returned to Ram-
bouillet, where a number of guests were awaiting him for
dinner, Madame de Stael among others. He at once
announced the good news, and great was the rejoicing
over it. The health of the great, generous-hearted First
Consul was enthusiastically drunk, and then that of his

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

new aide-de-camp. All was well and a great weight lifted
off people's minds.

Dinners ended early in those days, and the guests had
departed when a late visitor arrived in haste. Napoleon
had come to tell Joseph that he had changed his mind.
Young Mailliard was acting as his father's page, and curi-
osity evidently got the better of discipline, for from his
post outside the door he overheard a great part of the
interview. It was stormy in the extreme. Joseph raged,
reproached, implored — all to no purpose. Napoleon
(who appears to have been speaking sincerely for the
only time in the whole course of the affair) vowed that
leniency would be fatal to the country and to himself; the
Prince must die. It seems that he had enough regard for
his brother to desire to convince him of the necessity of the
sentence before it should be put into effect. He had evi-
dently told no one of his purpose, for the rest of the
persons concerned knew nothing of where he spent that
evening. Obdurate to all Joseph's entreaties and argu-
ments, he finally withdrew, emerging from the room
alone, but pausing outside the closed door to tell the
page that his brother was worn out and would at once
retire to rest, and that, whatever happened, he was on
no account to be disturbed before the morning.

Some two or three hours later, a messenger arrived
bringing a note for Joseph; but the First Consul's orders
had been precise and no one had the hardihood to dis-
obey them. When Joseph, the next morning, read these
words : " My brother you are right. I give you this young
man's life," the Due d'Enghien was lying on his face with

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STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

three bullets in his body, in the ditch of Vincennes, and
the earth was already stamped down and smoothed over
the grave which had been dug for him before he arrived
in Paris.

While his mock trial was going on, all Paris was danc-
ing at the house of Talleyrand, who gave that evening a
ball so brilliant that it was for a long time the talk of the
town. One very important person, Murat, the Governor
of the city, had failed to take advantage of the hospi-
tality so astutely extended in order to draw attention from
the arrival of the illustrious prisoner, and to gather within
four safe walls the various authorities who might have
made inquiries inconvenient to the host.

Murat was unwell — very conveniently so, as it hap-
pened, — since he was at home when General Savary
arrived with Napoleon's letter,* of the three which the
great man wrote that night the only one intended to bear
fruit. His command to Real, the chief of police, to at-
tend the Duke's trial was issued merely to give some ap-
pearance of legality to the proceedings.

Murat was in a very difficult situation. The post he
y occupied was the first Napoleon had consented to give him
since 1798, when Murat having been ordered to lead a
cavalry charge in Egypt, had failed in his duty, and Na-
poleon had severely reprimanded him for what he called
his cowardice. For some years he was in disgrace; Na-
poleon ignored him persistently. Then Murat sought
out Madame Bonaparte and her pretty daughter Caro-
line. I think they were living at Valence at the time.

* See note: "The case of the Due d'Enghien"
IO7

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

He made love to Caroline and succeeded in gaining her
affections, as well as the good will of her mother, and the
young people became engaged. Thus armed, Murat re-
turned to Paris, and Napoleon, always soft hearted where
his sisters were concerned, consented to the marriage,
which took place, if I am not mistaken, a little more than
a year before the events I have been relating. For Caro-
line's sake more than for his own, Murat obtained the
Governorship of Paris, but he was on probation, and it
would have required far higher courage and principle than
he possessed to court a second downfall by any hesitation
in carrying out the orders of his all-powerful brother-in-
law. He was, apparently, the only person who received
direct written instruction from the First Consul that night
and he never betrayed the sinister confidence reposed in
him. Had he strayed from the safe path for one moment
he would have been at once disavowed and dismissed, as
was Count Real, the next morning, when Napoleon, on
being informed of his victim's execution, crowned his histri-
onic successes by an exhibition of the most uncontrollable
rage and distress. Real, publicly dismissed with the loud-
est obloquy, was privately compensated with a large sum
of money which he carried away to America. He came
to New Jersey — the little State which was so singularly
distinguished by Imperialist preference at one time and
which is now the forcing house of anarchy for Europe —
bought property and built a beautiful villa where he lived
to a good old age and where, I believe, he often com-
pared notes with Joseph Mailliard, my great uncle by
marriage.

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STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

His post as Chief of Police in Paris was filled within
the hour by the triumphant Fouche, a genius much more
in sympathy with Napoleon's methods than the honest
Real. My husband fell in with Fouche junior at Stock-
holm ; * he said that the likeness between father and son
was the most striking he had ever seen. The physiog-
nomy was unique, remarkably — almost exquisitely —
delicate; a high ideal brow, features of patrician fine-
ness, a mouth and chin that might have belonged to a
frail, pretty woman; a complexion like painted porce-
lain, and the strangest eyes in the world, deep blue, with
very white, very drooping lids.

When I was a growing girl in Rome — long after all
the great figures of the First Empire had passed away —
one of my favourite haunts was the Palazzo Bonaparte,
the great house which is the last on the Corso and the
first in Piazza di Venezia. The owner, Cardinal Lucien
Bonaparte, lived on the first floor and rented the second
to my godfather, Mr. Hooker, and I was fond of roam-
ing through the vast rooms and calling up pictures of
Madame Letitia, as she was usually called, Napoleon's
mother, who spent her last years and died in this house.
We had several objects that had belonged to her, among
others a Sevres dessert service which my father bought
at the sale of her effects. Every plate was painted with
a different pattern, and each was prettier than the last.
There was a " bout de chaise " too, one of those all but
legless armchairs on which our grandmothers like to rest

* Paul Fouche, born 1801, was domiciled in Sweden. His son was A. D. C.
to the King, Charles XV.

IO9

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

their pretty sandalled feet, a most comfortable bit of fur-
niture which I carried round the world with me for a long
time; and once when I was hunting for a stand for a
hanging screen I was lucky enough to find a real Im-
perial Eagle, with " N " on its breast, on a tall gilt pole
— a ghostly little relic of departed grandeur which I at
once adapted to my own purposes.

Cardinal Lucien had the reputation of possessing the
family temper in its least controllable form — and I knew
that he lived chiefly on strong black coffee, which is
scarcely a sedative to nerves upset by impertinent ques-
tions. Had it not been for these facts I would have
asked him to tell me a little more about a youthful scrape
of his in which my uncle Adolphe acted as his only too
sympathetic guardian angel.

There was another Bonaparte in the adventure — I
think a brother of Lucien's. The two young men were
in Florence, enjoying all the gaieties of a particularly
cheerful winter season, when my uncle, who was also
amusing himself in Italy, received a mysterious summons
to join them at once. (I had better say that the family
had always overlooked Monsieur Mailliard's disqualifica-
tions, and broad mindedly accepted him as one of them-
selves.) My uncle posted to Florence at full speed and,
obeying his instructions, went to the house where his rel-
atives were staying, under cover of the night, and taking
care to let none of his acquaintances in the town know of
his arrival.

When the conspirators met, Adolphe was informed
that two unpleasant things had happened; one of the

no

STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

young gentlemen (not Lucien) had got tangled up with
a lady from whom he was sure he had better run away,
and both appeared to be " wanted." They were shad-
owed night and day by spies whom they took to be emis-
saries of the Bourbons, lately restored to power, and who
might certainly have had reasons of their own for keep-
ing an eye on two good looking scions of the hostile
house, boys who were open favourites of the Tuscan
sovereigns and might make trouble by attracting sup-
porters to their cause. Also, if I remember my uncle's
story rightly, they suspected the lady and her family of
collusion with the haunting spies. Altogether they were
feeling very uncomfortable, Adolphe must take them to
America at once!

Adolphe was a little staggered at the proposition.
These cousins of his had relations and guardians, who,
by all rules governing illustrious houses, should be con-
sulted before the two princes left Europe. But they
were, as my uncle put it when he told the story, " fright-
ened to death/' and I do not imagine that he put forward
any very conclusive arguments against the scheme, for he
was quite as young and almost as reckless as they. Very
soon a delightfully romantic plot was concocted; Adolphe
was to go to Leghorn the next morning, find a vessel sail-
ing for America, with a captain who would ask no ques-
tions; and when the passage was arranged for, he would
return to Florence and spirit the young men away in dis-
guise! With true dramatic instinct the night of a great
ball at Court was chosen for the escape; Adolphe would
have a carriage waiting and disguises prepared; the

HI

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

heroes would dance to the last moment, kiss their
hands to the great world, leap into the carnage, tear
off their beautiful clothes and many decorations, hastily
assume the Mailliard livery and accompany the faithful
Adolphe as his lacqueys in a wild night drive towards
the coast!

The strange thing is that it all came off. How those
romantic young hearts beat that night when they left
the palace, breathing what they firmly believed was a
long farewell to earthly greatness ! Adolphe was wait-
ing with the carriage round a dark corner; the cousins,
eluding observation, wrenched open the door, jumped in

— there was a dash for the city gates, a palpitating mo-
ment when the guard wanted to know who they were, and
where they were going in such a hurry at that time of
night? Then Adolphe produced something which in the
lantern light did duty for passports for three honest
American citizens, travelling with their consul's approval

— the guard relented, the carriage rolled under the deep
archway of the Porta a Mere — and a day or two later
the fugitives were safe and seasick in the chops of the
Mediterranean.

Their disappearance caused a good deal of excitement
at the time, but they were too far away to really enjoy
it. And I believe that they did not find much romance
in the Bordentown air in spite of its being so impregnated
with Bonaparte traditions. I do not know precisely how
long they remained in America, but they returned to
Europe in a short time, and Lucien at any rate, sobered
down, entered the church, and was a much respected if

n?

STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

irascible prelate when I was a little girl. He kept a warm
spot in his heart for his compatriots, however. A sorely
tried French governess of ours used to go and see him
whenever the conflicting elements in our rather erratic
family were too much for her, and she always returned
soothed and comforted, and dreadfully less strict about
the irregular verbs. What a terror those were to chil-
dren ! My own little boy, when he was seven years old,
being asked by his teacher a question in geography,
"What separates England from France?" replied with
mournful conviction, " The irregular verbs ! "

I always wished that I had been born soon enough to
see Madame Letitia, or, as she was generally known by
tradition to us, " Madame Mere," when she was living in
the old house I afterwards knew so well. It was bought
for her when, in the heyday of Napoleon's glory, she
came to live in Rome, then merely a French provincial
city, the capital of a department of France.

Madame Mere took little or no part in the promotion
of her sons and daughters to the thrones of principalities
and dominions by their brother; indeed I think that, at
heart, she was hardly in sympathy with such revolution-
ary, and, in the case of Rome, anti-Papal splendours.
She was a sincerely religious woman, and, had it been
in her power, it is quite certain that she would have pre-
vented such aggressions. Her feeling about it was that
it was more or less a direct flouting of an all-powerful
Providence which would sooner or later re-assert Itself.
Her devotion to the greatest of her sons was severely
tried by his treatment of the Papacy, and it was with

JI3

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

something of long expectant resignation to the Justice of
Heaven that she took her last farewell — as she thought
at the time — of Napoleon, on his embarking for St.
Helena, in the few words which passed between them —
the French, " Adieu, ma mere," of the Emperor, in an-
swer to which his mother's Italian, " Addio, figlio mio,"
rings through the ages with a quality, almost of reproof,
tender and melancholy; a reminder, as it were, of other
days and of things that might have been.

It was nearly six years after that last parting of theirs
that Madame Mere was sitting in the drawing room of
Palazzo Bonaparte, on the morning of May 5, 1821;
downstairs, at the same time, the hall porter found him-
self confronted by a stranger, a man in a voluminous
cloak, and a hat drawn low down on his features, who
was inquiring for " La Signora Madre," saying that he
must see her at once, as he brought her news of her son,
the exiled Emperor, from St. Helena. The porter, on
learning this, led him to the door of the " Piano Nobile "
(the first floor), occupied by Madame Mere, and there
handed him over, with a word as to his mission, to a
servant who at once departed to inform the old lady
that a man called to bring her news of the Emperor.

Instantly she gave orders for the stranger's admission
to her presence; on making his appearance, he kept his
cloak still somewhat over his face — rather to her sur-
prise — and remained silent until they were alone, when,
lowering the cloak, he revealed himself — it was none
other than Napoleon himself. Madame Mere, carried
out of herself at the unexpected sight, uttered a cry of

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STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

wonderment, half of incredulous joy, half of apprehen-
sion for his safety. In a flash of memory, the occasion
of his last escape came back to her — the day of his
flight from Elba in 1815 — and she took it for granted
that he had contrived a similar escape from St. Helena,
and had presented himself thus to her to ask for a tem-
porary shelter on his way to some rendezvous in France.

But the awful chill of a contact with other than human
forces fell upon her, when, for all answer to her cry of
greeting, the man before her, regarding her with an air
of poigant solemnity, spoke these words, " May the fifth,
eighteen hundred and twenty-one — to-day ! " His tone
was of such tremendous significance that it paralysed her
intelligence beneath a load of irrevocable finality. As she
gazed at him, he stepped slowly backwards and retreated
through the open door behind him, letting fall the heavy
portiere as he did so.

Recovering her self-control, Madame Mere rushed
from the drawing room into the apartment beyond. It
was empty, and she hastened out into the " sala " or ante
room, where a servant was sitting at the door according
to custom.

"Where is the gentleman?" she cried.

" Eccellentissima Signora Madre," replied the man,
" No one passed through since I conducted him to your
Excellency. And I have not left this place for a moment.,,

Sick at heart, Madame Mere withdrew. For two
months (oh, the heart-breaking delays of those deliberate
times!) the affair remained a mystery. Then, some time
in July, Madame Mere learnt the truth that she had sus-

"5

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

pected from the first. On the fifth of May Napoleon's
liberation had come. He had escaped from his prison by
the death to which he had so long looked forward.

Of all Heaven's gifts to him, I think those closing
years of solitude and reflection were the most signal.
Madame Mere's early lessons bore their late, ripe fruit,
in repentance, in faith, in gentle kindness to such as would
receive it.

It is true that in regard to such a flagrant offence as
the murder of the Due d'Enghein, the great man refused
to acknowledge his culpability, saying, " It was necessary.
I should do it again," thus separating political from per-
sonal morality; but he did not take this view of the in-
juries inflicted on the Church and the Vicar of Christ.
These lay heavy on his conscience. He had overstepped
the limits of human jurisdiction, and this, not from what
he could represent to himself as a national necessity, but
at the dictates of private ambitions and private vanity.
His efforts during his last years to make amends, so far
as his rigorous captivity permitted, were touching in their
thoroughness. The author of the " Catecismo en Ejem-
plos " (an admirable book which has now I believe been
translated into English) tells of a very holy lady who was
attended on her death bed by a certain bishop. He was
deeply impressed by her profound knowledge of religion
and much edified by the way in which she had made her
life conform to its teachings.

" Where did you learn your faith, my daughter? " he
inquired.

" Ah," she replied, " when I was a little child I lived

116

STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

at St. Helena. The Emperor spoke to me one day and
asked me what I knew of my catechism. He was not
satisfied with my answers, and he said that he would
instruct me himself. For years he made me come to him
every day, and he patiently taught me — for hours at a
time. I owe my knowledge of religion, all my faith and
joy in it, to him."

One more picture of Napoleon comes back to me as I
write; one characteristic of a far earlier phase in his
career. I had gone to spend a month with some friends
in the more remote fastnesses of the Sabines. Their
castle was called Oliveto, the huge stronghold of an
ancient family, a fortress, a palace, a dungeon, all in
one. It lay far back among the mountains, on its one
great rock that rose up from a sea of tossing chestnut
woods; its vassal village fawned black around its foot;
the big parish church was well within the defence of its
massive walls. The family rarely visited the place —
which accounted for its dilapidated condition — and
great excitement was caused in the village by our ar-
rival. Young and old turned out to have a look at
us, and pay their respects, the first time we showed
ourselves.

" Who is that? " I asked, pointing to a queer little old
man, wizened and shrunken beyond all imagination, but
who was standing to attention and holding up his hand
in something like a military salute. There was the most
mischievous twinkle in his still bright eyes, and an ex-
pression of whimsical superiority on his brown, wrinkled
face.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

" Come here, Alessandro," said my host, "and tell
the young lady how old you are ! "

" 'Lustrissimo Sor Marchese," replied the queer little
fellow in a voice so thin and cracked that it seemed to
come from beyond the grave, " nobody but the good God
knows how old I am, and He has forgotten, otherwise
He would have taken me to Paradise long ago! How
old? More than a hundred years — perhaps two —
what do I know? You see I was a soldier of Napoleon

— and they say I am the only one left."

" You served under Napoleon?" I cried. "Tell me
about him! Did you ever see him? "

" Only once, my beautiful Excellency — that was quite
enough, for he was a terrible young man. It was in a
place — far away — a flat place with many white tents in
rows and a broad space down the middle. He came
walking with others behind him. He was not much taller
than me. He had a green coat — he looked cross — he
had a countenance that made one fear. He did not speak
to the great lords that were with him. I was sentinella

— I stood very still, for I was frightened. But," and
the cracked voice rose in a little squeal of triumph. " I
deserted three times!"

" You deserted! " I exclaimed. " Then how is it that
you are alive? Why did n't they shoot you? "

Alessandro laid his finger to his nose and winked
knowingly.

" They could not spare me ! " he chuckled. " They
wanted us all — every one ! Oh, they caught me twice
and brought me back. The first time they asked me why

118

STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

I had run away. " Signori miei," I said, " I do not like
being a soldier. Is it for a man of sense to march with
a pack on his back till he is ready to drop? To be hungry
and thirsty when he can have plenty to eat and drink at
home? To stand up and be shot at when he does not
want to die? No, signori miei, I beseech you to let me
go back to my own castello." They said it was a great
honour to be a soldier and they would not let me go, but
made me work harder than ever. So, soon afterwards,
I ran away again. Oh, that time they were very angry
with me! They brought me into a large room where
there were many most splendid generals, sitting on both
sides of a long table. They had plumes on their hats.
They looked very severe. One of them said, " You have
done an evil thing, a most wicked thing ! You have dared
to desert from the army of Napoleon ! " and when he
said that name they all stood up and took off their hats —
you would have thought they were saluting the Blessed
Sacrament! Oh, I could have laughed, though I was
dreadfully afraid that they were going to shoot me. But
they did not — and I ran away again directly — and that
time they did not catch me — and I got home." And
once more Alessandro chuckled at the remembrance of his
misdeeds.

He did not know, never had known, anything more
about the scenes of his experiences. " Far from here —
far from here," was all that he could tell me. Oliveto
was the centre and boundary of his world. All
beyond that was a trackless waste from which he had
managed to find his way back, scared and homesick,

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

to the safe, forgotten, mountain town where he was
born.

It certainly was one of the strangest places I ever was
in; so absolutely feudal still that I am sure, had the
" 'Lustrissimo Sor Marchese " chosen to condemn any
of the inhabitants to death, his mandate would have been
submissively carried out. There were only two persons
who could read and write, the priest and the apothecary,
and these two used to come up every evening and sit with
us, and play billiards on a moth-eaten old table in the
hall which had to serve as a sitting room. Nothing could
surpass the beauty of our outer world; the Apennines,
among the higher hills, are so broken, so tossed, yet so
divinely clothed with oak and chestnut forests, that one
seems to be living in a softly moving sea of verdure,
touched here and there, in the crystal freshness of that
October weather, to flaming orange and scarlet. But
indoors it was grim beyond expression. Had I not been
young and light hearted I doubt whether I should have
held out long against its haunted atmosphere.

I do not know how many rooms there were on the one
floor that was habitable for the family. I and my friend,
the daughter of the house, had four or five to ourselves,
great empty, marble floored apartments, hung with hand
painted Indian chintzes that flapped and shivered as the
October winds whistled round the outer walls and
screamed through the loop-holed towers overhead, which
we never had the courage to visit. When we looked down
from the windows we seemed to be miles from the lower
world. The room where we slept together for company

IfcO

STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

contained relics of the Young Pretender — a thistle
framed under glass, with an inscription setting forth that
it had sprung up in a single night between the stones of
the Doria chapel at Albano where he used to kneel — and
one or two other devout and ghastly reminiscences of
that pious prince. The whole place seemed crowded with
ghosts ; we thought they beckoned to us from the tattered
hangings of state beds, crowned with mouldy feathers
that waved and nodded as we scurried past the open doors
of a score of uninhabited rooms, to say our prayers in
the balcony oratory which looked from high up in the
wall down into the church. One night we were a little
late in performing our devotions; we had had to feel our
way in complete darkness along the endless passages to
the two heavily padded doors, which shut off the eyrie
of prayer from the inner house. By the time we had
passed these and got down on our knees on the worn old
prie-dieus, we felt like two young heroines destined to be
saints. The church below was a well of blackness with
just the one light burning before the Tabernacle. We
gazed down into it — and had barely crossed ourselves
when we sprang to our feet with a shriek. Two little
blue lights, egg shaped, unearthly, were dancing over the
dank pavement, settling here — floating there — rising,
falling !

We never knew how we got back to our rooms. Some
merciful power saved us from breaking our heads in the
dark, for never did two girls race as we did that night.
Heroism, saintliness — these were left behind. All we
wanted was to get out of reach of those dreadful corpse

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A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

lights — natural enough emanations from the crypt be-
low, where every deceased inhabitant of the village had
been buried since time immemorial.

There was not a bell in the whole house nor in the
town, except the one kept in the sacristy for the acolyte to
ring during mass. When something was needed upstairs
from the cavernous kitchens below, the word was passed
from mouth to mouth — as people pass buckets in a con-
flagration — and in time the order was complied with.
We girls had grumbled at the inconvenience, and said once
laughingly that we would like to confiscate the bell from
the church. But we never said so again. That night it
paid us a visit. Towards two o'clock we both woke with
a start and sat up to listen to a loud clear tinkle outside
the window. Without a change in its note it moved round
to the next — then to the next, ringing persistently and
clamorously — sixty or seventy feet from the ground.
Then it moved away and as we clung to each other frozen
with fear, we heard it go all round the castle, getting
fainter and fainter, then louder again till it was once more
at our own windows, ringing madly, as if intent on getting
through the shutters into the room. Three times it floated
round the building, always pausing when it reached our
room — then it ceased suddenly and we heard no more.

The next day we made frantic inquiries, in the desire to
convince ourselves, against all the testimony of our senses,
that someone had played a trick on us, but to no purpose.
The bell had been safely locked up in the sacristy, and
the key of that and of the church were kept by the priest,
who found everything in order in the morning. The

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STORIES OF THE BONAPARTES

elders had slept through the strange visitation, but the
servants had all heard it, and they had been as frightened
as we were. I think they connected it with the " Vecchio
Marchese," an imperious tyrant who had ruled the place
some eighty years earlier, and of whose strange whims
and violent outbreaks the villagers still spoke under their
breath. But we two knew better ! The little church bell
had punished us for our audacity in proposing to put it
to common domestic uses !

123

CHAPTER IX

FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

Marion — "The Month of Great Men" — I Take His Education in Hand —
A Child's Self Discipline — St. Paul's School — Marion Finds His voice —
His Return to Siena — Essex — "The Tale of a Lonely Parish" — Pig
Driving and its Consequences — His Extraordinary Strength — The
"Mercante di Fave" — An Unearthly Illumination — His Sailors' Candles
to St. Antonino — An Escape from a Shark — At Cambridge — "Im-
mense"— Return to Rome — His Introduction to Sanskrit — India —
"Mr. Isaacs" — Mr. Morley's Appreciation — The Sorrento Villa — His
Religion — His Devotion — "Good Friday."

SINCE my beloved brother passed away, so many
mistaken accounts of his childhood and youth have
been published that I am sure his numberless friends,
known and unknown, will be grateful if, at this point in
my record I devote a chapter to him. As I said before,
he was born at the Bagni di Lucca, in Tuscany, on the
second of August, 1854 (not 1845, as generally stated),
and was welcomed with enthusiastic delight by my par-
ents, who, in spite of their tender affection for the three
little daughters, ardently desired a son. He was named
(as one child in every branch of the family has usually
been) after our ancestor of the Revolution, Francis
Marion. From the first he gave promise of unusual
strength and beauty, and, as time went on, of a char-
acter equal in power and harmony to the perfection of
his physical organisation. Very happy stars presided
over his birth; in later years, when he had amused
himself with rather profound occult studies, he used
to say that he owed much to having begun life in the

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

royal heyday of summer, when all things in nature were
at their fullest tide of exuberant vitality, when the grapes
were ripening hot and heavy in the sun, the grain already
golden for the harvest, the pomegranate in scarlet full-
ness, and the branches of the fig weighed down with
their honey-sweet fruit ; and he quoted name after name,
from Julius Caesar to Napoleon, to prove that of all
months in the year August was the richest in birthdays
of great men.

Yet his intellect developed slowly and along the most
leisurely lines, so that I, his senior by three of child-
hood's long, long years, became very depressed about it
when I was six years old. My mother was absent nearly
a year, being first absorbed in nursing my father through
his last lingering illness, and then in the thousand details
of business which devolved upon her after his death.
We children were in Bordentown, and Marion and I
wjere left much to ourselves, my sisters being altogether
in charge of the governess. Our nurse was a hard-
headed, uneducated woman, to whom I would never have
dreamed of turning for advice. With rather a heavy
heart I prepared to undertake my brother's education
alone. I was an avid reader by that time and wanted
a companion in my joys, but what I felt most deeply was
the indifference of the stupid grown-ups to Marion's
mental condition. Nobody seemed to understand or
give a thought to it; and I was convinced that unless
something were done at once he would grow up a hope-
less dunce!

Poor baby, he was less than three years old, and re-

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A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

garded my cherished books as the finest kind of bricks
to build houses with. In vain I tried to even make him
look at the pictures. The volume would be pitched
across the room in joyous disdain and his laugh would
follow me as I meekly went to pick it up. I was at my
little wits' end when someone brought into the nursery
a flaring circus poster, three or four yards long, printed
in huge red and black letters. Here was what I had
been looking for! I spread the crackling sheet on the
floor, and day after day Marion and I crept over it on
all fours, till he had learnt to scramble to the letter I
named and roll over on it with a little yell of triumph.
The elders watched us sometimes and laughed at the
new game, never dreaming of the earnest purpose in
the back of my small head. But either I was a very
poor teacher or my beautiful brother was a slow pupil;
it took me five whole years to accomplish my task and
put him in possession of the " world full of books," the
precious inheritance which had become mine a year be-
fore I began his education. Whether from indifference
to my object or approval of my methods, I cannot say,
but no one ever offered to help me, nor would I have
permitted such interference. Very likely my wise elders
saw that Marion should not be hurried, that a child with
such an astonishing physique should not be educationally
forced.

When he was seven years old I passed him on to pro-
fessional instruction, and he leapt beyond me in a day
and left me far behind, reaching out to learning with
an avidity his teachers could hardly satisfy. History,

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

languages, classics, science, mechanics, chemistry — his
brain absorbed and assimilated knowledge as its natural
food. My mother was alarmed; the "thoroughness"
she worshipped and so faithfully translated in her own
life made her fear above all things the talents she desig-
nated as " fatal facilities. " Constantly she warned us
all against our manifest dangers in that direction and
urged us to specialise, to concentrate all our bubbling
mental energies on one or two great points and not to
be led astray by the pleasure and ease with which we
could master a dozen subjects at a time. For the rest
of us she was right perhaps, but she was mistaken about
Marion. The gifts we girls had inherited were but pale
rushlights compared to the flame of intellect which burned
in his brain. With that always comes the strong instinct
of self-preservation, and my brother stubbornly, if half
unconsciously, refused to be bound down too early to any
definite plan for his future. Meanwhile he was laying
very solid foundations. A tutor was provided for him,
and, in accordance with Roman custom, conducted his
chief studies in Latin, so that it became a living language
to the boy, a benefit for which he constantly declared in
later years that he could never be grateful enough.

At the same time a Parisian lady who had a veritable
genius for teaching and who " gave " us all her perfect
French till it became as much our language as Italian or
English, devoted herself to that side of his instruction;
my mother, whose favourite language was German, pro-
vided him with a German teacher, who daily claimed her
quota of his time. All this sounds very strenuous for

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

a child of nine years old, but it must be remembered
that Marion's was an exceptional case. The studies with
the Latin tutor (who vowed that he had never had such
a pupil) were the only ones which he looked upon as
work; all the rest he played with, and the only trouble
he experienced over his modern language was the
fearful jealousy which sprang up between Mademoiselle
Guillot, the voluble, amusing Frenchwoman, and Frau-
lein Pehmler, a deeply sentimental, gushing German.
Both were warm hearted spinsters, with a wealth of
stored affections to bestow; the child, with his almost
regal beauty and ardent intellect, became for each the
centre of life; and fierce were the battles which raged
between them, not always conducted on the most honest
lines.

" Allons, mon petit," Mademoiselle would say.
" Don't worry yourself about those German exercises !
It is a hideous language, only fit for their own ugly
mouths!" (Mademoiselle was a remarkably handsome
woman.) It will spoil your pronunciation for French,
the only language in which refined people can properly
express their ideas ! "

Fraulein Pehmler was equally fierce and unscrupulous.
"Na! Diese Franzosin!" she would exclaim. " She
takes up too much of your time, mein kind! What is
there in her so frivolous literature to compare with the
high and glorious thoughts of the German poets? Put
it all out of your head. It will be of no use to you who
are destined for great things."

Fortunately both these good ladies were highly edu-

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

cated, and since their rivalry made them strain every
nerve to outdo each other in rendering the lessons pleas-
ant and profitable to their pupil, it turned to his ultimate
advantage and no harm was done.

Mademoiselle finally scored a signal victory by wisely
encouraging his taste for mechanics. Like many boys,
he was in love with steam engines, and she took some
trouble to procure models and books on machinery for
him, and allowed all his French compositions to turn on
the subject. Among my mother's most cherished treas-
ures was a sheaf of copy-books, each describing a differ-
ent model of locomotive in faultless technical French,
and illustrated by carefully drawn designs. The subject
interested him all his life, and a section of his library
in Sorrento was devoted to it. It was during these years
that my mother read with him many portions of the
Bible; its glorious imagery fired his fancy, and its noble
English became the model which he set before him for
his literary work when, long years afterwards, his voca-
tion was made plain to him. He used to say that the
Bible, Ossian, and his old tutor's Latin had taught him
all he knew, and that young writers should read at any
rate the first two perseveringly and obediently.

When he was about ten years old it dawned upon him
that he had a violent and uncontrollable temper, and,
with the simplicity which marked all his character, he
decided to get it in hand. One member of the family
constantly irritated him to the verge of frenzy, and he
invented a form of self-discipline which very few chil-
dren would have thought of imposing on themselves,

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

My mother entered his room one day and found him
Vvalking round and round it, carrying on his back a heavy
wooden shutter which he had lifted off its hinges at the
window. " My dear child," she exclaimed, " what on
earth are you doing? "

" Getting over a rage," he replied doggedly, continu-
ing the exercise. " When I am so angry that I want to
kill somebody I come in here and carry the shutter three
times round the room before I answer them. It is the
only way."

I had been sent to school in England and was not with
him, except for one short summer holiday, for three
years. When I returned we had one year together, and
then, as he was twelve years old, it was decided to send
him to America, to St. Paul's School, where the head
master, Dr. Coit, was an old friend of my mother's.
Here Marion forgot a good deal of what he had learnt
at home, or rather it went to sleep in his brain, almost
all the interest in study crowded out by the dry, old-
fashioned methods that English-speaking schoolmasters
cling to so obstinately. But he was very happy, carried
all before him in athletic games and general popularity,
and came back to us the richer for one gift at least, —
that of music.

Curiously enough no one had ever divined that he had
a voice and an ear. Our two elder sisters, confided in
their childhood to Italian attendants who sang, and sang
truly and sweetly, to them all day, and later to the care
of musically trained governesses, sang and played by
nature. They had been fed on music. But Marion and

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

I were less fortunate. The English woman who reigned
in our nursery for the first seven years of his life came
of another stock, and no sweet " stornelli " and " can-
zone " ever penetrated there. It was a family joke that
neither of us could sing a true note and I, for one, felt
the privation bitterly. But when Marion went to St.
Paul's School he was obliged to fall in with his class;
no questions about musical dispositions were asked; the
boys must sing, and sing in tune, at the services in chapel
and on many other occasions. Marion grumbled at first,
gradually found that he could do what was required of
him, and, as he grew older, discovered that he had a
sweet, powerful baritone voice, a joy to himself and to
others.

If he did not make great progress in his studies at the
American school, the lack was richly compensated for
by the splendid physical training he received there. We
were at Siena when he burst in upon us after three years
of absence. He was now fifteen, over six feet in height,
superbly proportioned, and absolutely radiating with life
and strength. His personality was dazzling, almost dis-
turbing in the calm, old-world indolence of the Tuscan
villa. He brought with. him all the breeziness of his
recent surroundings, the irresponsible gaiety of the Amer-
ican boys, their audacity, their fun, their racy slang,
which hits the mark like a bullet and dances off like a
raindrop in a burst of laughter. The most beautiful of
beautiful girls was spending the summer with us (I never
would have an ugly friend) and Marion's cup of joy was
full when he found himself royally and completely in love

I31

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

for the first time! It made no difference that she was
older than he by some years and that his was not the
first heart she had broken. Neither of them contem-
plated or courted tragedy; the summer was still young;
the days were a dream of colour and perfume, the nights,
starlit or moonlit, heaven-sent sessions for wandering in
the woods or singing on the balcony. What could youth
ask more? We were all gloriously happy and we were
fortunate enough to know it. " Oh, le beau cadeau que
le jeunesse! "

The next two years he spent in studying at the univer-
sity and with an English clergyman, for he had made
up his mind to go to Cambridge as soon as he should
be old enough. His love of study returned to him
after the inevitable boy period of physical growth, and
he worked enthusiastically, though somewhat erratic-
ally; he looked and seemed so mature that social lures
began to be held out to him, and also the romance of the
Eternal City and its history rose up and claimed his in-
terest and sympathy, interfering a little with scheduled
work, but supplying the foundation for the exhaustive
study he was to make of it in after years. Before going
to Cambridge he spent some time with a tutor in Essex,
and he grew to love very dearly the remote English coun-
try with its hoary traditions and kindly, honest atmos-
phere. The life in Essex furnished the material for one
of his early novels, " The Tale of a Lonely Parish. "
We were talking about it once, and I remember he said:
" England is the most romantic country in the world.
Anything could happen in those lonely old country houses

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

lost in a dip of the moors, miles away from the beaten
roads! The fierce privacy with which Englishmen sur-
round themselves makes them absolutely independent
within their own domains. No Eastern despot has finer
opportunities for autocracy than the ordinary English
squire."

In Essex he added one more to his list of accomplish-
ments— bell-ringing. This art, lost or non-existent in
most parts, had been carefully preserved and was the
great pride of the young men of the village. Marion
became a master of it, taking a keen pleasure in the
mathematical developments of an eight-belled chime. He
studied it scientifically, and I have found him working
out problems in a thick " manual for ringers " when he
was thousands of miles away from the little old church
in green, sleepy Essex.

He had one or two rough experiences there, one of
which spoiled his good looks for a while. He was going
away for the Christmas holidays, and was sauntering up
and down the platform of the station, when, without a
sound or word of warning, a man whom he had never
seen in his life stepped up to him and delivered such a
blow in Marion's face that he broke the bone of his nose.
History does not say what happened to the man. It
turned out that he was raving drunk. Poor Marion went
through all the Christmas festivities with a compromis-
ing black patch across his nose — which in the end re-
covered its outline — and he said that the incident had
given him a queer insight into British peasant character.
A Frenchman or an Italian would have started by offen-

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

sive language; the stolid East Anglian hit straight from
the shoulder at the first person he met, without wasting
time in trying to pick a quarrel.

On another occasion my brother was walking along a
solitary lane and met a rustic using fearful language to
a refractory pig that stubbornly refused to trot in the
right direction.

"What good will all that cursing do?" Marion ex-
claimed scornfully. " Here, I '11 show you how to drive
the beast," and he lifted his blackthorn walking-stick and
gave the creature a gentle tap on the head. The result
was instantaneous. The pig rolled over stone dead; the
countryman cursed more loudly than ever and vowed to
take out a summons. In the end Marion had to pay
him for the pig and then pay him to cart it away.

He was very fond of the wild Abruzzi district which
he afterward described so vividly in u Saracenesca." In
order to become thoroughly acquainted with the people's
ways he dressed as one of them, and wandered about in
the mountains for a whole month, leading a mule laden
with sacks of beans which he sold to the peasants as he
went. They thought he was a " Mercante di fave " from
Rome, and never dreamed that he could speak any dia-
lect but the broad " lingua Romana."

It was during this time that he had an adventure which
deeply impressed his imagination. He and another man
had been walking all day through the loneliest part of
the hills, and when night found them, hungry and ex-
hausted, they had hopelessly lost their way. As they
entered a deep ravine, Marion's companion collapsed into

J34

FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

unconsciousness. They were far from any human habi-
tation, and it was as impossible to obtain help as to leave
the poor fellow alone with the malaria and the wolves.
So Marion raised him up and half carried, half dragged
him on through the darkness, following a footpath which
he knew must finally lead them back into the world of
men.

The rocks rose high and black on either side ; the night
was so dense in the deep defile that nothing was visible
except the misty strip of sky overhead. Worn out and
faint, my brother struggled on with his heavy burden.
Then he must have become light-headed, for, just as he
felt his own strength failing, a wonderful illumination
flooded the place. The black perpendicular rocks on
either side became fairy palaces of unimaginable beauty,
towering up in delicate Gothic spires toward the stars,
and from their thousand casements streams of light shot
out and filled the air with rainbow colours, rose and white,
golden and green and violet. The pilgrim forgot his
weariness and walked on for some hours through the
enchanted city, intoxicated with its loveliness. When it
faded away, the ravine was left behind, the open country
reached, and the walls of a hospitable farmhouse rose
before him.

He was a magnificent swimmer, and was never so
happy as when performing amazing evolutions in the
water. Once, indeed, he was laid up for a long time,
having strained himself by diving from a great height
with another man — who failed to dive at the proper
moment — sitting on his shoulders ; but as a rule he was

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

as much at home in deep water as on land. Many a
glorious swim we had together when the sun was rising
over the Bay of Naples. To watch him stand poised
for a dive was to see the dream of a Greek sculptor
breathing in the flesh; his strength was as the " strength
of ten," and my confidence in him was so great that had
he bidden me swim with him to Capri — or New York
— I would have obeyed him unhesitatingly by having at
least a good try.

In later years he lived almost as much at sea as on
shore, disappearing from our ken for weeks at a time
with his faithful sailors, Luigi, Antonio, San Pietro, and
the rest of his devoted bodyguard, who looked upon
him half as a demigod to be obeyed, half as a big be-
loved child to be taken care of. The Sorrento sailor is
not a careless, weather-beaten hero at all; he hates a
storm, and particularly dislikes sailing straight before
the wind; he would rather meet it, though he does not
enjoy that either. As Marion put to sea preferably in
rough weather, and loved to send his yacht tearing along
on the whole strength of a gale, the men had many
anxious moments, and a good percentage of their wages
went in redeeming vows for big candles to be lit before
the altar of the Blessed Saint Antonino when they re-
turned in safety. But certainly the worst fright they
ever had was on one calm morning off the coast of Cala-
bria, near my brother's other home, the Castle of San
Niccola. He had gone overboard for a swim, and was
returning to the yacht when he saw them all beckoning
to him frantically, their faces pale with fear. A few

136

FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

strokes put him alongside, a leap and a scramble over
the taffrail — just as a large shark came nosing round
the bows! There had never been any of these unpleas-
ant visitors along our shores before, but with the open-
ing of the Suez Canal they gradually found their way
into the Mediterranean, and have greatly spoiled the
pleasure of bathing in deep water there.

But before this little adventure Marion had " eaten
many loaves,'' as the Romans say, and had seen some
very unexpected sides of life. After his probation in
Essex he went to Cambridge, where he remained a year,
and managed to get through an examination — one of
the very few feats of the kind on record in the family,
for Heaven, kind enough in some ways, forgot to make
any of us competition-wallahs. At Cambridge he did not
earn the reputation of an ardent student, but he enjoyed
himself immensely. That term " immense " was one
which was constantly being applied to him by his com-
peers, and at last he thought he might as well show people
what it meant. He hunted round for the biggest trotting
horse he could find, had a towering dog-cart built, dressed
himself in checks a foot square and of outrageous colours,
and, thus equipped, paraded the dignified university town,
to the scandal of the authorities and the delight of his
fellows. He had a clock, a French gimcrack exactly
imitating a watch, and, having instructed his tailor to
make a pocket large enough to hold it, he attached it to
a big dog-chain, the links of which dangled ostentatiously
across his waistcoat. One day in the train a facetious
stranger, glancing at this ornament, asked him the time.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

When Marion pulled out a watch two inches thick and
as big round as a muskmelon, the joker blanched. He
thought he was shut in with a maniac and rushed from
the carriage at the next stop.

But all the fun and extravagance was destined to be
short-lived. Heavy money losses came upon the family,
and my brother returned to Rome, saddened and per-
plexed, to carve out an independence. I was married
and away — in China — but a whim of my girlhood
served as a straw to show him his direction. I had read
all Max Miiller's enchanting books and had fallen in love
with Sanskrit. I bought grammars, dictionaries, every-
thing that could help me on my ambitious road, and
left it all behind when more human allurements called
to me. Marion, feeling the need of solitude for reflec-
tion, had decided to go off into the Abruzzi, as usual, to
think things out. His portmanteau was packed and he
stood for a moment wondering whether he had forgotten
anything. "Why, I haven't put in a book!" he ex-
claimed, and looked round the room for one. A shabby
brown volume caught his eye, and without even glancing
at the title he tossed it in among his shirts and boots,
and started on his journey. When that was accomplished
he opened the book thus picked up at haphazard — and
read it from beginning to end many, many times. It was
my old Sanskrit grammar, and the vistas it opened up
were so new, so enthralling, that during the weeks he
spent in the hills Marion required no other food for his
mind. When he returned to Rome he was resolved to
become a Sanskrit scholar even if he starved in the

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

process. But things were not quite so bad as that; by
dint of economy it was possible for him to carry out his
design, and for two years he worked unremittingly, at-
tending the lectures at the Roman University, and finally
mastering the queen, though not the mother, of all the
languages.

I came home from China about that time and passed
a winter with my people in Rome. Money matters had
been more or less arranged, and they were living in the
Palazzo Altemps, in one of those great wandering Roman
apartments where there is room for everybody to be
alone. I found my brother very much changed, his char-
acter matured now by an inflexible purpose — still sunny
and genial, but much more sympathetic for others than
before. I was in very bad health, and his kindness and
care greatly helped to set me on my feet again. Indeed,
he was wonderful in illness; the touch of his strong,
magnetic hand; the quiet, reassuring tones of his voice;
his strange, instinctive knowledge of the right thing to
do, made it possible to throw off pain and weakness and
respond to the command: " Be thou healed."

He had chosen for himself a great tower room where
no one else would have dreamed of living. His personal
tastes could only be described as ascetic; he abhorred
luxury, and his surroundings were hard, simple, inspir-
ing as those of any monk. Yet to give pleasure to others
he would organise the most enchanting little fetes. On
New Year's Eve — it was the last day of 1878 — he
invited us and all our intimate friends to see the old
year out and the new year in, in his tower. We climbed

I3ft

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

to the long, twisting stairs and found ourselves in a fairy-
land of soft colour and light. There were flowers every-
where, nooks hung with old tapestries, a score of little
tables set with a dainty supper; and when we had done
exclaiming at the magic of the transformation, the most
perfect music fell upon our ears. Some of his musical
friends were hidden away in a recess of the stairs; a
small organ had somehow been coaxed up there; violins
and 'cellos, and a quartet of men's voices, gave us one
beautiful old chant after another, and when the bells
sounded midnight and the year's end, we all stood up
like one man and, holding hands in a great circle, sang
our hearts out in " Auld Lang Syne! "

Soon after that, early in 1879, Marion went to India
with a learned and entertaining man, Dr. d'Acunha, an
Indian pundit with a Portuguese name. He came to us
with an introduction from some one or other — intro-
ductions hailed in my mother's house — and we were all
captivated with his personality and wisdom. Yet it was
a great wrench for us when Marion went away with
him, intent upon completing his Sanskrit studies at their
fountain-head. He made Allahabad his headquarters,
and there was a moment in the course of his first year there
— the year of Sir Louis Cavagnari's murder in Cabul —
which came near to making my brother a soldier and not
a writer. His funds were exhausted, and there seemed
no possibility of continuing his studies. In deep discour-
agement he finally made up his mind to enlist in the
British Army, and wrote, offering himself as a recruit in
a regiment of the Dragcon Guards. But, with character-

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

istic fatalism, he decided to wait twenty-four hours be-
fore posting the letter, so as to give his luck a chance to
catch up with him. The twenty-four hours had all but
elapsed when he received a letter himself, informing him
that the editor of the Allahabad Pioneer had died sud-
denly, and asking him to take over the paper. Gladly
enough he accepted the offer; the rest — how "Mr.
Isaacs " came to be written — is too well known to bear
repetition. But there is a funny incident in the history
of my brother's first novel, which is less known. He
wrote it in a few weeks and sent it to Macmillan, and
then forgot all about the manuscript, for three months
had passed and no notice was taken of it. This, I am
glad to say, was his only experience of the "weary,
weary waiting on the everlasting road," which is the
heaviest trial of a literary career. Years afterwards,
when, as Henry James remarked to me, Marion was
" meat and drink and lodging to publishers," he was
shown a letter from Mr. John Morley (now Lord
Morley), who had been a reader for the firm in ques-
tion. Mr. Morley's appreciation of the novel-reading
public was hardly justified by events. He classed " Mr.
Isaacs" as a work which would never be popular; it
would not " pay well," but he advocated its production,
saying that it was original and well written and would
do the respected publishing house no harm.

Marion himself always said that the instant success
of " Mr. Isaacs " was a piece of stupendous luck. The
fashionable world had gone off its head about Esoteric
Buddhism ; everybody was either a Mahatma or a Chela ;

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

and formerly gross living people were giving their en-
tertainers much inconvenience by refusing to eat beef
and mutton, in public at any rate. " Mr. Isaacs " struck
the note of the moment, and any one who had not read
the book was hopelessly out of the running. Its writer
became the idol of the lion hunters, much to his own
amusement and finally to his annoyance. I shall never
forget the quiet, definite way in which he used to turn
off the compliments and questions of gushing enthusiasts
when they began to talk about the " immortal work."
Yet they were right — and he was wrong. Society has
forgotten all about theosophy; Madame Blavatsky and
Colonel Olcott have faded away into the twilight that
mercifully swallows up extinct faddists; but Marion's
first novel is a classic, dear to all who love noble Eng-
lish, faultless construction, and a good story.

Yet it was a mere accident of expediency that he be-
came a novel writer at all. His heart was in far higher
things. He always looked forward to the day when he
should be able to close the book of romance and devote
himself to the one study which he considered worth pur-
suing, that of history.

His essays in that direction — " Ave, Roma Immor-
talis," " The Rulers of the South," and " Venice " —
were signally successful, but, compared with his aspira-
tions, they were as the spray thrown off the crest of a
towering wave. He was a specialist; it was the history
of Italy which appealed to him; and a glance at the hun-
dreds of tomes on the subject in his library, all read and
marked, showed how thoroughly he had qualified himself

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

to treat of it. Thoroughness was his passion, and it
came to him by right, for our father, in spite — or per-
haps because — of his great artistic gifts, was the most
patient and sincere of workers; "Thorough" was our
mother's watchword; she said it was the anagram of all
the virtues; and my brother carried out in every detail
of life the command: " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to
do, do it with thy might."

He was so scrupulous that he would not write about
any subject of which he had not personally and practi-
cally mastered the details. " A Roman Singer " was the
outcome of years of familiarity with the musical life of
Rome; for " Marietta, a Maid of Venice," he went into
every process of Venetian glasswork on the spot; he was
his own architect; he and his foreman builder (who could
not read or write, yet directed and paid a great gang of
workmen and never made a mistake in his entirely mental
accounts) planned and carried out the tower, the magni-
ficent sea wall, the spacious, harmonious courts and build-
ings of the Sorrento Villa with such perfection that no
trained architect has a fault to find with the work, and
with such accuracy that each brick and stone was counted
beforehand, and the tally needed no correcting when it
was done.

For " Marzio's Crucifix " Marion became a silver-
smith, making his own designs and beating them out in
the metal in lovely classic forms. My mother had a
silver bowl as a memory of the book; nymphs danced
round its girth; and the workmanship was delicate and
vigorous as if executed by a long trained hand. To write

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

" The Witch of Prague " he went and lived in that city
and learned Bohemian. It was the seventeenth language
he had acquired. I do not know how many were added
to the list afterward. Slav and Scandinavian, Persian
and Arabic, Latin and Teutonic tongues — he possessed
them all, and I remember his telling me gravely that
any one ought to be able to learn a new language in six
weeks ! For him each fresh achievement was play. A
seer, one of the real " Illuminati," once said to him:
" You would have been as successful in any other career
you had chosen to undertake."

One preeminent subject he did not care to discuss —
theology. His religion was too much a part of himself
to invite analysis when once he had satisfied himself of
its supreme truth and irrefutable logic. Yet, to assist
others, he was planning to write a pamphlet entitled
" Why I am a Catholic." Rocky in faith, yet simple
as a child in practise, he was one of the few latter-day
Catholics who take their creed as the Crusaders took it,
— whole, unquestioningly, and joyfully. And he took
the gift of life in the same way; nothing passed unno-
ticed, no point of interest was missed; he had the keen-
est sense of humour, and his laugh would ring out like
a boy's if any one told a good story, an art of which he
was himself a master. He wanted to live, to stay longer
with those he loved. He always took the most hopeful
view of his own health, and was greatly cheered when
it seemed to be improving a little a few days before he
died.

Everything was Marion's — success, honour, the affec-

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FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD

tionate companionship of a devoted wife who read every
line he wrote with the keenest interest and true literary
acumen; brave sons and beautiful daughters, who wor-
shipped their father; but nothing in this world had any
real hold upon him. He was quite detached; he worked
to the very end, knowing that the end might come at any
moment, in order that his dear ones might not miss any
of the comforts and luxuries with which he had always
surrounded them. He was princely in his dealings with
others, the helper of the poor, the defender of the op-
pressed, a tower of strength to all in trouble. But for
himself he asked nothing, desired nothing that the world
can give. He aspired to only one thing, — immortality.
And when the call came, on Good Friday, in the glory
of the sunset by the sea, he answered with a smile and
shed his fetters without a sigh. The only wonder was
that they should have held him here so long.

H5

CHAPTER X

A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

My Mother Leaves us — Her Steamer Frozen in in Boston Harbour — My
Books — My Father's Death — The Washington Monument — His Fun-
eral— "A Pretty Hymn" — Return to Rome — Genzano — A Narrow
Escape — Dr. Sargent — John Sargent — Waldo and Julian Story — A
Meeting with Hans Andersen — Siena — The Brownings — An Awesome
Experience.

1MUST return for a moment to the year 1857, the
date from which memory's wings have lifted me and
borne me far. In the January of that year my mother
left us, recalled to Europe by the news of my father's
illness. It was a frightfully severe winter; the steamer
in which she sailed was frozen in, in Boston harbour, and
finally had to have its way cut out by ice ploughs before
it could reach the open sea. We were all left in Borden-
town, and one or two delightful things came to console
me for the absence of my father and mother. One was
— the books. People had found out that I Was fond
of reading, and thenceforth presents to me took that
most helpful shape. First came a fat blue volume, — the
immortal fairy stories of Madame d'Aulnoy; written for
grown-ups under Louis XIV, these enchanting tales, the
very essence of romance, must appeal forever to all who
are young enough to love, old enough to smile. Dear
Gracieuse and Percinet, beautiful Oiseau Bleu — how
many entrancing hours I passed in your company, seated
on the broad step beneath the window in the big nur-
sery in Bordentown ! Hans Andersen came to me a little

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A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

later, but much as I loved him, his colder northern genius
never appealed to me as did the exuberant colour and
richness of the French woman's fancies. There were
other books, too, which were supposed to tell of real life,
stories where the moral spoke for itself, a literature for
the young that has passed away with the ideas to which it
pointed our growing imaginations. All the three volumes
of " Leila," " Lilian's Golden Hours," " The Children
of the New Forest," " Kenneth, or the Retreat of the
Grand Army; " and, a year or two afterwards, dear
Miss Younge's " Lances of Lynwood " and " The Little
Duke;" these were some of my treasures, and I never
went to bed at night without assuring myself that they
were all in their places on my particular shelf.

Down in the schoolroom, where I now passed a couple
of hours in the morning, was the long series of Abbott's
histories — so-called — Julius Caesar, Darius, Alexander
the Great, and many more, in which the heroes of an-
tiquity lived and spoke and moved before our eyes as
they can never do for modern children, who, indeed,
hardly know their names. They were all living personali-
ties to us, and although many of the stories told rested
on the slightest possible fabric of fact, the reality of the
characters remained with us and the easy romantic style
gave us all, without exception, that love of historical
reading which my elders believed then (as I believe it
now) to be the one solid foundation for true education.

But I read too much, and a sad day came when that
happiness was limited to half an hour at a time. A far
sadder one was in store. One day in the autumn of that

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

year my Aunt Annie came into the room with a letter
in her hand and tears flowing from her eyes. She told
the nurse, while I stood by frozen and dumb, that my
father was dead. Even now I can hardly speak of that
time. The sun was gone from my sky. I suppose they
thought I knew nothing of death, for they explained to
me again and again that I should never see him any
more. How very, very little grown-up people understand
of a child's heart! That night the nurse, who had been
really kind throughout the day, told me that I must
neven mention my father's name in my prayers again;
it would be dreadful wickedness to do so ! That was the
last blow, and never was there a more broken-hearted
little creature than I when at last I cried myself to sleep.

But in sleep he came back to me, alive, radiant, his
own glorious self, year after year, and I would cry,
"Not dead! Alive! Alive! " and run into his arms —
until many another blow had at last dulled the receptive-
ness of my tired spirit, and also, with so many stages
of life's journey accomplished, the harbour lights began
to shine, and I could look forward, not back.

At last my mother returned to us. She had not been
alone in her nine months of watching and waiting for
the inevitable end; my father's sister Jennie, the devoted
confidante of his early days (now married to a dear kind
man whom I knew as Uncle William Campbell), went
over to share the labour of love and sorrow. The old
servant, Giuseppe, was with him too — but my father
died in London, very far from the home he loved. His
last work, the Washington monument, was cast in bronze

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A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

in Munich while he lay dying ; he had lost his sight some
months before and never beheld his achievement. My
poor mother, who was the most gallant woman I ever
knew, had to make all arrangements herself for bringing
the colossal thing to America. Quite alone, broken-
hearted as she was, and worn out with nursing, she
chartered a vessel, had the deck cut out, and saw to every
detail of the shipment with the calm energy of a man
of business; when all was done, she sailed for Boston,
bringing my father's body with her. The two vessels
crossed the ocean at the same time.

The country rose to welcome the dead artist and his
great work. His funeral was a public ovation; the un-
veiling of the monument a national demonstration. I
saw neither. My two sisters were taken, but I was
thought too young to understand — I, who had watched
him at work, who had been nearer to him in so many
ways than any of the others ! I was a born fatalist, and
it never struck me to protest against the decision, so I
mooned about in lonely sorrow, in Bordentown, and my
nurse taught me an appropriate hymn, beginning,

"Why should the children of a King
Go mourning all their days? "

The mention of this reminds me of an incident which
nearly sent my mother into hysterics. Her irrepressible
sense of humour never deserted her even in the most
tragic moments, and one of these certainly came when
she arrived in Bordentown and saw us all for the first
time since her bereavement. My two sisters and my

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

eldest cousin, Louise Mailliard, had each learnt a hymn
to recite by way of welcome, an attention which children
in those days were recommended to show to any impor-
tant visitor. Each was to choose her own hymn, and
keep the secret till the great moment arrived.

When all the embracing and greeting — and some of
the natural weeping, too, — was over, Louise whispered
to her mother:

" May I say my pretty hymn now? "

Aunt Annie assented, Mamma was told of the treat in
store for her, and everybody sat down except the re-
citer. When perfect silence reigned she began in a tri-
umphant sing-song:

" Hark ! From the tombs a mournful voice
The end of man proclaims! "

My mother doubled up in silent convulsions of laughter,
but she hid her face in her handkerchief and sat through
the ordeal, apparently weeping bitterly. The little girl,
who had honestly picked out the most appropriate thing
she could find, never knew the truth until she had grown
up to be a delicately tactful, kind and intelligent woman.

Children were peppered with hymns in those days;
there was a new one to learn every Sunday and for each
great occasion as well. Explanations were deemed un-
necessary; the grammar was generally all at sea, and the
sounding words had to make meanings for themselves in
our puzzled little brains.

" Guide me, oh, thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land,"
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A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

represented my small, weary self crawling over every
wreath of roses in a flaring carpet to pick up threads and
specks which the nurse was too lazy to sweep away.

" Oh, for a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame ! "

was an implied criticism on florid picture frames and
an assertion that the Deity not only shared my taste
for the broad flat frames of dull gold which were then
coming into fashion, but that He liked to walk in and
out of them before the pictures had been fitted in. I
should certainly have sympathised with the child who re-
cently told her mother that she liked the hymns about
" bears," and in reply to her parent's astonished question
said scornfully, "Why, don't you know them? The
one about, ' After Him the cross-eyed bear,' and the
other one, * Can a woman's tender care, cease towards
the child she-bear?' "

But I liked the very mystery of the halting verses and
repeated them as talismans when I was frightened, half
unconsciously, for many a year. It gave me quite a shock
to hear my youngest sister say, long after I was married,
that she hated to be taken to the Protestant church
which my mother still attended, because she had to listen
to " shockingly bad verse, set to incorrect music! "

The religious element in the house became much more
emphasised after my father's death, as was natural, per-
haps, in the gloom that had fallen upon us with that
event. When we returned to Rome in the spring of
1858, all the sunshine seemed to have left the old Villa

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Negroni, for a time at least. We had come by way of
Havre, Marseilles and Civita Vecchia; from there the
journey was performed by carriage, and we drove up to
our own door late at night, to find that Giuseppe had not
expected us till the next day. There was nothing for sup-
per but dry bread! The next morning I found that most
of my toys had been appropriated during our two years'
absence; a dreadful blow which greatly shook my con-
fidence in Giuseppe! But the villa was there with
every carnation and violet in place; the long trellis that
closed in the fountain court was abloom with roses; at
my favourite fountain the little old man still spouted
water from his eyes when one stopped his marble mouth,
and he grinned at me cheerily; the distant enclosed
garden with secret passages leading down below the great
marble fishpond, was as mysterious and beautiful as ever,
and, joys of joys, two of the " Century plants," the magic
aloes, bloomed that year and sent their great shafts
nearly up to our windows !

Coming straight from a more bracing climate I suppose
we all began to droop in the increasing heat, and early in
the summer the family moved out to Genzano, where we
occupied one floor of the " Villino," a fair-sized house
in the grounds of the Palazzo Sforza Cesarini. The
grounds, leading by winding paths from the palace down
the steep sides of the cup-shaped hollow to the very edge
of the Lake of Aricia, are indescribably beautiful. The
slopes, so acute that to go straight down them would be
to plunge into the bottomless lake which was once a crater,
are laid out in scores of narrow terraces where the wild

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A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

strawberry is cultivated without ceasing to be wild. The
perfume of the fruit, a long, pointed berry of pungent
sweetness, fills all the air in the early summer. But I
did not enjoy the delights of the Villa long; an illness,
of which I may speak as a warning to parents, struck me
down, and it was many months before I stood up again.
For two years previously, I had been as I would have put
it, " bothered " with excessive and prolonged nose bleed-
ings. For a couple of hours at a time I would have to sit
in a corner swamped in towels, watching the others play
while I could not move. The only remedies my nurse
knew of were cobwebs stuffed up my poor little nose, or
a huge, cold door key slipped down my back, and these
added penance to my sufferings. If some one else noticed
my misfortune she would look at me scornfully and say,
" Leave the child alone, it will do her head good." I
was suffering for want of sleep too, for if I moved in bed
after she had lain down I was scolded or punished, and
the terror of disturbing her kept me awake, rigid and
cramped, long after she was snoring soundly. Another
torture she invented was to keep me on my feet the whole
time we were out of doors. She sat down to work or
read, but I was never to sit down through the long burn-
ing hours of the Italian summer day, while my poor
mother fondly imagined that I was enjoying my own little
book in some shady corner of the Villa.

So one morning about five o'clock when I called to her,
" Mary! My nose! " she growled, " Be quiet and go to
sleep." And I was quiet — while the lifeblood gushed
from my nostrils and nearly drowned me. Towards eight

iS3

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

o'clock " Mary " came and dragged me out of bed and
stood me on my feet, and that was all I knew for some
time. When I recovered consciousness, I saw grave faces
around me — my mother, white with fear, the doctor, and
others. I could not speak, but in a few minutes I began
to twist and toss in an anguish of unrest such as I have
never experienced since, while that awful flow of blood
from mouth and nose turned all things red, and I saw
that people were rubbing my limbs, which were a mass of
black patches and hurt horribly. All that day they
worked over me. I understood what they said though
they believed I was unconscious. My mother wailed,
" Oh, doctor, I always thought that bleeding to death
was painless! This is awful! " And he replied sternly,
" No, it can be frightfully painful sometimes." I sup-
pose they had told him of the long neglected symptoms.
He saved me — God knows how — for the attacks re-
turned day after day sometimes, sometimes only after two
or three weeks' interval — and I lay scarcely breathing be-
tween whiles, a ghost of a child with no body except for suf-
fering. It was long before I could speak, and I remember
lying with the tears coursing down my cheeks because I
could not tell my mother that there was a crease in the
turnover of the sheet and I wanted it straightened out.

Towards the Autumn they used to carry me down to
the garden on a mattress and let me lie under some
cedars near a fountain. Cyclamens were growing near,
and heliotropes. I was deprived of all sense of smell, for
I had to wear a pad dipped in a solution of iron some-
where in the back of my nose; it was inserted with a steel

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A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

spring instrument (a most painful operation) and silk
strings passed through my nose and out again at my
mouth to keep it in place. One day, in spite of this hor-
ror, a faint whiff of heliotrope reached my hungry senses
and I screamed for joy.

Enough of this revolting experience — only told, as I
said before, as a warning to parents and nurses. What
remained to me, and all of us, from it, was a devout
affection for kind Doctor Sargent, the father of a funny
baby boy with bright eyes and a very hot temper, who
is now known to the world as John Sargent, R. A.
The Sargents were living in the " Villino " on the floor
above us. Had they not been there, there would have
been a pretty little gravestone bedimmed with many tears
in the English cemetery near Rome, and the world would
have been the poorer for the loss of a very unsatisfactory
character. The dear doctor is responsible for it all. He
was in trouble at the time, too, for his wife's mother, Mrs.
Singer, was slowly dying upstairs, and once or twice I
wept bitterly because I wanted to see him and he could
not come down to me. But only once or twice ; hour after
hour, night after night the lean, strong hand was holding
mine, the wise dark eyes were shining down at me full of
promises of rest if I " would only be good," and when I
was in paroxysms of pain he would take me in his arms
and do, to ease me, a thousand little things that only his
pitiful heart had taught him. What would this suffering
world be without the kind doctors? " May the Lord
make their beds in Paradise ! " as the Irish women say.

" Johnny " Sargent, the future R. A., was a pugnacious

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

little fellow, and I got into dreadful disgrace once for
tumbling him over when he wanted to fight Marion. He
never had any doubts about his career; from the time
he knew anything, he meant to be a painter, and his people
recognised his vocation and encouraged it in every pos-
sible way. They settled in Florence, and came down occa-
sionally to Rome ; and when we passed through Florence
it was always a pleasure to go and see them. The boy was
not the only artist in the family; his eldest sister Emily,
had remarkable talent, though she confined herself to
copying the old Masters. Hers are water colour copies,
but of a richness and a depth that must be seen to be ap-
preciated. And both she and her brother were full of
music. A big-eyed, sentimental, charming boy, playing
the mandolin very pleasantly — that was my last recol-
lection of John for some ten years. Then we met again.
He had been studying in Paris and was already beginning
to be well known. He was very lordly in manner, mighty
particular in dress, and talked superciliously about the
necessity of painting "pot-boilers" for the undiscrimin-
ating public. I had been the acting " Chefesse " of a big
mission, China, and was quite as pleased with myself; I
thought I had seen the world! I am afraid we were both
still extremely young, but when we had done impressing
each other with our respective grandeurs we found our
way back to the old playground of childhood fast enough;
and one of the real pleasures of recent years was the find-
ing him and his mother and sister established in London
where they were all endlessly good to me. Their apart-
ment in Chelsea was pure Florence; one found the re-

i56

A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

pose, the stateliness, the elastic atmosphere of the city of
flowers. The Sargents possessed the alchemy which turns
gray skies to gold. The dear doctor was gone, — where
such as he go, — but I never felt that he was very far away.
I remember trying to describe these dear people and their
surroundings in one of my novels, " A Little Grey Sheep,"
but I am afraid that the picture was not a faithful one,
for they never scolded me for it as they certainly would
have done had it been recognisable.

I had some other playfellows of whom the world has
since heard, the Story boys, Waldo and Julian — impe-
rious, handsome little fellows, whom we saw daily in Rome
as they lived in the Palazzo Barberini, not very far from
the Villa Negroni. Their father, W. W. Story, a dis-
tinguished sculptor and a charming writer — vide " Roba
di Roma " — was a real humourist and a perfectly de-
lightful companion. It was all one to him whether he
were talking to a great man like Thackeray, who was one
of his closest friends, and wrote " The Rose and the
Ring," for his children, or a stupid little girl like my-
self. He always had some new good story to tell, or
some fresh joke that would send one into bubbles of
laughter. When Hans Andersen was a very old man he
came back to Rome, and, to please him, the Storys gave
a children's party. I remember it all so well — the great
rooms and the sunshine, the crowds of happy little peo-
ple, and the dear old man, the happiest and youngest
hearted of them all ! He played and romped with us, and
when everybody was tired, he proposed that he should tell
us one of the fairy stories which we all knew and loved

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

so well. The votes went for the " Ugly Duckling," but
he said that he could only tell stories with children on his
knee! So he called two of us, golden-haired Lily Conrad
(now the Marchesa Theodoli), and my fortunate little
self, to him, and with one on either knee began to tell
the tale. How we gazed up into the beautiful pale old
face, into the blue eyes that shone so kindly down upon
us ! But after a few minutes he got tired, and, saying that
he was sure many of the children could not understand his
queer English, he asked Mr. Story to read it instead. So,
while Lily and I nestled up against him, he listened with
us, and I think enjoyed our host's beautiful reading as
much as we did.

In the summer of i860, when the world around us
was in the throes of war and revolution, we spent the
summer in a villa near Siena. The Storys were neigh-
bours and the Brownings had another villa near by, but
ours had the largest, shadiest grounds, so the other chil-
dren generally came to play with us. I was nine years old,
and had fairly recovered my health, and the year had been
a very interesting one to me, for many books had come
into my hands and I knew much of Mrs. Browning's
poetry by heart, and looked forward to the day when I
should get hold of that of her husband, which I knew was
" splendid," but which, for recalcitrant foreigners in rev-
olutionised Italy, was quite outshone just then by his
wife's sentimental liberal outpourings. I had never seen
either of them, but Penry, their little boy, was constantly
with us — a beautifully dressed child, with long chestnut
curls, and as spoiled as the only son of two such people

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A GREAT LOSS AND MANY NEW FRIENDS

was sure to be. He and Waldo Story always wanted to
11 boss " the little company, and several free fights took
place in the u Fairy Ring," a grassy inclosure surrounded
with low, mossy banks in the remote heart of an acacia
wood in our villa.

One morning when we were all playing there rather
more peacefully than usual, the acacia boughs were parted,
and a tall man in a brown velvet jacket stood for a mo-
ment, just where the sun struck through the trees, look-
ing down at us from a halo of gold and green. His eyes,
dark golden brown like his coat, were full of the sun; his
face was a very noble one, clear and pale, with an aquiline
nose and a beautiful mouth smiling under the gold brown
beard.

The next moment he strode into our midst and picked
up Penry and tossed him in the air, laughing happily as
the little fellow's curls floated wide in the sun. Just so
my father used to pick up Marion, and for a minute I
had such a " stretta di cuore," remembering him, that I
could not speak. Then I realised that this was Robert
Browning, the poet, and that I must never forget that I
had seen him at last. He stayed a little and talked to
us, I forget what about, but his voice I remember well.
It was deep and joyous as the wind when it sang through
our cypresses at home on a bright October day.

Soon after this my mother took me to see Mrs. Brown-
ing, and that was an awesome experience. From the blaze
of the Tuscan summer noon we passed into a great dark
room, so dark that it was some time before I made out a
lady lying on a couch and holding out her hand to me. I

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

felt my way to a stool on the floor and looked at her for
quite an hour without daring to open my lips, while she
and my mother spoke in rapturous whispers of the glor-
ious epoch opening up for Italy. Everything was intense
— the heat, the enthusiasm, the darkness, and I tried hard
to get keyed up to the proper pitch and appreciate my
good fortune. But it was of no use. The poetess was
everything I did not like. She had great cavernous eyes,
glowering out under two big bushes of black ringlets, a
fashion I had not beheld before. She never laughed,
or even smiled, once, during the whole conversation, and
through all the gloom of the shuttered room I could see
that her face was hollow and ghastly pale. Mamma mla!
but I was glad when I got out into the sunshine again!
All that day and long afterwards I pondered in my own
silent, busy way over the strange problem — why should
that nice, happy Mr. Browning have such a dismally
mournful lady for his wife?

1 60

CHAPTER XI

ITALY IN TRANSITION 1859 AND x^6o

Mrs. Browning — Victor Emmanuel — The Real Man — The Florence Ring —
An Insurrection in Perugia and the Adventures of a Party of Americans
Therein — Rome in i860 — Revolutionary Literature — The Unity of
Italy — Enthusiasm in Central Italy — Piccolomini's High Note — The
Effects of "Unity" — The Miller of the Sabines — The Rescuing Angels —
The French in Rome — Growing Respect for Pius IX — "Bombino" and
the Queen of Naples — A Sight of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria —
"Bomba" — The Duke of Terra Nuova's Coach and Four — The Duchess
— Mr. Nelson and the Bandits.

MY impressions of Mrs. Browning had of course to
be corrected as I grew older. The woman who in-
spired, " By the Fireside," and " Oh, Lyric Love, half
angel and half bird," must have possessed some very per-
fect qualities, and there never could be any question of
the high order of her intellect. Yet it seems to me that
one healthy gleam of humour would have outweighed a
good deal of classic learning and high thinking, in so far
as the benefit of her influence on her contemporaries was
concerned. Of humour she was destitute to the extent of
complete unconsciousness of its existence. Had she pos-
sessed it in ever so slight a degree I sometimes think the
British public might not have plunged headlong into the
vortex of vicarious sentimentality which engulfed it at
that time, and that even the course of history might have
been slightly deflected in the direction of honesty and
common sense. People who would not and could not
take the trouble to inform themselves of the arguments
for and against the project of Italian unity — and the

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

question bristled with both — could and did read and
go crazy over " The Court Lady," " The Ship of
Peter," and the various poems in which she drew a
portrait of Victor Emmanuel for which we are in-
debted to her alone. The title of " Galant 'uomo,"
which he arrogated to himself had a ring of chivalry for
English ears; Italians born know that it merely means
" honest," and that if you tell your cook or your butcher
that he is not a " galant 'uomo " you will probably be
knifed for the insult. But Victor Emmanuel was not hon-
est; he was one of the vainest and weakest of men, al-
ways ready to sacrifice the truth to appearances — vide
his refusing to change his clothes or even have them
brushed, for a whole week after the battle of Solferino,
ostentatiously and constantly referring to the gallantry
testified to by their filthy condition. Of his private life it
is not necessary to speak, except to say that he was the
very opposite of the Galahad English people believed him
to be.

It would be unfair to aver that he had no patriotism,
that his stirring speech about Austrian oppression, on the
ioth of January, 1859, was not tne outcome of some real
indignation. But had it not been dictated and composed
for him by his advisers he could never have pronounced
it. The protests against the Austrians were quite as open
and sincere in Rome as they were in Piedmont. To be
called a " German " was a deadly offence in the city of
my home, where many a truer patriot than Victor Em-
manuel stood stoutly by the Holy Father and the princi-
ples he represented. The King of Sardinia was pushed

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ITALY IN TRANSITION — 1859 AND i860

into prominence by astute revolutionists, who considered
the time unripe for unmasking their ultimate aims; he
had faith, poor man, and lived in mortal terror of being
eternally damned for deeds which a courageous and hon-
est man would have refused to commit. He put faith and
conscience in the balance against his pirated throne, and
chose the throne. I saw him day after day for some
four years after the last step was taken, read day after
day the account of all his doings. Never did I behold a
more terror stricken countenance than his. And not once
between usurpation and death did he raise his voice to
save his new subjects from pillage, from starvation, from
soul-murder.

He was a bad Christian and an exceedingly bad soldier,
but he attacked the Papacy, and for that good deed he
will ever be enshrined as a spotless hero in the average
Briton's mind. The feeling in Italy against Austria was
quite sincere and quite justified by the atrocious oppres-
sion under which the disputed provinces groaned; the
sympathy with it in England was a flagrant sham — all
the real venom was directed at the Papacy. Other coun-
tries have suffered under the tyranny of usurpers ; Russia
has scarcely proved a kind stepmother to alien subjects;
German methods in Poland, Belgian methods in Africa
are even now putting Austrian achievements in that direc-
tion to shame. But the sensible British public, barring a
speech or two, minds its own affairs, for Protestantism
suffers from no humane convulsions where there is no
Catholicism to attack.

And it was the promised downfall of Catholicism which

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

was hailed with such joyful acclamation by what I must
call the "Florence ring" — the English speaking residents
in Italy, — headed by Mrs. Browning; not by her hus-
band — the man was too great to hate greatness, though
he struck at it in ignorance once or twice. From the nar-
row bars of " Casa Guidi windows " the poetess saw just
what she wished to see of the world around her, and
found the limited picture so dramatic, so inspiring to her
easy verse, that she metaphorically drew her head in when
the delightful torrent of enthusiasm was at its height,
and wrote. It would have been a pity to cloud that crystal
fount with jarring facts, so her admirations became wor-
ships, her disapprovals damnations, for the unbridled en-
thusiast is ever also the most hopeless pessimist — a fatal
supporter and an unjust enemy.

My dear mother had many friends in the Florence
ring, and in our peaceful home every new step towards
Rome was hailed by her as a personal victory. She was
so gentle, so just, that in looking back I have often found
it difficult to understand the animus which she showed at
the time against the kindly Ruler of the city where she
had, by her own choice, dwelt for so many years — years
of much peace and prosperity. But her humility of mind
made her prone to follow the lead of the friends she
loved, and a certain American family, with which she had
been closely bound up all her life, had, about this time,
a rather alarming adventure, which, in the fiery versions
of it published in England and America, roused in those
countries a perfect storm of indignation, and confirmed
more experienced persons than my mother in their bitter

J64

ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

prejudice against the Church. In 1859 an insurrection
had taken place in Perugia, the chief city of Umbria, one
of the Papal States. A detachment of troops, including
a company of the Swiss Guards, were sent to restore or-
der. Before they arrived all foreigners were advised to
depart, as the inhabitants were prepared to defend their
opinions, but one American party, consisting, if I remem-
ber rightly, of four ladies (one an elderly invalid), one
gentleman, a couple of maids, and a lapdog, refused to
leave. They sympathised enthusiastically with the in-
surgents and wished to assist at their coming triumph over
the emissaries of the Pope.

Unfortunately for them, there was no triumph. The
Papal troops met with some rather stubborn resistance,
but after a few hours entered the town as conquerors.
Conquerors are not apt to be in the best of tempers, and
the soldiers' irritation was fanned by shots from the
houses as they passed up the narrow, crooked main street
of the place. Some of these shots came from the windows
of the hotel where the Americans were staying, and it
was instantly raided, according to the usual procedure
in such cases. The travellers, thoroughly terrified now,
took refuge in a closet which opened out of one of their
rooms, and passed a very anxious day there, a critical day
for the little dog, who narrowly escaped being throttled;
his mistress kept her hand on his throat the whole time,
prepared to strangle him at once if he attempted to bark.
The good genius of faithful doggies kept him silent; but
one of the Swiss Guards, a Tyrolese, Conrad, by name,
and a devout Catholic, chanced to discover the refugees,

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

and at once took it upon himself to protect them from
any molestation at the hands of his angry comrades. I
do not think they were in any real danger; the men would
probably have respected their nationality. But Conrad
meant to make sure, and, feigning drunkenness, threw him-
self down on the floor outside their hiding place, and snored
in apparent unconsciousness, under the kicks and gibes of
his companions when they broke into the room. A few
hours later all was quiet, and the party, fearfully shaken
by their fright, very cramped and very hungry, emerged
into peace and safety. They were rich, generous, and
grateful, and the good fellow who had guarded them was
nobly rewarded by the present of a fine farm in his native
land, and a pension as well. But their liberal sympathies
were tremendously strengthened by their fright, and,
though they were dear, good, high-minded people, the in-
cident certainly lost nothing in the telling; and it was
told, in trumpet blasts, all over Europe and America,
as a final proof of Papal iniquity. It afforded Mrs.
Browning, also, the matter for a part of one of her Jer-
emiads of reproach; the whole thing was too dramatic
for her to neglect, or investigate.

The Papal troops were under orders to recapture a
revolted city for its lawful Sovereign. Because he hap-
pened to be also the Head of the Church the exercise of
his rights was called a crime and the retribution inflicted
was denounced as wholesale slaughter.

As a matter of fact the retribution was slight, and the
officer who commanded the expedition adhered strictly to
the accepted military rules in such cases and showed mod-

166

ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

eration whenever it was possible to do so. His approach
was known for some days beforehand in the town, though
he did not choose for his attack the particular gate at
which he was expected. When the insurgents refused his
summons to surrender, he withdrew to a convenient dis-
tance and opened fire on the gate with his artillery. The
street behind it was a narrow one, with houses close on
either side, and the mob of revolutionists gathered in
great numbers inside the portal, trusting, when it should
be destroyed, to rush into these houses and escape cap-
ture. It is to be supposed that the nearest dwellings had
been emptied of non-combatants as soon as the spot had
been designated for attack and defence.

The cannon soon battered down the gate, but the insur-
gents, seeing that the troops were still some little way off,
did not at once disperse, and were disagreeably surprised
by the rapidity with which the soldiers followed up their
success. Then there was a belated rush for the houses on
either side, the victors pursuing the fugitives and killing
all they found in the first two or three houses. This was
at about two o'clock in the afternoon. A few minutes
afterwards the troops marched in perfect order up the
main street. Then shots began to pepper them from the
roofs. Two or three were fired from that of the hotel
where the American party was staying. A detachment
was ordered to search the building, with the result that
the proprietor and one of his men servants were shot. One
or two other houses were entered in the same quite legit-
imate way, and civilians found with weapons in their
hands were killed — five persons in all after the fight at

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the gate. By four o'clock the men were in barracks pre-
paring their food, and the town was quiet. No injury
had been inflicted on any person who was not believed to
be guilty of directly firing on the troops, and the punish-
ment meted out for this act was that enforced by the mil-
itary authorities of all nations, under similar circum-
stances.

But misrepresentation is a virtue when directed against
the Supreme Pontiff. I was much amused to find the fol-
lowing item in a generally accepted " Chronology," pub-
lished in London for use in Civil Service examinations in
1872. " March 19th, i860. Suppression of the political
outbreak in Rome with great barbarity."

I have not the records of the time under my hand and
cannot categorically contradict the statement, but in
March, i860, I was in Rome, a very observant little per-
son, nine years old, entirely in the hands of my mother,
my American governess and my Methodist nurse, all three
deeply prejudiced against the local authorities. The polit-
ical situation was constantly discussed before me, and my
own intense veneration for Pius IX, I had to keep to my-
self, for he was a most unpopular person in the family.
During all those days I was never allowed to miss my
walk in the Public Gardens; on the 19th, the feast of
St. Joseph and a popular holiday, it seems to me that the
people were all out in their best clothes, that the frying
stalls (one must always eat " fritto " on St. Joseph's
day) were gay with flowers and garlands as they were the
year before, and that everybody was in a particularly good
temper. I cannot remember any disturbance in the city,

168

ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

and the " barbarity," which would have been welcome
food for comment to those around me was never even
mentioned. The " Chronology " may be right, but even
so it seems a pity that history is not sometimes written by
those who make it.

The article can be very cleverly manipulated, however.
I found, preserved as curiosities among my mother's pa-
pers, certain leaflets which throw a sinister light on the
methods by which Italian independence and unity were
attained. These leaflets, printed by the million and scat-
tered in houses, streets, railway stations, shops, etc., all
over the Peninsula, contained blasphemous parodies of
the Lord's Prayer, the Creed and the Doxology, in all
of which the names of friends and enemies were substi-
tuted for the Divine ones. There were varied versions,
but the following, addressed to the Emperor of Austria,
will serve as' an example:

" Padre nostro che sei in Vienna, Sia il tuo nome

dimenticato,
Ed il tuo regno rovinato, Compiuta la tua volonta

saltanto in casa tua.
Daci aggi il nostro pane di Liberta,
E perdonaci le nostre colpe come noi ti perdoniamo le

tue,
E non ci lasciar cadere piu nella tentazione di

scoffaciarti,
Ma liberaci dal giogo tuo. Cose sia."

Metternich's dictum still holds true, " There is no
such country as * Italy ; ' it is merely a geographical ex-
pression." To be called an Italian is an insult to the

169

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Roman. " Quando vennero gli Italiani," is the expression
used to designate the events of September, 1870, gen-
erally accompanied by a groan for the misery that the
strangers brought with them.

The " unity " of Italy is a statistical fact, and the most
uncompromising of reactionaries must accept it while it
lasts. But it is only statistical. A country where a score
of races have hated one another for thousands of years,
have lived as neighbours but struggled as rivals incom-
prehensible to each other, even in speech, can never be-
come a homogeneous nation. Nor, in the judgment of the
wise, was it ever desirable that they should do so, because
all the separate states on that teeming soil had separate
and unique gifts to confer on the world. It may be well
for raw, sparsely inhabited continents, like Russia, or the
United States, to come under the precarious guidance of
a central government. The former deals with millions of
under-vitalised intelligences, bred from one stock, ani-
mated and bound together by two saving principles, in-
vincible patriotism, invincible religious faith; the latter
simply makes no attempt at governing; the great, half
empty country provides plenty of room for the good and
the bad, the wise and foolish, to fight out their disagree-
ments in their own way. If an American citizen finds the
laws of one state too stringent, or too honest, he has only
to step over the border into the next; there is legislation
to suit all tastes except those of people who prefer no
legislation at all, and if they travel far enough they
will reach districts admirably adapted to their require-
ments.

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ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

But how different is Italy's case! The geologists tell
us that her soil and that of her sister, Greece, were the
first to be co-ordinated in the development of the earth's
surface. They were terra firma, drinking in air and sun-
shine when the remainder of the globe was still a shifting,
quivering mass — an embryo world, a world in the
making.

These lovely lands, floating like flowers on a warm
heaven of sea, were compounded of the richest elements
the Creator's hand could choose. They were not given
to man for his first Eden. The hotter fiercer cradle by
the Euphrates was chosen for that. But when the race
instinctively differentiated itself and wandered north and
south, and east and west, its finest scions, perfected phys-
ically and mentally by countless centuries of unconscious
selection, at last took root along the jewelled shores of
Italy, each little family a commonwealth of self-defence,
self-enrichment, self-elevation. From all the world their
peers came to them; their brethren from Greece, first as
equals to claim their share, then as captives rich in all but
liberty; the Goth and the Gaul, the Norseman and the
Spaniard, the Saracen and the Jew, they came to conquer,
to rule, to rob and to trade. And each brought more than
he ever took away, left behind him children of his blood,
who, in that forcing ground of individuality and intel-
lect, built up states that were distinct nations, each suffi-
cient to itself, a full-blooded potentiality that has set its
mark on Time, because every gift was Ubed, every force
concentrated on one object, individual and separate
supremacy.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Run over the list already blurring under " the
world's coarse thumb," Venice, Ravenna, Milan, Fer-
rara, Bologna, Padua, Modena, Verona, Parma, Genoa,
Siena, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Naples, Amalfi, Salerno,
Palermo; has any country ever carried such a lapful of
cities, each famous either in art or learning, in war or
commerce. It is a compendium of human attainments,
only possible under the specialised conditions which gov-
erned the geographical and political being of Italy.

Granted that she was in decadence, that intelligence was
at a low ebb, and independence already largely diminished
by the accidents and vicissitudes from which humanity can
never be exempt ; yet there remained the civic virtues —
pride in the beautiful little city, love of its very stones, the
jealous conservation of its distinctive speech, that wise
respect for the past from which a healthy future still
might spring. All this fine material has been thrown into
the mortar of coarse, bastard modernism, has been merci-
lessly ground to dust and is no longer capable of nourish-
ing a single seed of real value. A French ecclesiastic once
wrote to a too ambitious soul, " Si Dieu vous veut violette,
pourquoi vous faire cedre? " Italy was a garden, not of
humble violets, it is true. Her flowers were Crown Im-
perials of light and splendour. She has torn them up
and cast them out in the hope of producing in their stead
material that shall enable her to march with the machine-
made times. But in her blindness she has only sown her
once rich soil with salt and ashes. Her day is over for
the present. Extortion, oppression, and organised athe-
ism have done their work so well that it is doubtful

172

ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

whether any person now alive will see the new birth which
we all pray may be granted to her, and no one can fore-
tell what form it will take. Meanwhile the one power
which the Mazzinis and Cavours and Garibaldis planned
to annihilate,* and believed they had crushed in Italy,
Catholicism, has taken on such portentous force all over
the world that the government of the country only counts
in other nations' eyes as a policeman with a bad record,
permitted to keep watch in the Vatican's back yard so
long as he behaves himself. The day he betrays that
trust will be his last.

It requires some effort of memory's power of realisation
for me to recall what I saw and heard myself in central
Italy fifty years ago; the reverse of the medal has been
before my eyes ever since. It is hard for me to believe
that the people who immediately after the change began
to mourn and curse the actual state of things were in
many instances those who had most loudly acclaimed
the new government. Yet so it is. In Siena, in i860,
the enthusiasm was unbounded. The Plebiscite had taken
place on March 12, some four months before we
migrated thither for the summer, and during all our stay,
the dignified old town was still fluttering with red, green
and white flags, everyone wore a badge or rosette of the
gay new colours — so much more attractive than the stern

* See "le Plan de la Franco-maconerie," en Italie et en France (Leon
Dahon, Lethelliux, Paris, 1908), from autograph letters, documents, pro-
grammes, with a key to the terms of double meaning used by the Freemasons
of Italy and France, terms only comprehensible to the members of the thirty-
third degree. The party's acknowledged poet laureate, Carducci, unfortu-
nately for his patrons, did not make use of the cypher-hinc illae lacrimaelj

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A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

black and white which had spelt " Siena " to the world
for some seven hundred years. The very watermelon
venders wrote above their sliced fruit with its green rind,
crimson pulp and white heart, " La Natura mi diede questi
colori." (Nature gave me these colours.)

There were gala representations in the theatre, where
Piccolomini, the famous prima donna, sang national songs
to roaring audiences. My mother was there one night
when the pretty little lady had embarked on a song of
which the highest note surpassed her range. She tried
it — gave it up, pointed despairingly to the ceiling — and
subsided. It was an apt illustration of what the country
was attempting, a correct forecast of the results. Some
nine years later I passed the summer in Siena again, and
had occasion to call the attention of the greatest land-
owner in the place to the miserable condition of his ten-
ants' houses.

"They are hovels — unfit for human habitation," I
told him. " You might at least knock out a few holes in
the walls and give these poor creatures some light and
air!"

" My dear young lady," he replied, " I would gladly do
so, but for every window I make, an additional tax is put
upon the building. The government has got the last cen-
time I can afford to pay. If I make any improvements
now, we shall all starve."

Our own vicinity had the same story to tell. A land-
owner in the Sabines asked me in 1871, just a year after
the Italians came, to ride out with him to a distant prop-
erty which he wished to visit; there had been trouble and

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ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

some inexplicable things had been happening. It was time
for the master to look into it all. So one bright autumn
day we left the castle and rode for some hours through
the tinted woodlands, flaming under the first touch of the
frost, and came out on a hillside, scarred from top to
bottom by a recent landslide. A torrent raced through
the valley, far below us on our right, and where the
avalanche of rocks and earth had almost dammed its
course, the remains of a stone bridge and of a building
of some kind were just discernible. Beyond the scar,
the valley rose steeply, so that the stream fell in leaps
and bounds before reaching the ruined bridge.

We rode along, the horses picking their way through
the debris with some difficulty, till we had crossed the
slide, and climbed for some little distance ; then we found
the place we were looking for, a water mill hanging over
the stream, in a clump of chestnut trees. The wheel
was silent, and my companion (the 'Lustrissimo Sor
Marchese of a former chapter) had some trouble in un-
earthing the miller. Finally he appeared, and led us
inside. He was a gaunt, white-faced creature, with de-
spair in his eyes.

" No se campa piu " (it is no longer possible to live),
he told us. " Look at that diabolical machine that they
have put on my good old wheel ! "

It was a taximeter which registered every turn of the
wheel. " And on every turn I must pay," the distracted
creature moaned. And you know, Sor Marchese mio,
that it turns many times after the corn is ground! I can-
not stop it all in a minute, and I pay for the empty turns

I7i

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

as if they were full ones. We cannot live any more ! If
it was for this that the angels came and saved us from
the landslide I wish we had all perished! Better drown-
ing than starvation! "

Then he told us a strange story. He had not always
lived in the upper mill; his trade had been carried on in
one below, where a bridge made it convenient for the
farmers to bring him the grain from both sides of the
stream. He had a wife and children, and his two brothers
lived with him and helped him, for his was a fine trade
then. One stormy night, when the river seemed to be
unusually full, two strangers (forestieri) very quiet, gen-
tle spoken men, had knocked at the door and asked for
hospitality, which was warmly accorded. After supper,
as they all sat together, the children being in bed, the
strangers rose and said one word, " Come! " At first the
family did not understand. Then the mill and the bridge
began to tremble, the water roared alarmingly, and all the
air was full of grumblings. The men and the woman
were too frightened to move. The visitors never spoke
again, but they lifted the children from their beds and
carried them out, the parents watching as if some spell
had been cast upon them. In a few minutes the silent
strangers returned and led away the man and wife, re-
turning again for the two brothers. But one of these
scoffed at their precautions. The mill was trembling to
its foundations, but he would not move. So they and
the other brother departed and left him. The obedient
one was conducted to where the remainder of the family
had been bestowed in safety, on the opposite hillside,

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ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

some little way further up the steep ravine. When they
were all assembled there, dazed and trembling, a deafen-
ing report thundered out, followed by the crash of falling
masonry. It took the poor contadini a few minutes to re-
gain their senses enough to look round. The strangers
had disappeared and were never heard of again. Half
the hillside had been hurled into the stream, and the un-
believing brother had been engulfed when the mill and the
bridge were swept away. There was one curious feature
of the story. The rescued ones declared that the slide
had taken place before they were conducted out of the
doomed building, and that the " Angels " had led them
over the still trembling rocks without letting their feet
touch the ground.

In spite of the general atmosphere of unrest and the
close vicinity of war to our gates, we returned to Rome
towards the end of September, i860. The battle of Cas-
telfidardo had been fought and lost; General Lamori-
ciere had been beaten; the brave Marquis de Pimodan
had been killed by a traitor * among his own men, and
things looked very dark for the Holy Father. But the
French garrisons were still in Rome, and so long as they
remained, the city itself would be safe. We Romans
were very fond of our French protectors; they seemed
much nearer relations than the horrid " Italians " we had
been seeing in Siena.

Since I am only writing a family chronicle and my peo-
ple's little views may therefore be recorded without

* The man was rewarded by a lucrative appointment in Turin soon after-
wards.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

apology for their unimportance, I had better say here that
from the time we came home that year these underwent
a curious change. Perhaps the much lauded march of
destructive progress was coming too near home to be
quite pleasant; Rome was a delightful place to live in
just as it was; and the growls of revolution doubtless
reminded my mother of the bad days of 1848, which had
made a deep impression on her. Be that as it may, I
was aware of a growing respect around me for my hero,
Pius IX, and I would sometimes hear great anxiety ex-
pressed as to what would happen should the French
troops be withdrawn ! It was an open secret that Napo-
leon III was getting tired of the situation, which certainly
was a thorny one for him; the rest of Italy had already
taken up the cry, "A Roma!" and although Victor
Emmanuel had always declared that the Holy Father
should not be molested in his capital, his French allies
knew him well enough to realise that if sufficient pressure
were brought to bear upon him he would yield to it. The
man was wax in the hands of the astute and resolute
plotters around him. Cavour had always been held up
to me as the ideal statesman, with Garibaldi as his twin,
but from the day when he announced in the Parliament
in Turin that Rome was the proper capital of Italy, and
must be annexed as soon as possible, his halo began to
grow dim in our old villa.

Children are queer creatures. The one thing I felt I
could not part with was the French sentinel at our gate,
and his comrades in the quarters at the corner of the Via
Strozzi opposite. Ever since I could remember anything,

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the good soldier in the baggy red trousers had stood be-
fore his little stone sentry box to the left of our front
door. As for the men, I knew them all ; each was a friend,
— and had smiled and nodded to me as I trotted past,
dressed for the Pincio ; and the bright fixed bayonet and
saucy-looking kepi represented everlasting safety and pro-
tection to my mind. The men loved us, not only because
we were children and all soldiers love children, but be-
cause ever since a terribly cold winter many years before,
when one poor fellow was frozen to death in the sentry
box, my mother sent down a cup of hot coffee on the stroke
of twelve every night for the man on guard. It was a
little thing to do, but they appreciated it.

The building they guarded was the prison for women,
and sad pale faces used to watch us from behind the
heavy iron bars. Besides our own it was the only house
in the whole great Piazza except the Institution for the
Deaf and Dumb, for which some of the still standing halls
and arches of the Baths of Diocletian beyond the church
of Santa Maria degli Angeli, had been utilised. Beyond
this again came the famous Moses fountain, always
pointed out to me as an example of the terrible fate which
overtakes inefficiency when allied to ambition. The artist
who modelled the " Moses," in the time of our own Sixtus
V, thought himself a second Michelangelo, and imagined
that he had outdone that master's splendid figure in San
Pietro in Vincoli. But when he saw his statue in place,
too short by a foot for its stodgy breadth, he was so over-
come by despair that he cut his throat !

The Piazza di Termini is so changed now that old in-

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

habitants would have difficulty in recognising it at all,
but for the unhappy Moses, who stands where he has
stood since 1587. It is quite a pleasure when I pass that
way to see his ugly face again.

Two new faces appeared in Rome, in that winter of
1 860-1861, faces which interested me deeply, those of
" Bombino," Francis II of Naples, and his beautiful,
tragic-looking wife. She was a heroine; the story of her
indomitable courage and persistence during the long siege
of Gaeta, when she practically took command, passed
most of her time on the fortifications, and did all she
could to encourage and cheer the troops, had made her
famous. Her husband was weak, as the Bourbons can
be weak; not bad, or cruel, like his father and grand-
father, but a gentle, discouraged creature who knew that
the forces of his time were too great for him to cope
with.* As I remember him, he was a fair young man with

* A stronger man than Francis could easily have won back the Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies, for, in spite of the oppressions of his predecessor, "Bomba "
(so called after his order for the bombardment of Palermo in 1848), the country
people were deeply attached to the dynasty. The Plebiscites obtained in
Naples and Palermo, whether genuine or the reverse, in no way indicated the
opinions of the remainder of the population. In 1861 the resistance throughout
the Kingdom of Naples took on such proportions that Victor Emmanuel was
obliged to send large bodies of troops to overcome it. The people, though
barely organised and poorly armed, fought stubbornly, and were assisted by
such of the Neapolitan soldiers as had remained faithful to their King. When
the invaders finally conquered the loyalists, the latter were punished with
frightful barbarity. The painstaking German historian, Dr. Muhlfeld, himself
an ardent liberal and an enthusiastic admirer of Victor Emmanuel and Gari-
baldi, gives the following figures for loyalist losses in the final engagement:
1,848 prisoners shot at once ; 7,127 a few hours afterwards; 10,604 killed in the
battle; 13,620 sent to prison. Yet "historians" of to-day tell us that "the
new regime was hailed with joyful acclamations all through the south!" There
was much trouble also in Sicily, but the resistance there was less obstinate on
the whole, and the chief authorities had certainly been heavily bribed On any

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ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

pale eyes and a light moustache, and he never appeared
in public except in a closed carriage. When his wife ac-
companied him they were always silent, and her brilliant
dark eyes and small flashing face made a strange contrast
to his insignificant appearance. She was a sister of Eliz-
abeth, Empress of Austria, and once, somewhere about
this time, I think, the latter came down to Rome to pay
her a visit. I saw them pass together one bright morning
in the Piazza di Spagna, talking eagerly in their little
brougham. They were dressed alike, in black, with big
white lace ties under their pretty chins; they wore no
covering over their splendid brown hair, and the sun was
shining right in their eyes. I saw the Empress of Aus-
tria many times in after days — and knew her fairly well,
too, — but this was the only occasion on which I ever saw
the slightest animation in her countenance.

By the time I grew up, married, and went to live in
Vienna, she had become a mere statue, a very beautiful,
silent automaton. While I was there there was a ques-
tion of a fresh appointment in her Household. The Em-
press, in her mute way, fixed on one of the available
names in the list proposed to her. Her adviser suddenly

matter of importance one would hesitate to accept the testimony of Baron de
Rimini, the spy and murderer who took pay from and betrayed almost every
crowned head in Europe; but he could have had no particular motive for lying
when jotting down the sums paid to himself and others for various atrocities,
so there may be some truth in his casual statement that General Lanza, the
Commandant of Palermo, received one million francs as the price of his sur-
render to Garibaldi. What is incontrovertible is that Lanza shut up his army
of 25,000 men in the fortress that day and forbade all opposition to the invaders.
Two faithful officers succeeded in getting a battalion together and attempted
to hold the city. They were arrested by Lanza's orders, and treated as crimi-
nals, and their followers, to a man, publicly executed for their loyalty to King
Francis.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

remembered that the lady who bore it suffered under a
serious disqualification.

"I am afraid, your Majesty, that Countess Z —
won't do. She is stone deaf."

" Thut nix," the Empress replied. " Ich spreche nie
mit meinen Damen." (That's nothing, I never speak to
my ladies.) And the appointment was confirmed.

I think Francis II of Naples, her brother-in-law, was
really relieved at being allowed to retire from public
life. The annals of the two preceding reigns had been
so conspicuously bad that although the Neapolitans
proper had accepted him — the Sicilians would never
have done so for any length of time. Sicily has very
little in common with the pleasant kingdom across the
Straits of Messina. It is altogether Saracen where it is
not Greek; it has always aimed at being autonomous;
and the Saracens have long memories when injuries such
as they had suffered, have been inflicted. The people
had hated Ferdinand I, Francis I, and Ferdinand II,
with ever increasing virulence, and had drawn down on
themselves terrible retribution for their repeated attempts
to throw off the oppressive yoke of the tyrants. Even
to-day it is enough to mention the name of " Bomba "
anywhere in the South to draw forth some expression of
detestation or scorn — and, perhaps, if one is lucky, some
anecdote of the amiable Ferdinand II, who earned the
nickname by his orders for the bombardment of Messina
(in 1848), carried out by General Filangieri who was
created Duke of Messina for the exploit.

As far north as Rome, the name of " Bomba " still

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ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

evoked explosions of wrath and mockery long after I was
grown up. The word is the common term for a tall hat,
and if, during the license of Carnival, any individual was
daring or ignorant enough to appear in the Corso with this
ornament he was fortunate if he escaped serious hurt. I
have seen the whole seething crowd from one end of the
street to the other, turn on such an one, and, with yells
of " Bomba ! Bomba ! " pursue him with missiles of every
kind till some charitable group on the pavement would
open, drag him in and spirit him away down a side street
to recover as best he might from the results of his
temerity.

Ferdinand's caprices were almost as unbearable as his
cruelties. A friend of my brother's, the Duke of Ter-
ranova, a Sicilian magnate, told us that in his grand-
father's time Ferdinand took it into his head to forbid
his subjects in Sicily to harness four horses to a coach;
that was a bit of ostentation that he reserved for himself,
and he imposed a fine of one thousand scudi (dollars) for
every horse, each time the regulation was infringed. The
then Duke of Terranova refused to have his equipage
thus shorn of splendour, and every day for an entire
month appeared in public in Palermo driving his coach
and four, with a thousand dollar note pinned to the head-
strap of each horse.

Every evening when he descended at the door of his
palace again after his drive, the four notes were sent to
his sovereign with his compliments, till, the month being
ended, he considered that he had done enough to vindi-
cate his independence and show his scorn of the absurd

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

regulation. " He was a great old man, my grandfather 1 "
the Duke concluded, adding, with a wry face. " That
is why I am such a poor one ! "

Poverty is a relative matter — for Dukes — and did
not press very hardly on our cheery friend, I imagine.
He had an exceedingly pretty wife — a Spanish princess
of sorts, who spoke little, smiled only with her eyes and
always sat bolt upright in her chair, for all the world like
a queen receiving homage, except that one very Vandyke
hand would rest lightly on her hip — the traditional at-
titude of the Spanish woman. She explained to us that
from the time she could sit up at all she had never even
felt the back of a chair. " That is the way girls are
brought up in my country," she added proudly. Her hus-
band was " altra pasta," as we say in Rome. He had
no pre-occupations about dignified deportment, enjoyed
all pleasant things with engaging alacrity, told very funny
stories and laughed like a boy at anything and everything.
I remember that he was much amused at my brother's
account of a visit he had paid to " Mr." Nelson (the Duke
of Bronte), who had a large and productive estate, run
on fine English principles, in a brigand haunted district
of Sicily. In order to ensure himself and his goods from
molestation the owner had to pay a yearly tribute to the
outlaws, and they, in return, guaranteed that nothing and
no one on his property should ever be touched. Marion
said that one of the strangest contrasts he ever beheld
was that between the mediaevally Italian conditions of
the surroundings and the delightfully British atmosphere
of the house itself, where his host's aunt, a charming old

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ITALY IN TRANSITION— 1859 AND i860

maiden lady, ruled supreme and dispensed hospitality just
as she would have done in some well regulated English
country home — roast beef and plum pudding, family
prayers, early dinner on Sundays — and "the maids all
in bed by ten o'clock! "

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CHAPTER XII

SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

1861 — Rocca di Papa — The Artistic Temperament — History on the Spot
— The Sunken Barges — An Independent Town — Disciplined Girls —
Overbeck — Assunta Hoffmann — "A Natural Saint" — The Dead
Cardinal.

FROM the southern windows of the Villa Negroni
I had always looked with some curiosity at a tiny
village hanging against the face of a rock far above all
the other hamlets of the Alban hills. Behind it was a
level terrace in the mountains on which the sun, as it sank
towards the sea in the west, used to throw a carpet of gold.
Behind this again and to the right as I looked at it, rose
Monte Cavo, the culminating peak of the Alban chain,
its sides a mass of sombre verdure, its outline delicately
gradual, with the long smooth slope that always marks
an ancient crater. In the one disastrous summer of my
childhood, passed at Genzano, we little ones were not
included in the excursion parties of our elders, and my
fairy village, Rocca di Papa, was as far away from me
as ever. But in 1861 it was to become a reality, with
some other quite unexpected things.

The year is marked thus in my memory of it: the
American Civil War, Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient
Rome," glorious liberty of soul when I was at last removed
from the nursery and handed over to the governess whom
I had always adored, Cavour's death, the making

186

SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

friends with my hitherto unapproachable eldest sister,
and then my mother's second marriage.

The war affected us in many ways. My people were,
of course, ardent Northerners, and terribly depressed by
the early victories of the Confederates. Money cost
double its value; exchange was in such a condition that
my mother paid $200 for every $100 she received in cash,
and I shall never forget my surpris-e on learning that
money could cost money. Expenses had to be cut down,
but one delightful result of this was that instead of making
a long journey north to escape the summer heats, we were
all sent up to Rocca di Papa, where an apartment was
taken for us in the one big house the place then contained,
the Casa Botti.

Casa Botti had a long villa garden, tumbling in uneven
terraces down the hill from its lower gate and ending in
a thick wood of old chestnut trees. On a level with the
house was the village church and its churchyard, where,
one bright morning, I beheld death for the first time.
Two contadine came wandering in, carrying what I
thought was a large wax doll on a pillow gaily ornamented
with pink rosettes. But the doll had no pink on its cheeks,
and when the priest and sacristan came out with book and
vestments, I understood. The thing on the pillow was
a dead baby. The churchyard was paved with big flat
stones that had numbers on them, and one of these had
been pried up. The priest read the prayers and sprinkled
the holy water. Then the tiny corpse was dropped into
the hole, the stone was replaced, the woman who carried
the cushion tucked it under her arm* she and her com-

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

panion went away, and the funeral was over. I rushed
down into the chestnut wood to try to forget all about
it. The first sight of death is rather terrifying, whether
it comes when one is ten or a hundred years old.

But in spite of the close neighbourhood of the grave-
yard, Casa Botti was a very cheery place, and the months
passed there were some of the happiest in my life, except
that my dear mother was not with us. Her health had
been unsatisfactory for some time past, and she had gone
to Ems for a cure, leaving us four with Helen Salter, the
dear bright Boston girl who had returned with us from
America three years earlier, a governess of a kind that
anxious parents do not seem to be able to obtain in these
days of diplomas and certificates. She was very highly
educated herself, and made our studies one long treat, by
her sympathy and imagination, and her own keen interest
in everything around her. She was not in the least
daunted by being put in sole charge of the family, with
the tyrannical old servants to manage and that beloved
handful of a girl, my sister Annie, to keep in some kind
of subjection. Annie was now sixteen and had conducted
her own education for four years. As soon as she was
twelve she had, with characteristic finality, informed my
mother and Miss Salter that she had done with school-
room lessons; they bored her and she considered them a
mere waste of time. What were geography and arith-
metic to her? She was quite sure she should never re-
quire to know anything about such idiotic subjects. As
for reading, she would see to that — she had never done
anything else, and her room already resembled the sanc-

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SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

turn of some middle-aged bookworm. She had her own
piano, an old Erard of sweetest tone, and she played
divinely. Our Danish music master, Raunkilde, quite a
famous professor in his way, said he gave her lessons for
the pleasure to himself. By the time she was fifteen she
knew all that he could' teach her, and he advised the as-
sistance of Sgambati, then a very young man of already
marvellous attainments. Dear Mustafa was her singing
master, and to these she had added a Latin teacher, one
Sparano, who took her through the Italian classics, but
did not get her far in Latin — she soon dropped that
study. She really had the artistic temperament so
often claimed nowadays by the inefficient and the lazy
— the people whom my mother scornfully termed " the
great army of the incapables." Annie specialised, but
whatever she did was beautifully and thoroughly done.
Her drawing was a delight — she had the genius of car-
icature, and every funny incident and quaint personality
was immortalised in her note books. A few years later
she amused herself with flower painting, and treated her
masses and colours with a boldness and delicacy which
changed the old ladylike accomplishment into a virile art.
Then, tired of the brush, she would take up her needle
and paint pictures with that. She never made a design;
all that was needed was the flowering branch, the posy or
the garland on the table before her, and the picture grew
into the satin or linen with the rapidity of magic. She
never would use new silks, and the great basket, tumbling
over with hundreds of tossed and tangled skeins in the
wildest confusion, would be set in the sun to mellow and

189

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

fuse into shades that no money could buy. Once, after
her marriage, she was bored to death in the wilds of
Poland and felt that she must invent a new art. She was
wandering round the estate and her glance fell on some
of the sheets of damaged copper thrown away from the
distillery which is the chief source of revenue to the West
Prussian landowner.

A few weeks later my mother received a wall panel in
pale gold, on which a great branch of bay stood out in
splendid relief. Every leaf was modelled and veined to
the life, with its sappy curves and resolute point, and the
whole was executed in the dull green bronze so familiar
to Roman eyes. A large mirror frame of olive leaves
followed — a real work of art — and finally a note in
Annie's mad-butterfly handwriting, explaining that the
whole had been cut out with nail scissors (now out of
commission — please send another pair) and modelled
with fingers — which in consequence were really too sore
to hold a pen; and — oh, yes — the green patina had
been obtained by burying the copper in the garden when
the work was done.

But her crowning gift was her music, and I, who had
all the amateur's emotional delight in it (the real musician
is never emotional) was lifted into realms of unspeakable
happiness when she played to me, as she did every evening
at Rocca di Papa, to send me to sleep. My favourite
" piece " was always kept for the last, the tema of Bee-
thoven's Twelfth Sonata. When I hear it now, I am a
little girl again, snuggling down in a huge white bed in
a brick-floored room, with the white curtains waving in

190

SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

the night breeze and the shaded light coming through the
open door leading into the " sala " — our only sitting
room, where Annie had promised to play on till she knew
I was asleep. That one act of loving kindness laid all the
ghosts that had haunted me ever since the dreadful Bor-
dentown nights, and until some years later, when Augustus
Hare, the king of goblin story tellers, invaded my peace,
I was never afraid of the dark any more.

It was never very dark at Rocca di Papa, somehow.
The bare, square house was all windows, the sun caught it
at every angle; there were big " vasche," washing foun-
tains, in the courtyard, where the contadine thumped our
print frocks with stones and sang all the time; the kind
chestnut woods were all around, carpeted in the late sum-
mer with cyclamens, each a ruby butterfly on a jacinth
stem, rising from the flat leaves so mystically patterned
in white and lined with crimson. The citron perfume of
them filled the air in the hot afternoons with a wild orien-
tal sweetness. I was so amused when I first went to Eng-
land, a year later, to find cyclamens in pots, in green-
houses! That, and the price of grapes, a shilling a
pound, convinced me that England was a poverty stricken
country, not even redeemed by the extraordinary clever-
ness of the inhabitants, who could all speak English, a
most unusual accomplishment where I came from !

My Marion had accompanied me in the emigration to
the schoolroom, and he and I were made very happy in
the spring of that year by obtaining possession of a copy
of Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome." I suppose every
child loves the ring of these stirring ballads, but for us

191

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

they were the chronicles of much loved heroes and well
known places. As soon as Helen Salter got possession
of us she took advantage of our natural familiarity with
great names and landmarks to teach us Roman history —
as it was accepted then — on the spot and from life, so
to speak. Tradition was the only authority for many a
moving tale, but oh, how real it all was to us ! Caesar's
blood on Pompey's statue; the exact spot in the Forum
where Mark Antony had stood when he began, " Friends,
Romans, countrymen! " (we were not too young to know
at least our Roman Shakespeare by heart), the sunken
piers of Horatius' bridge; Tarpeia's rock, and the bal-
cony whence the infamous Tullia had watched the chariot
wheels roll over her father's dead body; the terraces of
the palace of the Caesars and the mournful arches of the
Coliseum — these were our classrooms, and never did
eager little minds feast so joyously on instruction. When
we went to Rocca di Papa we made many another excur-
sion into antiquity. I quite refuse to believe the archae-
ologists when they tell me that Hannibal never camped
on the fern covered plateau at the foot of Monte Cavo.
I know better! That far he came, with his Carthagenian
hordes, purposing to descend on Rome. And then, be-
holding the strength and greatness of the city, lying along
the Tiber like an unsheathed sword, he turned and crept
away, daunted and fear stricken, to look for easier con-
quests. Marion and I spent many a summer afternoon,
searching for relics of him and his army among the ferns
and thyme; but since we obtained no results we grew
fonder of climbing the winding Roman road which led —

192

SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

still leads — to the summit of the hill. Its flat stones had
been worn by illustrious steps, those of victorious gen-
erals to whom the jealous city denied a public triumph
within her walls, but who were permitted to celebrate one
here. It was a long, hot walk, and when we reached the
top we used to sit down and rest in the porch of the Pas-
sionist Monastery which Cardinal York, the last of the
Stuarts, built round and over the ruins of one of the most
ancient of all temples, that of Jupiter Latiaris, where the
Latins used to pray before ever Alba Longa (our own
Albano) mothered Rome into being. Timidly we would
ring the bell, and in a few minutes a lay brother, all in
black, with the white Passionist badge on his breast, would
put his head out, disappear, and return with bread and
wine — the everlasting elements of charity — in his hands
for our refreshment.

When we had made our little offering in return, we
would go and sit on the low wall of square black stones
that still shut in a sacred ilex, supposed to be coeval with
the temple, and look over the hills sinking away to1 Civita
Lavinia, the Campagna, and the sea.

When we had been very good we were allowed to have
donkeys and ride over to Nemi, under the guardianship
of a tall, gray-haired old peasant known to us as, " Oh!
Ste ! " I believe his name was Stef ano, but as one or
other of us was always in trouble with a big kicking don-
key (pale coffee colour for choice, with a black cross on
its back because its ancestress had borne the Lord on
Palm Sunday) the name was invariably shrieked in the
wildest appellative, and the good man would hardly have

193

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

known himself under any other. He used to guide us
down to the very shore of the mysterious lake lying in
its deep green cup, and let us get a glimpse of the two
sunken barges, far, far under water, which had floated on
its surface, gay with flags and music, when, more than
eighteen hundred years before our time, Caligula came
here for a holiday. And then there was the " emissary,"
a spot of tragic interest where the doomed slaves who
dug the tunnel to draw off the water from the swollen lake
had all been drowned as the last blow was struck, and
the flood rushed through. Think what all this meant to
a child like my brother ! Small wonder that Roman Italy
was his mind's chosen home !

We were fed on Latium, steeped in its sunshine, awed
by its strength, inspired by its spirit, till it was more our
world than that of to-day could ever be. " To-day " has
all these treasures at its disposal, but we seem to have en-
tered at last on the real " Dark Ages," in which the
intellectual poverty is so great that the masses do not
know gold for currency when they see it. I forget where
it Was that one of us had occasion to reward a country-
man for some service with a gold piece. He looked at it
dubiously for a moment and then said, " It is very pretty
— but — it is not money. I think I would rather have
money please." When the same sum was counted out
to him in silver and copper he took it thankfully and went
away feeling like a millionaire.

Early memories of beauty and grandeur provide a men-
tal capital of which all the after disasters of life cannot
diminish the value, or tarnish the brilliance, and many

194

SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

of ours are connected with the little town on the gray
rock at the foot of Monte Cavo. We passed two long
happy summers there under Helen Salter's genial rule,
and in our constant excursions came to know every land-
mark of the Alban hills, from Marino to Velletri, from
Genzano to Monte Porzio and Rocca Priora. It is a
country of ever varying scenery and interest, mounting
from rich vine and olive gardens to heights covered with
wide spreading forests of oak and chestnut; the open
spaces are carpeted with a turf as fine and green as any
park can show; the streamlets run between banks of
maidenhair and forget-me-not. And on every point of
vantage for enrichment or defence stands some small
mediaeval town, with its castle palace of the master,
Colonna or Orsini, Sforza or Chigi or Savarelli, proud,
isolated, fortified still, with its big church, its fountained
square, its own little memories of independence and im-
portance. Rocca di Papa had belonged to the Cenci
family and the murder of Francesco Cenci took place in
the castle of which now only a few traces remained.
Later, I believe, the Orsini had a stronghold here, but in
my day it owned no feudal lord. No great empty palace
dominated it, and the people were of a sturdier, less
servile type than the inhabitants of most of these self-
contained little towns. They had a plainer costume than
the Albanesi, and were proudly conservative of their own
traditions. The parish priest was the great authority
and he kept his flock in splendid order, permitted no
quarrels, no gaming — and no scandals. The great pre-
occupation in the " Castelli," as the mountain villages

l95

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

are called, is to keep the girls out of harm's way; I have
heard the preacher say to the women, " Never mind
about the men — they were made of different stuff to
you! They can be sometimes bad and sometimes good
— but you cannot! A woman must be either an angel
or a devil — there is no place between, for her! "

The girls as well as the men had to work in the fields at
the foot of the hills — malarious stretches where it is not
safe to stay after dark, but where a pair of lovers might
linger unobserved. So a very strict discipline had been
established. At dawn the church bells began to ring and
every one in the place came to early Mass. Then the girls
formed in procession, were counted, and went down the
steep road, under orders to stay in two's and two's all
day as they went about their work. Towards four o'clock
they formed up again and returned, the priest standing at
the entrance to the town to count them again and be sure
that none were loitering alone in danger's way as the dark
came on. If one were missing I have known the good
man to walk for four or five miles down into the country
till he found her and brought her back to her anxious
mother. But the others did not wait for the wandering
lamb. Above the town is a " galleria," a chestnut shaded
road, cut like a terrace in the rock, and leading to a
church, called the Madonna del Tufo. Here a great
mass of the yellow tufa fell out from the hillside one
day, hundreds of years ago, and lo, and behold, on its sur-
face was a beautiful painting of the Madonna and the
Bambino Gesu ! So a church was built around it, and in
my time a hermit, a Capuchin who had obtained permis-

196

SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

slon to lead the life of a solitary, had installed himself in
a little cell leaning up against the church, and took charge
of things generally. He was such a jolly old hermit,, al-
ways smiling and ready to talk to us through the bars.
Along the " galleria " the maidens of Rocca di Papa came
every evening in a long procession, saying the rosary to-
gether, and singing the " Ave Maris Stella, " and " Salve
Regina," and many another beautiful old hymn when
the Rosary was ended. They were good, pretty girls
and had very sweet voices. When they had said their
night prayers in the little church they came back to the
town and their mothers took them indoors — for were
not the young men, those dangerous wolves, standing in
knots on the Piazza, trying to make eyes at the precious
lambs? And what decent man would marry a girl con-
victed of even returning such a glance?

There was a convent of Poor Clares close by, and they
kept a free school for the little maids who were too young
to work in the fields. They taught them to sew, and to
read, but not to write, because, they said, girls of that
class would never take up a pen except to indite a love
letter, and it was wise to avoid that snare.

On one night of the summer, the 29th of June, the
whole population stayed out of doors, to watch the illu-
mination of St. Peter's, almost more beautiful at that
distance than from the tower of Villa Negroni, whence
I had always seen it before. As the quick southern
night came down, laying a veil of dusky purple over the
wide Campagna, the outline of the dome rose up like
a globe of stars from a cloudy sea, the great cross clear

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and argent, twenty miles away. At that distance we
could not hear the cannon signal for the change, and
so it came silently, as if some golden planet had dropped
from the sky to set the stars aflame. And I fell asleep
watching the lonely loveliness of it all from Casa Botti's
windows.

The place was almost unknown to the outside world
then and only one other family from Rome had chosen
it for villeggiatura. The high air, the ascetic ways of
it, appealed to that holy old artist, Overbeck, and he
and his daughter and granddaughter rented a little house
at the upper end of the town. We used to see a good
deal of Assunta Hoffmann, a sweet, serious girl, more
Italian than German, and her grandfather used to come
and talk to us sometimes. He was a gentle, pale old
man, with the most childlike simplicity of manner, a
personality so transparent and candid that he hardly
seemed to belong to gross humanity at all. His intense
seriousness puzzled, yet attracted me. He was evidently
so happy, yet he seemed so awed, as if always seeing
some beautiful, grave company of saints and angels in-
visible to us. I had numbers of engravings of his pic-
tures, for they were always on sale at Spithover's, the
Catholic bookseller in Piazza di Spagna, on whose ever-
alluring photographs and prints we spent our entire
pocket money; but I never saw the recluse artist till we
fell in with him at Rocca di Papa. He never paid or
received visits in Rome, but up there he took us into
grace, feeling sorry, I think, for the wild little Protest-
ants who loved his pictures so well.

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I knew that these were not the highest art, — they
were scarcely human enough for that, — but their purity
and loveliness was very refreshing to a little mind that
often felt the world was too big, and complicated, and
gorgeous, to be altogether a restful place, and that
reached out constantly for what was ever denied it, a
sure basis of belief to build and grow upon. It seemed
so strange that my dear elders were so enthusiastically
approving of every beautiful thing in Catholic art — that
every legend of the Madonna and the saints should be
household words among us, and yet that the heart and
inspiration of it all, the religion itself, should be a con-
demned thing with which we must have nothing to do.
How passionately I envied one of my childish friends
who, a little later, became a pupil of the Sacre Coeur in
Rome! There were no tormenting puzzles for her, no
problems of right and Wrong fighting out their helter-
skelter battles by themselves in her mind! All was ex-
plained, regulated, blest; she could take every question
that came up to the kind, wise nuns, who knew so well
how little girls felt about things and who were never
too busy to listen to their confidences. My life was
richer than hers in a thousand ways, but even then there
were moments when I would have given it all — the
colour, the interest, the story books, and the art and the
history — to be where she was — safe.

The absence of sufficiently definite teaching on the high-
est subject of all, through those early years, was a great
misfortune to me, but it did not arise from any intentional
neglect on the part of my dear mother She was herself

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so divinely good by nature, so incapable of a base or
unkind thought, that evil simply did not exist for her
until, with the changing of the times, its existence was
forced upon her conviction several years later. The
formless religion of her own training had nothing to
do with her spiritual education; that had been bestowed
upon her as an infused grace, by which she regulated
all her thoughts and actions. Her own crystal clearness
of character and warmth of heart as well as her intense
humility led her to believe that others were like her,
and the sufferings of my early childhood were due to
this mistake. For her, everybody was good till proved
otherwise; everybody believed in God and was His be-
loved child — Anglican or Non-conformist, it mattered
not who was around us, so long as nobody tried to
draw us into the Catholicism which had so long been
anathema to her own people that even her gentle spirit
had imbibed some of their unreasoning terror of it. She
was, as a great Catholic authority once said to me in
her later days, " A natural saint." And he added: " She
belongs to the Soul of the Church, as do all truly sin-
cere Christians who for one cause or another have not
grasped the necessity of belonging to the Body of the
Church. Early training moulds certain minds for their
entire lives. Beware of attempting to disturb your
mother by persuasion or controversy now! You would
only do harm. She will go straight to Heaven when
she dies."

My dear little governess, Helen Salter, was another
of the people who are born good, but, though I did

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not know it till long afterwards, her convictions were
undergoing a great change at the time of which I have
been writing, and when she went back to America in
1862 she became a Catholic and entered a religious
order, together with her younger sister, who had charge
of the education of some little friends of ours, — chil-
dren of a southern family all but ruined by the Civil
War. The Rocca di Papa arrangement had answered
so well for us that they came and joined us there the
next summer and were a most welcome addition to the
tribe. We must all have been in extraordinarily good
health and spirits, for a really ghastly happening in the
house did not depress us in the least, though it shows
how enormously the knowledge of hygiene has advanced
since those days.

Casa Botti was a very large house, and we and our
friends only occupied the second and third floors of it.
On the first lived — and died — a certain Cardinal whose
name I forget, but who must have been a man of most
heavenly patience if he was not stone deaf, for there
were eight of us racing about over his head and up and
down the stairs through all the daylight hours. Once
my brother Marion tumbled out of bed in the dead of
night and came down on the bricks with a thud that
brought us all shrieking from our rooms — to find the
healthy little man still sound asleep on the floor ! Well,
the poor, good Cardinal died, and for some reason which
I have never heard explained, it was found impossible
to dispose of his body. On the first floor landing was
a pretty chapel with wrought iron doors, through which

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we could see the altar and the tall candles and a cur-
tained picture. After the Cardinal's death we saw some-
thing else — a big black coffin just inside the bars.
There it lay for five solid weeks of the Italian summer.
No sanitary precautions had been taken, and the coffin
was an ordinary wooden casket. The horror of cor-
ruption grew more and more unbearable, but no one
entered a protest of any kind. We were told to keep
our handkerchiefs to our mouths as we passed the
chapel, that was all; and we got so accustomed to the
dreadful atmosphere that when it was particularly odious
we used to laughingly warn the other children that the
Cardinal was walking upstairs.

Our two governesses must have had splendid nerves.
They were in sole charge of the two establishments,
while a violent epidemic of smallpox raged in the town.
The one street of it sloped up from the piazza before
our front door, and every time we went out we could
see a long line of yellow flags fluttering from the doors
of the houses where the victims were lying. Of course
those who succumbed were buried in the churchyard
under our windows, and though we never passed up the
street, all our food came from there, to say nothing
of "Oh! Ste!" with his donkeys and padded saddles.
Nobody seemed at all disturbed. We were not even
vaccinated afresh. The scourge died out, the Cardinal's
remains were at last removed, and when the summer
was over eight young people were taken back to Rome
in prime condition.

Two or three weeks before that move my mother

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SUMMER LIFE IN THE ALBAN HILLS

had returned to us, married to Mr. Luther Terry. He
was an old friend of the family, an artist from New
England, who had spent most of his life in Rome.
Some definite changes naturally followed this event. For
obvious reasons my mother did not care to return to
Villa Negroni, and, pending the finding of another suit-
able house, we moved to Casa Dies (now a hotel), close
to the Pincio and in the very heart of the foreign quarter.
For our villa my mother found some tenants, — two
pleasant, artistic English women, — who quite under-
stood our feelings for the place and who made us wel-
come when we returned, as we did day after day, to
wander sadly in the gardens of our never forgotten
home. The time was not very far off when, as an
adherent of the Holy Father, Prince Massimo was to
be forcibly expropriated, the historic building destroyed,
and the matchless gardens swept away to make room
for mean and hideous streets now inhabited by the low-
est classes in the whole wrecked city.

203

CHAPTER XIII

CAVOUR, HIS CONTEMPORARIES AND SUCCESSORS

The Shadow of Doom — Cavour's Manifesto — Cavour's Character — "A
Free Church in a Free State" and an Explanation — The Freemason
Programme — An Instance of Masonic Methods — Carducci — Napoleon
Ill's Responsibility for the Death of Cavour — Cavour's End — Minghetti
and Donna Laura — A Gratuitous Attack — A Hopeless Passion — Miss
Sewell — "Garibaldi's Englishman."

MY childhood came to an end in 1862. The next
three years of my life were spent at school and
the following five were so filled with interest in public
events, so coloured by the course of them, that it seems
strange, in looking back, to realise that I was only nine-
teen when they ended — with the crash of 1870. They
were years crowded with personal joys and sorrows, and
thrilling with the vitality of my own eager youth, but
from the day, March 25, 1861, when Cavour, in his
famous speech in the Parliament of Turin, declared that
Rome was the ancient capital of Italy and must be re-
stored to her, there was ever the shadow of doom and
loss in the background, conflict around us, ruthless hos-
tility knocking at our gates.

Cavour's manifesto sounded like truth to foreigners,
who, in their blank ignorance of history assumed that
the chief city on Italian soil had naturally once been the
capital of the country. But it was a direct contradiction
of fact. Rome ceased to be the capital of Italy when
she ceased to be the capital of the world. Never in any
single chronicle after the fall of the Roman Empire was

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the city alluded to in the sense of Cavour's statement.
That statement gave profound dissatisfaction in Turin
and all through the northern provinces, anxious to keep
the centre of power at home. But the project had been
from the first clearly formed in the minds and counsels
of the makers of the Italian Revolution, and it was given
to Cavour to proclaim it to the world in almost his last
public speech. He died a few weeks afterwards, but
his colleagues, Minghetti and Mamiani, faithfully car-
ried out his programme and did their best to complete
his work.

Cavour's character is a difficult one to understand if
judged by his actions alone. It presents contradictions
which alternately plead for and against his sincerity.
I think that like some greater men, he was sincere in
his very contradictions — detesting and persecuting the
Church with the zeal of an iconoclast, yet believing in his
frightened soul, that only she held the keys of Heaven
and of Hell, and that final rebellion against the faith
meant an eternity of desolation and pain. He lived
excommunicate; he formed with his fellows a plan of
attack upon Religion which only the religious loyalty
of Italians has defeated so far but which is now in effect
to the letter in France — yet he could not die without a
priest. He begged for the Sacraments and received them
— and then once more pronounced his war cry " Libera
Chiesa in libero stato," with his last breath.

It is a task beyond human power or jurisdiction to
unravel the complication of motives which ruled his mind
in such quick and stormy alternation; but the axiom,

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" A free Church in a free State," requires the explanation
which Cavour did not think prudent to give except to
his deeply initiated fellow workers, who, less cautious,
speedily divulged it to a scandalised world. It is word
for word the Freemason programme embodied in the
Loi Briand to-day. Here is a rough sketch of the main
points, drawn from the public speeches and writings of
its supporters.

The Church is a mere private association dependent
for its existence on the good will and protection of the
State.

The Church cannot own property of any kind. All
moneys, endowments, buildings, as well as all the acces-
sories of ritual, belong only to the State. These shall be
put into the hands of lay commissioners who shall pay
all Bishops, Parish Priests and other functionaries what
they see fit.

The Church shall not nominate its own functionaries.
The people shall elect their own Bishops, etc., and de-
prive them of office when they choose.

All religious orders must be suppressed.

No ecclesiastics may be employed in the education of
children and religion shall be entirely banished from that
domain.

The Catholic Faith shall be ranked with all other forms
of religion and shall in no way take precedence of Protes-
tantism, Judaism, or any other association of belief or
non-belief.*

* For further details see " Le plan de la Franc-maconnerie en Italie et en
France" par Leon Dehon. (Paris, Lethielleur.)

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CAVOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

How many of those who still applaud Cavour's war
cry have ever taken the trouble to inquire what it means ?
What tiny schismatic community in a country village in
England or America would submit to the robbery and
oppression which he had the lying audacity to offer to the
Church under the name of Freedom?

The Italians, renegades though they might be, rose up
as one man to forbid the outrage even before Pius IX had
spoken, and, whatever their political opinions regarding
the Papacy, they have, through the length and breadth of
the land, echoed his protests and those of his successors.
They were not lured by the promises of spoil which have
recently weighed with their French neighbours, who,
poor cheated fools, must be wondering to-day where all
the stolen treasure has gone to. To cite one instance
alone, when the Trappists were banished from France
they left property to the value of forty million francs,
built up through centuries of industry (which has greatly
enriched the country) and through the endowment of
wealthy persons who had a legal right to dispose of their
own goods as they pleased. When the money — which
had been promised for old age pensions — was finally
paid into the treasury, exactly seven francs and fifty cen-
times remained!

After the publication of Minghetti's programme it
was impossible any longer to maintain that Cavour had
not planned and hoped for a similar spoliation of the
Church in Italy. It is equally impossible to justify or
explain his mental attitude. He was not a Satanist, like
Carducci, the appointed laureate of the party, but he

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had long been a Freemason of a high degree, and that,
in Italy or France, means an open hater of all religion.
Yet he refused to die without the Sacraments — and,
having received them (through the indulgent charity of a
priest who risked his own future career in administering
them to a non-reconciled excommunicate) he once more
proclaimed himself an enemy of the Church. The most
charitable and probable supposition is that his mind,
confused and weakened by the approach of death, re-
verted without conscious volition to long established
trains of thought after the clearer interval when he had
sought and found reconciliation with his Maker. Other-
wise the aspect of that deathbed would be apt to recall
Lacordaire's criticism on Lamennais' wild socialist epic
in which he makes the victorious populace celebrate the
Sacrament in the blood of kings: " C'est la Revolution
qui fait ses Paques."

Napoleon III, with his greed of territory, was
humanly responsible for Cavour's death. On May 30,
1861, the latter attended for the last time a session of
the Parliament in Turin, in which a railway contract
which he had been arranging was discussed. The pro-
ceedings had included the question of a loan of 500,000
francs for the purpose, but in the midst of the debate
Cavour suddenly received news that the contract had
broken down, and he left the House, in a very angry
mood and complaining of headache.

When he reached his home the servant who admitted
him handed him a letter and recounted afterwards that
he was much alarmed at the impression that it made on

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CAVOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

the Count. While reading it he turned first red, then
deathly pale, and tossed it to the ground with an inartic-
ulate exclamation. Immediately afterwards he stooped,
picked it up and put it into his pocket. From that mo-
ment he became seriously ill with congestion of the brain.

The letter was from Napoleon III, and its purport is
said to have been to the effect that Italy was and must
remain tributary to the Emperor of the French, and that,
in any case, Sardinia must be ceded to France. The
communication seems to have been unexpected and dealt
a terrible blow to the statesman's hopes. He at once
fell a prey to a violent fever. By the third of June he
was delirious and then came a most anxious time for his
associates, who dreaded that some hint of their secret
plans and methods might drop from his unconscious lips.
Every word was hung upon and minute precautions taken
to prevent anything he said from becoming public prop-
erty. The British representative, Hudson, was one of
those who watched by that distressing deathbed, and I
believe it is to him we owe the few details we have of it.

"Italy/' "Rome," "Venice," " Napoleon "— these
were some of the names the sufferer pronounced in his
delirium, and also the sentences, " I will not have a state
of siege." " Italy must rise up again through Freedom."
" Italy cannot go down in failure." On June 5 he re-
gained consciousness, but was much weaker, and his
brother sent for Padre Giacomo to administer the last
Sacraments. It was after receiving them that he repeated
to the priest his oft quoted aphorism, " A free Church in
a free State." He soon became unconscious again but

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his mind cleared a few moments before his death. Early
in the morning of June 6 he stretched out his hand to
Marco Minghetti, who was sitting by his bedside, and
said, " Tutto e salvo! " (Everything is saved!) These
were his last words. A little later he passed away —
having sown seeds of which, if Heaven is merciful, he
cannot now behold the fruits.

His friend Minghetti, the most rabid of church per-
secutors, was in private life a shy, melancholy man, much
dominated by his brilliant and altogether adorable wife,
and, I used to think, rather frightened by her crowd of
too aesthetic friends. He was still a pillar of radicalism
when I was thrown into his society (long after it had
been proved that his attempts to corrupt the conscience
of the Italians had failed on one point at least) and I
was so fond of Donna Laura that it was not possible to
feel much resentment against the samewhat broken, dis-
couraged man who was never known in Rome except as
" Povero Marco" — his wife's invariable formula when
speaking of him.

He was under orders to appear, at least sometimes, at
her famous Sunday receptions, and he would wait till the
room was crowded with worshippers, and some virtuoso,
Liszt or Sgambati, or Rubinstein was sitting at the piano
holding us all spellbound; then Povero Marco, stooping
to dissimulate his great height, would slink in, look de-
spairingly for an acquaintance near the door and cling to
the acquaintance for support, taking no notice of anyone
else until, his twenty minutes ordeal being ended, he
would vanish and be seen no more in that saturnalia of

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CAVOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

high art for two or three weeks. Donna Laura received
in a salon as big as a church, lighted by clerestory win-
dows and surrounded, at their level, by a gallery on which
palms and stuffed peacocks, oriental tapestries and Tur-
kish brasses made a kind of hanging garden a la Gulistan.
Downstairs, so to speak, the body of the church was oc-
cupied by a grand piano, groves of palm and ferns shad-
ing the most enchanting corners just big enough for two,
statues, pictures on easels, cinque cento cabinets, photo-
graphs of all the royalties of Europe affectionately signed
and mounted in truly monarchical frames — antiques of
all sorts, and chairs and divans to accommodate the
hostess' unnumbered friends. Nothing smaller than a
fair sized church would have held it all — and us. Under
each window was an alcove, and these were Donna Laura's
private chapels. In one was her studio, another con-
tained her books — yet a third was the confessional,
where many and many a young married woman whispered
her troubles and temptations into the priestess' sympa-
thetic ear and received the kindest and wisest of counsels
in return.

" Donna Laura " (no one ever called her Madame
Minghetti) was the granddaughter of an Irish exile, born
in France, who rose to be prime minister of the Kingdom
of Naples in the time of the great Napoleon. His son,
Admiral Acton, still kept in touch with his Irish relations,
and " Donna Laura " was rather proud of her British
descent and had made various visits to England. A very
old diplomatist who knew her in her early youth told me
that he saw her during the first of these and that he

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never met a girl of such enchanting originality. They
were all staying at a certain famous house, and Donna
Laura, far from being impressed with the tremendous
atmosphere of the place, gave her opinions on it and all
things English with amusing frankness. " She was an
everlasting surprise to us all," he said. " Quite irre-
pressible — nobody ever knew what she would do or say
next! But she was so pretty and charming that it was
impossible to take offence, and we missed her dreadfully
when she went away." The irrepressibleness must have
been the result of blissful ignorance of the semi-religious
awe with which the British mind regards these great his-
torical establishments. " Yes, I am going to Hatfield
again," said a girl I used to know, a peer's daughter, with
two or three big homes of her own. " Thank heaven,
mother will meet me at the station! If I had to arrive
at that house alone I should sit down on the doorstep
and cry! "

There was nothing at all British in Laura Acton's per-
sonality. In appearance she was a southern Italian,
with a dash of gypsy, a good and beautiful example of a
type of which Princess Metternich showed the opposite
extreme. I have never met two women so alike and yet
so unlike. They had the same amazing gypsy eyes and
olive skin, the same graceful natural figures, the love of
music, the utter contempt of public opinion — the for-
ever nameless quality which made each the chief per-
sonage in the room, whether it were a private salon or an
Imperial ball room. But whereas the Metternich was
repulsively plain, and her atmosphere so " antipatico "

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CAVOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

that I used to fly whenever I saw her approaching, and
felt physically ill one day when she slipped her arm
through mine, Donna Laura was one of the most restful
and sustaining persons I ever came across, always noble
and delicate, so that her outspoken verdicts on men and
things carried conviction without the slightest sense of
shock. She never spoke of politics; I think they were
rather a sore subject with her, for she was a devout,
though silent Catholic, but on every other topic that came
up she had something true or witty to say. Her passion
for music and her worship of great musicians, whether
composers or instrumentalists, did not obfuscate her
views in other directions. These were judicially clear
and sensible, and she possessed that highest of social vir-
tues, she was of her time. She loved and understood
her nineteenth century, and had in a supreme degree the
quality which makes for happiness, a keen sympathetic
interest in everything around her. Yet she had suffered
much; her first marriage had been a bitterly unhappy
one, and the two children of it, a son and a daughter,
had caused her great anxiety. But she had found the
companion she needed in Marco Minghetti, and all his
violent radicalism seemed powerless to disturb the har-
mony of their relation to one another. When I knew
her her character was mellowed to great peace and
gentleness by time, and she was looking steadily for-
ward, refusing to be disturbed by the memory of past
storms. " Je m'efface, ma cherie," she said to me once
when we were discussing the most frivolous of ques-
tions, the tints of some Eastern crapes that I wanted her

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to wear, " let me have the twilight colours near me —
they are all so harmonious to me now." But the old
radiant smile was in her eyes as she spoke and I thought
of Theophile Gautier's lines to Charles Nodier when
the latter humorously complained that his hair was
turning white with age. " These are not the snows of
age, my friend, but the first blossoms of the Eternal
Spring! "

She had been assailed by many temptations, for even
in her later years she could not divest herself of the un-
conscious sovereignty some women are born to exercise
over the hearts of men, but the one theme on which she
grew really grave was the pursuit of young married
women by the masculine freelances of society. Once she
heard that a very pretty and very unhappy woman, an
intimate friend of mine, was in danger of this kind. With-
out waiting for a moment Donna Laura drove to her
house, asked to see her alone and entreated her to put
all personal feeling aside and be stanch to her duty.
" All the rest will pass, my dear," she said, "only be
patient, and you and your husband will outgrow this trou-
ble and come to understand one another. He is the only
person from whom you have a right to demand anything.
Believe me, the man who makes love to a married woman
is the most hopelessly selfish animal that exists. He will
take everything — and never assume a responsibility.
What he means is to have all the happiness and pleasures
of married life without assuming one of the cares or
duties which give it all its stability and dignity."

The last message I had from this dear woman came to

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CAVOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

me just as I was leaving Europe for Japan in 1889 — a
little sheaf of drawings from her own hand, each speaking
of a Roman memory — a bit of the Tiber beyond St.
Peter's, a spray of almond blossoms, and a charmingly
Raphaelesque angel, under which she had written, " Al
Ciel ti guidi." (May he guide thee to Heaven.) When
I returned to Italy she had passed away, and I felt that
that most representative woman of my time was gone.
That she was this must be my excuse for lingering so long
over her memory, on which an American writer made an
utterly gratuitous attack in a story where her protrait was
drawn with a brutal personality unusual even in the lit-
erature of the day. For fear that this should not be clear
enough, her house, her rooms, everything about her was
described with the cynical exactness of the Yellow-jour-
nalist, and then a story was related in which the " elderly
sorceress" as the writer called her, deliberately ensnared
the affections of a good, high minded, young American en-
gaged to an equally spotless New England girl. The girl,
en vraie Americaine, refuses to be deprived of her faith-
less lover, beards the sorceress in her den, and after a
torrent of fine Puritan reproaches for her cruelty and
immorality, insists on having him given back to her; a
demand of which the sorceress perceives the justice, and
which she finally grants. What the good young man
thought about it was not recorded — the author had ap-
parently overlooked the fact that it takes two to make
a bargain.

I do not think that Donna Laura was aware that such
people as stray Americans existed socially, at all. The

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country's representatives in Rome — and elsewhere —
have not of late years been drawn from a class which
could impress a foreigner with the fact. I never
met a single compatriot of mine in her house. The days
when such men as Lowell and Motley, Longfellow, Bay-
ard Taylor, and Agassiz, came and went in my own home
were past when the change of government brought Marco
Minghetti from Turin to Rome ; and the only conclusion
to be drawn from the unkind diatribe is that the writer,
whether man or woman, had been unable to obtain an
invitation to the reunions in which Madame Minghetti
gathered her friends, but never included a churl or a bore.
As Rome is the " Mother of all the orphans," and
bores are the orphans of society, I must confess that they
had a tendency thither, particularly English bores, those
queer, loquacious creatures of one dimension, whose men-
tal excursions have never led them above or below the
single straight line of their own experience. They began
to invade us, as far as I remember, just about 1861,
the date of my stepfather's advent, and somehow found
their way into my home. Up to that time my own im-
pressions of Britishers had been chiefly formed by watch-
ing the Prince of Wales sitting very near me in the Eng-
lish church outside the walls, on Sundays, during his visit
to Rome. I think he was eighteen or nineteen then, a
very pretty boy with bright eyes not always fixed on the
preacher. Fie occupied of course the pew of honour,
facing the chancel, and ours was the first at right angles
to it, so I had ample time for observation during the end-
less sermons of the fiery old parson, Mr. Woodward, who

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CAVOUR AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

had lived so long on sufferance in an enemy's camp that
he had the bearing of a discouraged drill sergeant and
the tones of a leader of a forlorn hope. The Prince was
very good all through the prayers; but when it came to
the sermon he would take one glance at Colonel Bruce
his tutor (a gray-haired old soldier who always looker
straight before him) and then, reassured, would slowly
turn round and search the congregation for a pretty face
on which to rest his weary eyes. Alas, there were so
few! I could sympathise with his disappointment when
scores of beaming old maids and loyal dowagers would
crane forward into his line of vision, all eager to catch a
glance from the heir to the throne! And at those mo-
ments I could hear behind me the heartbroken sighs of a
sentimental young friend of ours, an American girl, who
had conceived a hopeless passion for the Fairy Prince.
Like the young lady in " Lothair," she " lived for the
emotions," and her worship for the royal young gentle-
man led her into the wildest extravagances. She would
follow him as he was dragged about to see the sights of
the town, would pick up a pebble that his foot had
touched, or a weed that he had brushed in passing, and
possessed quite a collection of such precious mementos
over which she wept copiously in her spare time. She was
perfectly frank about her infatuation, and during the car-
nival someone whom we knew played a cruel joke on her,
sending her a box of bonbons and some flowers " with
the kind regrets of Albert Edward." The hoax sealed
her fate. She knew, poor child, that she was outwardly
unattractive, but she was sure the Prince had perceived

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the beautiful, loving heart within. Her joy over his sup-
posed gift was so overwhelming that the perpetrator of
the fraud never had the courage to undeceive her. She
returned to her native country in proud elation of soul,
and, I think, really for the Prince's sake, remained single
all her life.

The next English person whom I looked at with in-
terest, was Miss Elizabeth Sewell, who came to see my
mother once or twice before we left the Villa Negroni.
An arrangement, of which I knew nothing at the time,
was made, and in September, 1862, just after the birth
of a little half sister, my own sister Jennie and I were
sent to England to continue our education under Miss
Sewell's care.

I had travelled so much already that I found the jour-
ney rather uninteresting except for one man whom we
met on the steamer between Civita Vecchia and Mar-
seilles. This was " Garibaldi's Englishman," a myster-
ious person to whom my nurses had sometimes threatened
to hand me over when I was naughty. He was known all
over Italy by that title alone, but was never mentioned so
far as I have seen, in any contemporary records. He was
a gentleman, one of the " legion that never was 'listed,"
who, out of sheer admiration for the last of the Con-
dottieri, attached himself to Garibaldi, guarded, fol-
lowed, served him with whole hearted devotion for sev-
eral years. Nobody ever learned his name or his his-
tory; he came out of nowhere and had disappeared again
into the void when in 1867 the outlaw in the red shirt de-
scended upon us in Rome and stalked through the city

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disguised as a woman. I never heard of Garibaldi's Eng-
lishman again after the day when I saw him in the flesh,
in earnest talk with my stepfather (who was escorting us
to England), leaning against the rail of the vessel and
looking out over the Mediterranean with a sad, puzzled
expression. He was a tall man with grayish hair, " an-
cestral " features, and blue eyes, very upright and sol-
dierly, dressed in rough tweeds and wearing a soft cap.
He had a trick of clasping his hands behind him (nice
hard white hands, they were) and then suddenly looking
round as if to meet an attack. I was lying on a bench,
very limp and seasick, the last time I saw him do this;
his glance met mine and a funny little smile of amusement
and pity suddenly lit up his good grave face. I have
often remembered him and wondered who he was, and
where he went to when the dark took him.

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CHAPTER XIV

AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

Bonchurch — The Three Aunts — "Cranford" and a Bar Sinister — Early
Victorian Principles — The Swinburnes — "Poor Dear Lady Jane" — A
Sight of the Queen — The Marriage of the Prince of Wales — The Queen's
Bonnets — Switzerland — Princess Solms-Braunfels — Prince George and
Spiritism — English Country Life — Annesley — Relics of Mary Chaworth
— Old Resentments — Doctor Howe's Memories of Byron — The House
with a Burden — Oxford. %

I HAVE said elsewhere that there are few trials in life
for which I cannot find consolation in new scenery,
and my pleasure in the English surroundings to which I
was now introduced did much to lessen the pain of leaving
my mother and my Roman home. Miss Sewell and her
sisters lived in Bonchurch, the prettiest spot in the pretty
Isle of Wight, and their roomy house with its unusually
large and well kept garden was like a picture out of one
of my favourite books. The soft sea climate was kind
and balmy when we arrived early in September; most
of the flowers were new to me, but they grew in profusion
along the embowered walks and on the soft turfy lawns;
there were big old trees; and a series of terraces, each
green and shaded, climbed up the precipitous hill behind
the house, in long flights of stone steps — and when one
had surmounted the last of these one came out on the
spicy, wind swept downs, with the good English sky
overhead, and the blue and silver of the Channel stretch-
ing away below.

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

Indoors things were quite as cheerful and friendly. My
sister and I found ourselves installed in a great airy bed-
room furnished with bright chintz. A large bow window
gave us the sun all day and a wide view of the sea. There
was an open fireplace where, for little Italians who
might feel the cold, a grand fire was always lighted for
us in the evenings, and the walls were hung with good
watercolours from the hand of Miss Ellen, the artist of
the family.

But, for the habits and atmosphere of the place, I felt,
during the first few months, that it would have been a
comfort to have a dictionary. It was utterly foreign to
anything I had so far experienced. I felt myself in the
grasp of a discipline so powerful that there was no escap-
ing from it even in thought, so exacting morally that I
was always racing breathlessly to catch up with it, and
yet so convincing and admirable that I could not be happy
till I had fulfilled its demands. I had no complaints to
make about indefiniteness now; in that little world there
was never any doubt about belief or duty. The religion
was Anglican and thorough; the manners those of my
own dear mother; the language pointed and pure, and
the morals so high and honourable that during all my
stay under that kindly roof I cannot remember one case
of deception or fibbing on the part of the girls, or one ex-
pression of suspicion or disbelief, or a single act of in-
justice, on the part of the authorities. If we broke rules,
as of course we did, we were expected to report ourselves
when we brought our " registers " to be filled up in the
evening. These were large bound copy books in which

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

every day of the week for the term had a page to itself
with hours and studies written down. There were marks
for each lesson and classes of totals, " Very good,"
" Good," and (foul disgrace!) "Tolerable." Two bad
marks on one day counted as a " Tolerable," and to have
that written at the foot of the column was a misfortune
that cast its shadow over life for weeks afterwards.
There were no punishments of any kind. We found full
reward or retribution in Miss Ellen's smile or frown on
Saturday evenings when, one by one, she received us
alone to inspect our registers. She was the last authority
in that direction. Miss Elizabeth, God bless her, looked
after our tiresome little characters, watched them with
such wisdom and affection that she held all our hearts in
her hand; and Miss Emma, an invalid who never left
her couch, the youngest of the three sisters, was the smil-
ing recipient of all our hopes and plans and confidences.
To her pretty room we might run whenever we liked,
draw the worn stool up to the side of the prison sofa,
and " just talk!"

As aides-de-camp, formed and trained in the service,
there were two nieces, Eleanor and Emily, always with
us in our studies; we called them by their Christian
names, and they were like kind jolly elder sisters, ad-
vising, warning, directing, and most comradewise, play-
ing with us, all day long. Masters came for special sub-
jects, and there were seven or eight maids under Mrs.
Chambers, the great old cook housekeeper, who fed and
cosseted us till we were as full of health and spirits as
young colts prancing round the paddock. This big estab-

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

lishment was kept up for the benefit of only seven girls —
the good ladies would never take more — of whom I
was the youngest and Mattie Chaplin (afterwards Lady
Radnor) the eldest, and if we were not good and healthy
and happy it was not the fault of our unique guardians.
They were very indignant if " Ashcliff " was called a
school. It was a family home. They had begun by un-
dertaking the education of some nieces whose parents
had to live in India, and as the nieces grew up, and Miss
Elizabeth Sewell's books for the young came to be widely
appreciated, one friend and another had prevailed upon
them to take in young daughters, and so the place had
become much sought after. The vacancies were filled up
years beforehand. One delightful touch shows the ruling
thought of it. Since to the first pupils the Misses Sewell
had been " Aunt Ellen," " Aunt Elizabeth," and " Aunt
Emma," so they remained for every girl who came. And
of all who passed under their hands during their forty-
years or so of tuition, I think there is not one left to-day
who would not feel tears of affection and gratitude rise
to her eyes if somebody spoke of the " Aunts."

The two eldest had travelled abroad and had many
friends and correspondents in the outside world. Aunt
Elizabeth was devoted to Miss Yonge, a very kindred
spirit, whom all young people of those days loved for
her delightful books and helpful histories. But the out-
side world had nothing whatever to do with the mental
attitude of the dear Aunts. That had been assumed for
good and all in the early Victorian era; they were re-
ceptive, but conservative too, to the last degree, keeping

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

proudly to the old standards of delicate refinement, nar-
row, but stanch religious belief, decorous lawfulness in
every detail of the conduct of life. The minutiae of our
education would seem laughable to growing girls now. We
were taught how to write notes to our equals, invitations,
acceptances, inquiries for invalids, characters of servants,
letters to our elders, and letters to strangers whom we
were supposed not to have met; letters to tradesmen —
in the rigid third person; every form of correspondence
which we were likely to need in after life. My husband
often said that he owed a great deal to the Aunts, for
they had made of me a secretary whom he could trust to
answer twenty letters in an hour, without either telling
an untruth or making a definite statement in any one of
them — quite a desideratum in some situations !

My mother wished me to play whist properly, and I
was taught the game so thoroughly that I could take a
hand with my elders, without disgrace, by the time I was
twelve, and have often had occasion to be grateful for
the accomplishment. Everything was thought of; we
had to learn how to enter a crowded room with quiet self-
possession. Aunt Ellen would be the hostess sometimes,
and one was sent back again and again into the passage
till one could enter smoothly and gracefully, seek out the
hostess with one's eyes as one made the first step and go
up to pay one's respects to her before so much as ex-
changing a glance with anyone else in the room. We
were asked to do tiresome little things, open a window,
place a chair for an elder, remove an empty teacup, all
without the slightest jar or noise, and smiling pleasantly

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

the while. Mrs. Jones, the dancing mistress, put us
through exercises which taught us not to worry about our
movements. I remember her pathetic entreaty to our
longlegged, fast growing squad of " Backfische" " Be
willowy, young ladies, for heaven's sake be willowy!
Look at Miss Spencer Smith! "

Miss Spencer Smith, poor child, was the only naturally
willowy one among us, pretty as a picture, with big gray
eyes and hair reaching to her knees; and she was as
sweet and gentle as she was pretty. She seemed strong
enough then, but a few years later she died of consump-
tion — the scourge for which no cure had been discovered
" back " in the Sixties.

The division of time in that place was a marvel.
Madame Craven says somewhere that " Time is like
money; it multiplies in the hands of those who know how
to use it." The Aunts certainly had this knowledge. We
did not have to be in the schoolroom till 7.30; there,
plates of bread and butter, and in winter a warm fire,
awaited us. An hour of study, prayers, breakfast (a great
meat meal that made me open my eyes in amazement
when I first beheld it), hours and hours of lessons out
of which one hour was always taken for playing in the
garden sometime in the morning to "freshen" us up;
the leisurely dinner (at which if we did not want second
helpings to roast joints, puddings, pies and beer, the
Aunts looked anxious and sent for the doctor to pre-
scribe a tonic), a two hours' walk — by ourselves, if you
please, with any chosen companion, so that we might
really enjoy it; afternoon tea, two more hours of study;

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

a careful evening toilet, the highest of high teas, where
everybody chattered all the time and the girls cut the
vast cakes to suit themselves ; then the great treat of the
day, the evening spent in the big pretty drawing room, ex-
travagantly lighted, while one of the elders read aloud
and we occupied our fingers with our own pretty work;
bed at nine-thirty, and the " sound child, sleeping that the
thunder cannot break," till the morning brought the maids
with our hot baths, and we plunged joyfully into a new
day!

The readings gave us in turn Walter Scott, Fenimore
Cooper, Bulwer Lytton, Mrs. Gaskell, and other writers
suited to all our ages; Dickens was considered "vulgar
and squalid," and Thackeray too complicated for our
minds; but we got a good solid taste in early Victorian
literature, than which there is none more wholesome, I
yet believe; still, the only unpleasant incident of my
whole stay in Bonchurch was connected with the evening
readings. The book in question was " Cranford," and
we were all electrified when Aunt Elizabeth came to a full
stop in the beginning of the part where the nephew plays
a practical joke — something connected with a baby —
on the old ladies. " I will leave this out," said Miss
Sewell, looking quite stern. Then she turned the page
and took up the story further on.

Naturally we were all consumed with curiosity to know
what she had left out. Among our number was a new
girl, the first the exclusive Aunts had ever received from
a family " in business." They had the most profound
distrust and dislike of everything connected with trade,

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

however wealthy and respectable. For some reason they
had been prevailed upon to let this outsider into their
charmed circle of well born lambs, apologising to us all
for doing so. I believe they wrote to our parents for per-
mission first. Poor Rosie was a good natured girl with
gorgeous clothes, and we were not at all ill-disposed to-
wards her in the beginning. But when, her first shyness
overcome, she proudly informed us over schoolroom tea,
that her mamma always put on a silk dress and a lace
collar in the afternoon, we exchanged glances, for we
knew how it would end. We had never noticed whether
our mothers wore silk or sackcloth — whatever they did
was right in the eyes of the world. Well, " Cranford "
was left on the table in the drawing room where some
of us did our piano practicing. It never would have
struck the Aunts to put the book away. Alas, poor Rosie
could not resist the temptation. When I came into the
room the next morning I found her devouring the for-
bidden page. She began to tell me all about it — I took
the book into my hands — realised that I was about to
do a basely dishonourable thing, flung it down and rushed
away in an agony of shame and repentance, and forget-
ting that I was condemning my companion too, poured
out my remorse in the Aunts' ears.

Oh, that was a terrible day! We all cried ourselves
blind, nobody wanted any dinner, all the girls came for-
ward to plead for the culprit, confessing that they had
been " just dying " to do the same thing. But the Aunts
were relentless. It was all their fault, they said. Rosie,
with her bar sinister of trade, had had no opportunity of

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

learning what honour meant, and they should never have
taken her in. They were very sorry for her, but she must
leave AshclifL

Which she did, poor girl, and we thought the sentence
terribly severe. But our respect for early Victorian prin-
ciples was enormously increased, and the sense of having,
in desire, at least, shared the banished one's crime, kept
us all very humble for a long time afterwards.

The march of time can never invalidate the traditions
which Miss Sewell and her sisters upheld so nobly, and
those who are charged with the bringing up of girls would
do well to study " Principles of Education," by E. M.
Sewell, a book published, I think, in the Sixties, where
her own views are very clearly and convincingly given.
One of the nieces married Doctor Hawtrey, and, when
the dear ladies, who all lived to a great age, laid aside
their beneficent work, she took it up in a home of her
own where she was still continuing it a few years ago,
and, for anything I know to the contrary, may be doing
so now. Of course such women as these had their little
prejudices; one was their dislike of French ideas, which
even in those days, appeared to them flippant and demor-
alising. I once showed Aunt Ellen a photograph of the
Empress Eugenie, whom I admired immensely. Aunt
Ellen glanced at it and put it aside, saying, " She may be
pretty, my dear, but I cannot believe her to be either
virtuous or a lady — I am told she has worn a bright red
ball-gown ! "

The Aunts were very human, ready enough to smile at
the bubbling nonsense which is such a necessary element

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

of healthy young life, but if it passed the bounds of good
taste they had a dry humorous way of pulling us up which
made more impression than anything else could have
done. Some of the girls had brothers, from whom they
picked up little slang expressions upon which we all fast-
ened avidly. One of the maids was particularly popular
with us, and one day Aunt Ellen heard me call her a
" jolly brick." With her kindest smile she remarked,
11 My dear, I approve of your sentiments for Harriet, but
I should be glad to hear you translate them into better
English."

I thought for a moment, and then asked if " hilarious
fragment of masonry," would meet the case? "Very
correctly put," replied Aunt Ellen, " but since it makes
too long a name for daily use, I advise you to call her
i Hilary/ " and " Hilary " the good soul was, ever after.

Also they had what they considered a proper respect
for the hierarchy of the British aristocracy. A large and
beautiful place near us belonged to the Swinburnes. We
girls were allowed to roam about there sometimes, but
we felt that there was some tragic family secret connected
with it, because the Aunts often spoke of its mistress with
such reverent sympathy. " Poor dear Lady Jane," they
would say. " Algernon has broken her heart ! " Of
course none of the naughty boy's naughty poems ever
found their way into our chaste abode, and I am sure
the Aunts had never read a word of what he wrote. All
that I gathered of his crimes was that he had red hair,
which he wore much too long, and that he kept late hours
and was a good deal away from home. I concluded that

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

" Lady Jane " must be a person of most distinguished
sensibilities.

It happened that Mattie Chaplin had a relative who
was also a Lady Jane (Bouverie), so I asked her whether
her aunt would take such trifling misfortunes as the other
Lady Jane's so deeply to heart? Wise Mattie rather
thought she would; the nicer people were, the more they
must feel the disgrace of red hair and late hours and all
the rest of it. Still the thing puzzled me and I could not
quite rid myself of the suspicion that the troubles of
Mr. Algernon Swinburne's mamma might not have ap-
pealed so strongly to my instructors' sympathies had she
not been the daughter of a peer. There were some other
friends of theirs whose names called forth the same digni-
fied deference, "The Ladies Nelson," whom the Aunts
had known in their youth and who lived out their lives of
quiet English gentlewomen somewhere on the opposite
side of the Isle of Wight, whither one or other of the
sisters used periodically to travel to visit them. There
was one person who, it seemed, could do no wrong, —
the Queen. She was still immersed in the seclusion to
which she retired after the death of the Prince Consort
in 1861, and few of her subjects had the chance of see-
ing her; but one day she came unexpectedly over from
Osborne and drove through Bonchurch in an open car-
riage and bowed to us, and we were given to understand
that our future lives could hold no greater honour. All
I saw was a sad-eyed lady in heavy black draperies, with
a cross-looking little girl — the Princess Beatrice — on
the seat beside her> and I was rather disappointed.

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

Soon after this (in 1863) came the marriage of the
Prince of Wales, and we had a whole holiday and every
kind of rejoicing, public and private, to celebrate the
event. The British are a queer people, as I have had
plenty of opportunity to discover since. Let Royalty show
the slightest inclination to violate private rights or cour-
tesies, — even drive through a park without permission,
— and the Britisher will rise up and summons Royalty
for trespass on the spot, just as he would summons a
cheap tripper. But let Royalty (his own, of course — for
he regards foreign sovereigns as mere poor relations of
the English ones) appeal to him for support and sympa-
thy in joy or sorrow, he will take the coat off his back and
the bread out of his mouth to make adequate response.
The nation went mad with joy over the " Viking's daugh-
ter from over the sea; " her pretty ways, her lovely face,
took all hearts by storm; the photographers could not
print her portraits fast enough to satisfy the eager de-
mand. All our pocket money, I know, for a long time,
went in making a collection of these, and when we looked
at her graceful frocks and beautifully curled hair, we
found it hard to believe what was generally said, — that
she had been so simply brought up that she had never
had a silk dress before her marriage, and that the Queen,
anxious about her daughter-in-law's appearance in her
adopted country, had thought it wise to send a couple
of bonnets down to the steamer that she might have
something fashionable to land in. With all her infalli-
bility in other directions, the Queen's taste in bonnets
was understood to be limited, and I have always regretted

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

that I could not see the contents of those two bandboxes.
I wonder what dainty Princess Alexandra thought of
them!

On her wedding day, the 10th of March, I tasted cham-
pagne for the first time in my life, for her health — and
the Prince's — were drunk at the Aunts' table with all
the honours. The association, in part at least, was per-
haps not an inapt one.

In the summer of that year my mother sent for us to
join her in Switzerland during our summer holidays. The
trusty Mademoiselle Guillot came to fetch us, to the
great envy of our schoolfellows, none of whom had been
abroad. We stayed a day or two in Rouen on the way,
with an old French lady (a friend of Mademoiselle's,
who stuffed us with " sucre de pomme," a honey coloured
sweet of adamantine hardness) and we were taken to
see all the sights of the historic town. I carried away
an impression of seafoam tracery in marble, throwing
up spires like frozen fountains against a dazzling sky;
of stained glass windows (the first I had ever seen, for
we had none in our Roman churches) where saints and
warriors seemed painted in wine and amber and sap-
phire, shone through by the sun; of stout cheerful women
in starched white caps and noisy sabots, of hum and
brightness sweeping and surging through narrow streets
and round the gray stone feet of very, very old buildings
that had been the homes of fair Queens and famous
warriors. Then we went on — and soon afterwards
had reached an enchanted eyrie in the high Alps, Seelis-
berg auf Sonnenberg, above the Lake of Lucerne, a

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fairyland of turf and pine forests, alpenrosen and
edelweiss.

My dear mother was there, and Marion, and all the
family, as well as our old playmates from Virginia with
their black "mammy," and the two months were a dream
of happiness, unalloyed by the fact that Mademoiselle
declared that Jennie and I spoke atrocious French, and
at once undertook to correct our defects. She organised
an out-of-doors class in the mornings and galloped us
through two thick tomes of Noel et Chapsal before the
summer was ended. We were really afraid to tell her that
Miss Sewell's good British distrust of Frenchmen made
her refuse to have one enter the house and that our
teacher in that language bore the un-Gallic name of Herr
von Hacht — that he had yellow German whiskers, the most
military bearing, and had lost the use of one hand in
fighting some forgotten German battle. Mademoiselle
put all our delinquencies down to neglect, and saw to it
that we made up for lost time. In order to familiarise
us with all the conjunctions at once and enlist our interest
as well, she would give us verbs like this to write out.

" Aller a Paris, recevoir vingt mille francs, remettre
l'argent a son banquier, choisir une robe de bal. (De-
tails a discretion.) "

When we had exhausted our imaginations on the " de-
tails," (my ball dress was always to be of Malines lace,
with white lilacs, and pearls like Princess Massimo's) she
would lead us to more prosaic subjects and we had to
flounder through a schedule of household duties which
included those nightmare verbs " moudre," " croustiller,"

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

" boullir," etc. By the time we reached the cruel " im-
parfait du subjonctif " we were black in the face, and
Mademoiselle indulgently explained that the earsplitting
" Que je boullisse, que vous mouloussiez, que nous crous-
tillassions," were never to be employed unless absolutely
necessary, and that French people themselves were very
proud when they did not go wrong in them. I found an
amusing proof of this a few years ago in Balzac's " Let-
tres a l'Etrangere." I think it is in the middle of one of
those matchless canticles of passion that he falls two or
three times into the forbidden tense, and then, like the
dear big child he was, he exclaims delightedly: " Voyez-
vous comme je me joue de l'imparfait du subjonctif?"

In spite of Mademoiselle's prejudices quite a German
influence came into my life at Seelisberg, with a family
of whom we saw much in after years. It consisted of
Princess Solms-Braunfelts, her daughter Elizabeth, and
four sons, George, Albrecht, Fritz and Herrmann. They
were mediatised Sovereigns, like so many others whose
small domains had been absorbed in the gradual nation'
alisation of Germany, floating around Europe with great
names, sore hearts, plenty of money and nothing to do.
After I was grown up (or thought myself so) they used to
come to Rome for the winter and instal themselves in a
beautiful villa near Porta Pinciana, and we passed many
happy evenings with them there. The old lady was
nearly blind, and the salon had to be kept dimly lighted
to spare her eyes. Her daughter hardly left her side;
she was a saint of a girl, only living to devote herself
to her mother. They were devout Catholics (the boys

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were all Protestants as their father had been) and in my
dear mother they recognised a kindred soul, though she
was not a Catholic in name. We used to leave the three
talking of heavenly things by the green shaded lamp, and
go off into another room to play, I am afraid, very childish
games, generally ending up with an impromptu dance
for which Princess Elizabeth came out and played as long
as we liked. My great friend was George, the eldest son,
who, in the intervals of trying to convert me to spiritual-
ism, used to play the wildest practical jokes, delighting
in jarring the sense of importance and dignity which had
come to me with my first long frocks. I was full of sen-
timentality and affectations, and I had persuaded my
mother to let me have what I had dreamed of for years
— a black velvet with an enormously long train — girls
sometimes wore black velvet in those days — and Prince
George went off into convulsions of laughter when he
beheld me thus attired. Henceforth he never called me
anything but " Die kleine wittwe," and most wickedly
resolved to take the nonsense out of me. They were
all at our house one evening with a crowd of other young
' people, and George disappeared for a few minutes and
then returned, holding two saucers in his hand. We had
been turning tables, I think, and he asked me if I would
let him magnetise me. No one had ever succeeded in
doing that — my temperament is so hopelessly positive
that experts have tried their wiles on it in vain — but
I said he was welcome to try. So he sat down opposite
me, the rest of the world looking on, and told me to fix
my eyes on his face and copy his movements. He

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handed me one saucer and, retaining the other, rubbed
his finger on the underside and then rubbed his face,
across and across in every direction. I did as I was told
— and every time I touched my face the wildest peals
of laughter went up from the audience. At last I got
frightened and rushed to a mirror. My face was as
black as my velvet gown. The villain had smoked my
saucer over a lamp ! It took me a long time to forgive
him, but the lesson was a salutary one, and for some
time after I consented to appear what I was, very little
more than a school girl still.

Prince George's character would have been interesting
to a student of heredity. His mother's devout religious-
ness had been turned aside from its legitimate object
by his Protestant education, but it was all in him, faith
and aspirations and a constant reaching out to the exalted
and the mystic. When I was seeing so much of him he
thought he had found what he wanted in spiritualism,
but he put it there himself. His spiritualism had noth-
ing to do with the gross materialistic developments of
the so-called science in these later years; it was all
ethereal, pure, and gentle; he believed himself sur-
rounded by beneficent spirits fresh from heaven, and he
tried to be worthy of their society. After my marriage,
when we had drifted apart, he married a Princess Moli-
terna of Naples and became, as I was told — doubtless
in answer to his mother's and sister's lifelong prayers —
a devout Catholic. Princess Elizabeth never married;
she came back to Rome from time to time after her
mother's death, and each time, as my mother told me,

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seemed nearer Heaven, — one of those who are only
permitted to stay here in order that we may not believe
our naughty, stupid, selfish world altogether abandoned
by the angels.

After the summer at Seelisberg Jennie and I did not
see our own people for two long years. The Civil War
had half ruined everybody, and long journeys for us were
out of the question. The decision was a great blow to
our hopes, but the Aunts and our school friends planned
a summer of visits for us which took much of the edge
off the privation. With Eleanor Sewell in charge we
went up into the Shires and I found myself for the first
time among people whose one palpitating interest in life
was hunting. Mattie Chaplin and a cousin of hers,
Mousie Sherbrooke (afterwards Lady Sempill), were
always talking about it, and when we went to stay with
the Sherbrookes at Oxton — close to Robin Hood's own
Sherwood Forest — I began to understand why, and I
also fell under the charm of that English country life
about which so much is written, but which must be seen
and shared to be appreciated. Robin Hood's country
was Lincolnshire — still full of legends about him — but
from there we went into Nottinghamshire to stay at
Annesley, the Chaworth Musters' place, whose master
was the M. F. H., and a very great personage in local
estimation. It was a beautiful old house, standing in
lovely grounds, but the family seemed to think nothing
of either in comparison with the stables and the kennels.
These last were most attractive to me. I have never
seen more beautiful creatures than those hounds with

*37

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIPE IN MANY LANDS

their long intelligent faces and human eyes. I was
standing with the Master one day close to the wicket of
their enclosure, and as he called each one by name and
it came up, all joy and friendliness, to greet him, I sud-
denly opened the gate and stepped inside to have a closer
look at them. There was one long growl — a rush —
and then I had been lifted bodily back and set on my
feet outside, and the irate Master just stopped short of
shaking me. " Do you want to be killed? " he snorted.
" Don't ever dare to do such a thing again ! "

Of course the house was full of relics and memorials
of beautiful Mary Chaworth, Byron's first love. Her
miniature showed a sweet, rosy face, surrounded with
short golden curls, after the fashion of her day, and big
laughing blue eyes which gave no indications of a broken
heart. She must have been very lovely — and very good,
for she truly loved the boy (younger by some years than
herself) but refused to break her given word. So she
married the wrong man and remained faithful to him,
and he in return made her very unhappy. Byron mar-
ried the wrong woman — but then, would there ever have
been really a right one for that wayward character? One
hardly dared to pronounce his name at Annesley, although
the place seemed still to echo with his footsteps. Re-
sentments live long in those big lonely country houses,
and the memory of the tragically famous duel, which
took place in a generation antecedent to Byron's, was
still so hot in the minds of Mary Chaworth's de-
scendants that I did not wonder at the poet's con-
fession that he was " afraid of the family portraits

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

of the Chaworths; that he fancied they owed him a
grudge on account of the duel and would come down at
night from their frames to haunt him! "

It was Byron's great-uncle who was the hero of that
crime. He and his friend Mr. Chaworth, and some
other Nottinghamshire squires, were in the habit, when
they were in London, of dining together once a week at
one of the fashionable coffee houses. Some discussion
arose as to who had the best coverts of pheasants on his
estate, and Lord Byron and Mr. Chaworth, having drunk
deeply like everyone else, lost their tempers. At once
a duel was arranged — but what a duel! Without wit-
nesses, in a pitch dark room, before any signal had been
given, Lord Byron came close to his friend and ran him
through the body. His victim lived long enough to de-
scribe the attack, which certainly constituted murder. No
wonder that " Byron " was an unpopular name at An-
nesley! Any admiration I ventured to express for the
poet was sternly put down, and every occasion taken to
convince me that, being a Byron, he was in consequence
not only a monster of immorality and cruelty, but a
coward as well, an aspersion which surely none but a
Chaworth would venture to cast on his rather lurid
memory.

We spent a day at Newstead Abbey, " repentant
Henry's pride " as Byron calls it, where, amid much
decay, the two rooms he chiefly occupied had then under-
gone no change. I held in my hand the skull which his
sadly theatrical tendencies made him choose for a drink-
ing-cup; I read the verses written thereon in his fine

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

delicate handwriting; and, having a pretty familiar ac-
quaintance with skulls from my childhood's visits to cata-
combs and museums, was not so shocked at the whim
as my hosts intended me to be. I was shown, too, the
place on the floor where the page had to sleep to keep
his master company in the haunted room, and the grave
of the faithful Newfoundland in the garden. Somehow
the epitaph on " Boatswain's " monument impressed me
more than anything else — it was so warm and heart-
felt; and the charge of ''cowardice" at least was re-
futed by the self-forgetting tenderness with which Byron
had nursed his dying dog through all the horrors of
hydrophobia. Besides, I knew that the man had great
and generous sides to his character. Doctor Howe, who
married my aunt Julia, had been his friend and com-
rade in Greece, was with him when he died, and always
spoke of him with passionate admiration. " There was
never another like him," was always the closing word,
and though forty years had passed since that day at
Missolonghi, the mention of Byron's name still brought
tears to his eyes.

From Annesley we went on into Warwickshire, to a
less old but much more " ghostly " house. Jennie and I
were put into two rooms where everything had been
standing just as it was since the time of powder and
hoops. The dressing-table was a museum, with scores
of little drawers and hiding-places still redolent of cos-
metics and love letters. The quaintly shaped comfit and
powder boxes used to arrange themselves, it seemed to
us, in patterns of their own, without our help; there

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

was the portrait of a pretty lady who, we were sure,
came once or twice and looked over our shoulders as we
stood before the glass; there was also the portrait of a
man, with such dark, " following " eyes that we had to
turn the canvas to the wall — it got on our nerves so
painfully. Soft footsteps certainly used to move around
us at night, and, more than once, an unseen hand lifted
the portieres as we entered the room.

I always had the impression that this was the house
where a grim discovery was made a little later. For once
Aunt Elizabeth must have forgotten our presence, for
I heard her recount to Aunt Ellen the story, of which she
had just received the details in a letter. It made a tale
rather too significant for schoolgirl ears. Her friends,
the owners of a certain old house, she said, had been in
possession of it some time, having inherited it from an-
other branch of the family, when they decided to clear
away the crowding shrubbery which almost covered one
side. The laurels had grown so big and dense that they
were beginning to shadow the first-floor windows and kept
things much too dark and stuffy. So the laurels were
cut away, and then it became evident that a part of the
building ran out further into them than anyone had
noticed. Measurements were taken and proved that a
room existed to which there was no entrance from within.
This was finally effected by breaking down a bricked-up
window, and then the long excluded daylight showed a
bedroom — of the eighteenth century — in wild confu-
sion, garments thrown on the floor and chairs overturned
as if in a struggle. On the mouldering bed lay the skeJe-

24*

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

ton of a woman still tricked out in satin and lace, with
a dagger sticking between the ribs. Under the bed was
another skeleton, — that of a man, who seemed from the
twisted limbs and unnatural position to have died hard.

No clue had been obtained to the story. It was just
one of those domestic tragedies which, as my brother
used to say, might occur any day in one of those remote
country houses where the master's word is law and no
outsider can ever penetrate.

It was rather a relief to us to leave the eerie Warwick-
shire house, kind and charming as our hosts were, for a
dwelling of quite another kind, — New College, Oxford,
of which the Aunts' brother was at that time Warden.
Doctor Sewell's splendid old rooms appealed to me more
than anything I had yet seen in England. The space, the
well-planned lines, the deep windows and carved ceilings,
were a perfect joy, and the life led there was so in har-
mony with it all! I found myself in an atmosphere of
courtliness and learning, opulence, dignity, old port and
old traditions, all apparently integral parts of the whole.
I felt no special admiration for William of Wyckham;
I knew too little about him; but his motto, " Manners
makyth man," was dramatically appropriate to all I saw.
It was on everything at New College, from the jugs and
basins in the bedrooms to the china on the table, and the
lintels of the doors. It was frankly pagan, — no non-
sense about doing right and living for the love of God
and one's neighbour — just the motto for the decorous
education which reigned in those stately halls. At first
I was afraid that I might fall short of it and had a hor-

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AN OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH EDUCATION

rible attack of shyness when I found myself seated at
dinner opposite Doctor Sewell, before whom, as I un-
derstood, some hundreds of undergraduates were accus-
tomed to tremble in their shoes. But he was very gracious
and kind, and soon it became a pleasure to study his
high-bred face with its lines of judicial thought and im-
peccable self-control, and to listen to his pure, pointed
English as he discussed subjects a thousand miles above
my head with a guest, another Light of the University,
whose name I forget.

In the few days we spent there I saw enough to give
me an ineffaceable memory of Oxford. Miss Sewell had
taught us our English history so thoroughly that I was
well prepared for the experience, but the beauty of it all
took me by surprise. Under the tempered English skies
the florid Gothic architecture did not give me the sense
of unrest which it always does abroad, the result, I sup-
pose, of my early training in Bramante and Guilio Ro-
mano and the other builders of their day, whose rich,
calm style is the only fitting one where nature supplies
so much colour and exuberance for the background. But
one beauty England has which Italy has not, level em-
erald turf, and nowhere is this more perfect than in those
College Quadrangles. I was never tired of looking at
it, the thing seemed such a miracle. " That 's fine ! "
remarked an American multi-millionaire to an English
gardener. " How do you manage to get it? "

" Oh, it 's quite simple, sir," was the reply. " You Ve
only got to roll it for three hundred years."

The summer came to an end all too soon, and we went

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

back into harness in Bonchurch for one year more. My
sister, who was now seventeen, was to leave at the end
of it, but I, three years younger, pleaded hard to stay
on till I should have reached that age. My mother
would not consent, and I was honestly sorry. It had
taken me a long time to overcome my homesickness and
really fall in love with the place and all it meant, but
that had come to me at last and I knew that I was happy
there and should be helped to be good. The tastes which
have most helped me in life, Miss Elizabeth Sewell had
fostered, if she had not implanted them; she had taught
me the value of good reading and clear thinking, and in
one of the last talks she had with me she exacted a
promise which has kept me from wasting much valuable
time — never to read a novel in the morning ! I had,
I fear, given the good Aunts a great deal of trouble in
the beginning, but I came away with a glorious record —
not a single bad mark in my register for the final six
months !

344

CHAPTER XV

WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

Return to Rome — The Tiber "Comes Out" — Sorrento — "Terrorizing" —
Jennie — War Clouds in the North — Florence — Three Delays — Clara
Novello — The "Petit Mortara" Incident — Fighting near Varese —
Erich von Rabe — A Grim Incident at Koniggratz — Ludwig Benedek.

AT the end of June 1865, we returned to Rome, and
found the family established in Palazzo Odeschal-
chi, one of the five palaces which occupy, with the church
of the Santi Apostoli, the whole Piazza of that name.
The meeting with my mother after two years of complete
separation was such a happiness that I took but scant
notice of the surroundings. My half-brother Arthur was
just six months old — a Sunday Christmas child with a
character to match; there was the small half-sister, now
three, my beloved Annie, and dearest of all our tribe,
my brother Marion, and nothing seemed wanting any-
where in my world. We stayed in Rome only a couple
of weeks, — just long enough for Jennie and me to be
fitted out with a wardrobe more in consonance with for-
eign fashions than Miss Sewell's taste and a village dress-
maker's efforts had been able to attain. Bonchurch
fashions were prim in the extreme; from my first ar-
rival there I had been condemned to wear a bonnet for
church, and bonnets were structures in the early Sixties!
I shall never forget my mother's face when I proudly
showed her a " poke " rising several inches from my
forehead, the entire front filled in with white may, and

245

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

ornamented with wide lavender strings which tied under
my chin in a huge bow. I never saw the bonnet again,
nor did I possess another for many a long year. We still
wore small crinolines, the graceful management of which
had been a painful part of our training, but they disap-
peared for good a year later, to my profound relief.

The city was all under water, the Tiber having " come
out " as the Romans say, and as quickly as possible we
hurried down to Sorrento to escape from the heat and
a threatened invasion of the cholera, and were soon in-
stalled in the Cocumella; this was one of Garibaldi's
sequestrated convents, taken over by a devout inhabitant
to keep for its exiled owners, who, however, never re-
turned, so that the good Gargiulo and his family run it
to this day, with such success that it has became known
all over the world as a perfect refuge of peace and
" hominess " and comfort.

We occupied the entire first floor, with the great ter-
race which is now the public one for guests, and from
that time dates many a delightful association which con-
tinually drew one and another of us back to Sorrento,
until my dear brother, long years afterwards, chose it
for his home and built his fairy palace on the cliff above
the sea, just to the right of the old Cocumella, where
he sometimes had to house extra guests when his own
domicile would hold no more.

In the early summer of 1865 things had been rather
disturbed in the Penisola Sorrentina. Bands of brigands
haunted the almost inaccessible peaks and passes which
run its entire length, dividing the northern shore which

246

WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

looks towards Naples quite effectually from the southern
one facing Passtum and Circe's Promontory. An Eng-
lishman named Mowens had managed to fall into their
clutches and was being held for ransom, and five big
ships of the Mediterranean Squadron were stationed at
Sorrento to terrorise the outlaws into giving him up
without it. I never could make out how the terrorising
was going to be done. There were no visible signs of
it anywhere. There the beautiful shining men-of-war
(the term battleship had not been invented) lay, week
after week, paddling round a little in the warm blue
water, enlivening the landscape, providing the delighted
Sorrentini with a thousand new things to look at and
talk about, while their hospitable commanders gave one
charming entertainment after another, so that for us girls
at least the summer was one long dream of fun and
excitement. Admiral Hornby was in command, and was
living on shore with his wife and daughter at the Hotel
Tramontano, where they gave a dance which I thought
very splendid. I was much too young for such things,
but my dear mother was prevailed upon to take me, and
I did not feel too young when I got there, for Miss
Hornby, aged twelve, took command of the entire pro-
ceedings with a calm self-possession which could only
come from long experience. She was a quaint little per-
son, and had " late hours " written all over her queer
tired face. But she looked after everything splendidly,
down to pairing us all off for supper, when I found my-
self assigned to the smallest midshipmite who ever wore
a uniform. I think he was twelve, and a head and

247

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

shoulders shorter than myself, but of a dignity! The
cotillon was the first I had ever seen, and I danced so
hard that a string of pink Roman pearls I had borrowed
from Annie and hung round my neck melted into a solid
mass and had to be pulled off by main force when I got
home!

It was all very grand and grown up, but I enjoyed
much more the luncheons and afternoon dances given for
us on board the ships. One of these was the " Royal
Sovereign," a wooden vessel (and I fancy the last of
them), and one of the Sherbrookes, Willie, was among
her officers. He was very shy and brought several com-
panions to support him through his first call, and from
that moment our terrace became a popular place with
the Fleet. I think every man who set foot on it fell in
love with my sister Jennie, some in sailor fashion, one
or two very seriously — and everything that was done
for us was done for her sake.

I have said very little about Jennie so far; even at
this distance of time it is hard to speak of her without
renewing the pang of her loss. She left us just a year
later, in all the perfection of her bloom, as somehow I
and she had always felt she would. " Whom the Gods
love die young," but while she lived she radiated life
around her and was loved as very few are loved in this
world, by all who knew her, old and young, rich and
poor, prince and peasant. She was gifted in every way.
Her lovely face, with its dark blue Irish eyes and rose-
leaf tints, was only the reflection of a soul as gay and
pure as the dew at sunrise; her voice, a clear high

248

WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

soprano, was music's own. When it mingled with Annie's
rich contralto a whole streetful of people would gather
under the windows to listen. Small and beautifully pro-
portioned, she always seemed to move on velvet; she
danced as lightly as a snowflake, and just played by na-
ture. Her little white hands made the piano sing or
weep as they liked. She was the improvatrice of the
family, and at Bonchurch, where she was the queen of
the schoolroom after Mattie Chaplin left, would tell long
consecutive novels lasting through a whole term, to the
breathless ring that gathered round her on rainy after-
noons and holidays. She started a schoolroom weekly news-
paper which she kept up for many months, writing almost
all of it herself, and she had written one or two complete
novels before she died. But her greatest talent was her
mimicry. Few professionals that I have seen approached
her in this. During that one winter in Rome I remem-
ber many a morning when the mood would seize her
after breakfast, as we girls drifted into the red drawing-
room, where we were supposed to occupy ourselves
reasonably till lunch time. Then everybody we knew
passed in review before us, and particularly all the offi-
cers of whom we had been seeing so much at Sorrento.
Old or young, shy or arrogant, each with his special
oddity caught for all time, with such lightning changes
from one to another that we seemed to be listening to
a real conversation as we watched — it was kaleidoscopic,
and every tone and movement was true. And Jennie
was really good; her ideals were immensely high and
she lived consistently up to them, looking upon herself

249

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

as a most faulty creature who needed severe control.
When we left Bonchurch Aunt Elizabeth said to me,
" If you are ever in need of advice, go to Jennie and do
as she tells you. You will be perfectly safe." A very
great tribute for a woman of her character and experi-
ence to pay to a girl of seventeen.

We celebrated Jennie's eighteenth birthday in that No-
vember, and then she came out formally, I, of course,
being left behind, and taking the keenest interest in all
her little triumphs. The next summer the great war
summer of 1866, we lingered on too late in Rome. It
was hard to know where to go, since for some reason
my mother, or my stepfather, did not wish to return to
Sorrento. The north of Italy was all under the war
cloud, revolutionary agents had made everything near
us unsafe, and we were still undecided when some friends
who had a villa at Albano carried Jennie off to stay with
them for a fortnight. She caught a feverish cold and
was brought home again; nobody recognised the be-
ginnings or typhoid, and ten days afterwards she was
dead.

We covered her with her own Provence roses and
somebody laid a mass of heliotrope at her feet; and
my mother would never have those flowers brought into
the house again. It nearly killed us at the time, but,
looking back on the " twisted tangle of life," I think the
crowning gift of my little sister's gay, innocent existence
was its stainless end. We fled to Florence then, — a place
I have always detested in spite of its unquestionable
beauty. Three times I have had to stay there in deepest

2jO

WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

trouble of soul; once in that summer of bereavement,
once, four years later, in 1870, when we could not get
home because General Bixio was dropping shells into
our palace, and once again in 1900, when my son was
fighting the Boers — and each time Florence has seemed
more utterly alien and antipathetic to my stricken spirit.
As Marion always said, " I am far too good a Roman
not to hate Florence." But one of my dearest friends
is a Florentine, and for her sake I will not make a de-
tailed list of its sins as I see them!

The home tragedy of that summer made us forget a
good deal of what was taking place in the North, where
Koniggratz, the most important battle of our own period
of European history, had been fought and won by the
Prussians on the 2d of July, and, the war, so far as
they were concerned, was over; though it lasted a few
days longer in Italy.

Curiously enough my future brother-in-law, Erich von
Rabe, was fighting in the Prussian army, and Count
Mario Gigluicci, who became a kind of adopted brother
of ours later, in the Italian, but at the time we had not
even heard their names.

Mario's mother was the famous soprano, Clara No-
vello, about whom all England had gone crazy when she
sang the great airs of Hadyn's Oratorios. The Novellos
had been long enough in England to almost forget their
Italian origin, but Clara Novello was Italian through
and through and met her fate in the person of Count
Gigliucci, a fiery nobleman from the Marches, who never
permitted her to sing in public afterwards. The public

251

A DIPLOMATISTS WIFE IN MANY LANDS

protested indignantly at the privation, and her place was
never filled on the oratorio stage, for that is the highest
vocation of all and few are granted the specialised gifts
needed to exercise it in perfection. For one really great
oratorio woman-singer, we generally count two or three
eminent operatic prima donnas. The oratorio supplies
no fictitious aids of scenery, impersonation, or story to
bring the audience into sympathy with the singer. It
is just music in its purest, baldest form, and the artist
who can stand up with five hundred stringed instruments
behind her and thousands of calm, critical listeners be-
fore and sing " Lift thine eyes unto the hills whence
cometh thy help," or " Rest in the Lord and He shall
give thee thy heart's desire," so as to lift every soul
there into the very courts of Heaven, must have, as one
would think, learnt her art among the angels before
bringing it down to earth. A voice such as is heard
perhaps once or twice in a century, a temperament bal-
anced to equal richness and simplicity, a perfect physique
handed down through generations untainted by degen-
eracy, dissipation, or hysteria — these are the necessary
conditions for the greatest singers, and for the oratorio
singer one more grace is needed, — a living faith in the
immortal messages to which her voice must lend its
wings.

Clara Novello had it all, but she was something more
than a great artist, she was a true, good woman; her
husband's wishes were law to her; no one ever heard
a word of regret fall from her lips for her lost career
and the enormous fortune it would have brought her.

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

But what the public had lost her friends gained. She
was always ready to sing for them, and the joy she thus
shed around her was incalculable. Into her quiet, regu-
lar existence came no excitement, no strain or fatigue of
body or mind, so her voice retained all its power and
sweetness till quite late in life. It was divinely young
long after she was a grandmother, and she herself was
young and fresh in mind and heart when she died, at
the age of ninety.

Such women make ideal mothers, and her sons and
daughters were delightfully like her, with a strong dash
of their father, the most imperious of autocrats at home
and a redoubtable liberal abroad. We met them in the
early Seventies, when Florence had invaded Rome, and
though we loved not the invaders, we took the Gigliuccis
to our hearts at once. They were great friends of Mr.
and Mrs. Marsh, the American Minister and his wife
who had represented the United States during the few
years when Florence served as a temporary capital, and
it was in Mrs. Marsh's drawing room that I and the girls
were first thrown together. They adored Mrs. Marsh,
and I disliked her intensely, but that made no difference.
She was a relic of the Florence ring, and was always din-
ning the iniquities of Catholicism and the Papacy into
one's ears, a la Mrs. Browning. She was a distinguished
invalid too, and never rose from her couch, up to which we
all went in turn to make our curtesys — and fly ! She
had big, serious black eyes, a frightfully serious coiffure
of heavy black plaits, the domesday voice of a Calvinist
preacher and the finality of a St. Peter in delivering her

*S3

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

judgments. If people will take themselves seriously
enough they will end by being funnier than Weedon Gros-
smith or Teddy Paine, and Mrs. Marsh sent me into the
furthest corner of her room one day, to hide my abject
convulsions of laughter, when she had been holding forth
on the barbaric cruelty of the Church's action in the case
of the little Mortara boy, which had caused so much ex-
citement that witty Edmond About in his book on Italy
stated the population at so many millions, " sans compter
le petit Mortara." He was a Jew baby, the son of
poor parents, who at the time of his birth was so weak
that he appeared to have but a few hours to live. The
midwife, like a good Christian, immediately baptised
him, as is the duty of all Catholics, lay or clerical, in
like circumstances.

As so often happens, the administration of the Sacra-
ment brought new strength to the poor mite, and, con-
trary to all expectation it lived. The nurse held her coun-
sel, but kept herself informed of the boy's whereabouts,
and when he had reached the age of seven, set by the
Church as the period when a child becomes responsible
for its actions, she went and laid the case before the
ecclesiastical authorities, knowing that a child who had
been baptised a Catholic must be brought up as one. I
imagine that she got something of a lecture for her hasty
action, but the authorities did the only thing they could
do, took the little boy and put him into a good Catholic
school where he received a much better education than
he could otherwise have obtained. His Jewish mother
was naturally enraged; the act seemed to be one of in-

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tolerable arbitrariness; Protestant Europe echoed her
lamentations over the gain of a soul to Christianity;
Catholic Europe wished to goodness that the tiresome
thing had never happened, though having happened it
could have no other outcome in a country where the
Church had authority. And the Church, to whom pop-
ularity has not the weight of a feather in the balances
with right and wrong and the salvation of one human
soul, took no notice of either and saw to it that since the
Mortara boy had fortuitously been made a Christian he
should have all the advantages of the merciful accident
here and hereafter.

Mrs. Marsh, as I say, was eloquent in outcry and had
been talking about the abomination of a religion that
" tore little children from their mothers," and my relief
was great when I chanced upon Porzia and Valeria
Gigliucci, healthily indifferent to cant of every kind. We
fused at once and from that time we saw them and their
brother Mario almost every day. He was suffering from
Benjaminitis on the part of his adoring parents, who
would not hear of his leaving home to carve out a career
as he was longing to do. Being only the youngest son of
a man with more land than money, he saw very little in his
own future unless he could strike out for himself. Mean-
while he was a delightful companion, so young still that
it seemed hard to believe that four or five years earlier
he had been carrying a rifle and following Garibaldi in
harrying the Austrians out of Italy, while the Prussians
were winning battles over then in Bohemia. Garibaldi's
operations were confined to the mountains north of the

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Italian lakes, and Mario told us of the extreme bitterness
of the fighting on the Italian side. All the long, long
hatred which had been cheated of satisfaction by the un-
popular peace of Villa Franca, found expression in 1866.
Even the Clergy took up arms in the national cause.
Mario told us that in the struggle of the Garibaldians
with the Austrians near Varese he and other sharp-
shooters were detailed to pick off the enemy's officers, and
that, of all engaged in this task, the most expert was a
parish priest to whom the others quickly passed their
rifles after each of his deadly shots. One of these, typical
of the rest, was directed against an officer on a gray
horse. As the priest took aim he continued the running
fire of comments on his own markmanship with which he
had been accompanying it for some time. " That's a
Major on the gray horse! Pom! " pressing the trigger
and peering through the smoke to note the effect of the
shot, " Ah, he '11 never get up again! "

Nor did the Austrians trouble Italy any longer after
that, and at some future day, when their rule there is for-
gotten, we may bow politely to them across the Alps —
but no nearer, please!

While Mario Gigliucci, rifle in hand, was racing up and
down the steep passes, keeping step with the gallant little
Bersaglieri, Erich von Rabe, an officer in the Fusileers
of the Prussian Guard, was serving in the Army of the
Elbe under the Crown Prince, " Unser Fritz," as the
soldiers called him. When I knew the Prince long after-
wards, I wished I had been one of them, for he was a
man whom one would have been proud to serve, evea

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

in the most obscure capacity. In appearance he was a
hero of German legend, big, fair, blue eyed, noble look-
ing, with the kindest of smiles under his short golden
beard, and the ring of a great true heart in his voice. With
Royalty's usual clairvoyance he knew who I was, directly,
and had many kind things to say about Erich von Rabe
and his younger brother Oscar (now general in command
of the garrison of Graudentz).

"Ah, the Rabes," exclaimed the Prince. "Why! I
have known them all my life! Splendid fellows, both of
them! Such good soldiers and true comrades! Erich
was with me at Koniggratz." And he went on to tell me
how much he regretted the loss of Erich, who had been
so severely wounded at Gravelotte that he could never
mount a horse again and was obliged to retire from the
service he so dearly loved.

Poor Erich had a very grim experience at Koniggratz,
one of which he always spoke with something like a
shudder. The First Army, under the Crown Prince, had
begun its march at two in the morning in a pouring rain.
The early part of that summer had been the wettest on
record in Bohemia; and the rain was still falling, as it
had been doing for days on end, when at three in the
afternoon the Prussian Guards reached the scene of con-
flict, stormed the villages of Problus and Lipa and joined
hands with their comrades of the King's (the Second)
army over the ridge of hills that separated them. Not
until towards evening when Benedek had been forced to
retire and had fallen back all along the line towards
Koniggratz did the depressing downpour cease- After

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the fighting was over, the confusion in the Prussian army
was very considerable, some three hundred thousand men
being crowded together in an area of about one square
mile, regiment inextricably mixed with regiment, so that
it was midnight before they were disentangled and got
into order.

By that time everybody was starving; not one of the
officers, from " Father " Moltke to the junior regimental
" porte epee fahnrich " had thought of providing him-
self with anything for supper. Moltke himself, as he
ruefully relates, had to ride back through the darkness
twenty miles to the staff headquarters at Gitschin, and
could only succeed in obtaining a small piece of " leber-
wurst " (liver sausage) from an Uhlan, which he de-
voured thankfully before throwing himself on his bed,
fully dressed, to recover a little from the great fatigue of
the previous night and day. Erich von Rabe, with three
of his brother officers, had of course remained on the
field; they were lucky enough to find a few biscuits, and
Erich's servant, Ludwig, was ordered to find water and
make some coffee for the party. Ludwig was gone some
time, but finally returned with the steaming coffee, excusing
himself for the delay on the grounds of pitchy darkness
and ignorance of the locality. The coffee was drunk with
many expressions of grateful approval, " The best we
ever tasted ! " was the unanimous verdict, Erich remark-
ing that it was slightly salt, but that he had never been
so thankful for any drink in his life.

With dawn, the four comrades, who had been dream-
ing of more coffee all night, sat up and told Ludwig to

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

repeat his achievement, and the good fellow ran off to
obey. To Erich's astonishment, however, he returned
almost immediately, as white as a sheet, the still empty
coffee pot almost dropping from his trembling hand.

" What's the matter with you? " his master demanded
angrily. " You look as if you had seen a ghost! "

" Herr Lieutenant — forgive ! " stammered the hor-
rified man, "but — but — the truth is — the ditch from
which I took the water for the coffee that the gnadigen
Herren so kindly approved of last night — ah, there's no
real water in it at all ! It's full of nothing but dead Aus-
trians ! " The coffee had been made with blood.

Ludwig was one of Erich's own peasants, born and
bred on the estate, and when I went to stay with my sister
at Lesnian, twenty years after Koniggratz, he was still
serving the family in the capacity of coachman. He was
a servant of the old sort, for whom the " Herrschaft's "
lightest wish was a dogma to be revered; but his funny
old blue eyes still looked frightened and no power on
earth would ever make his stiff gray hair lie down on his
head. The incident had made a deep impression on his
queer, dogged nature, and, I fancy, often came back to him
on winter nights, when the snow lay deep on the ground
and the wind was sweeping down from Russia to howl
through the ten-mile tract of black pine forest which sur-
rounded my sister's lonely home. The echoes of far earlier
conflicts sounded there ; many sad stories were still repeated
among the " Leute," and the plough still turned up from
time to time gruesome relics of the poor Frenchmen who
had been murdered by the peasants, when company after

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company of Napoleon's Grand Army passed this way in
the retreat from Moscow.

As for the great battle of Koniggratz (or, more prop-
erly, Sadowa), it has so often been represented that
the success of the Prussians was due to the adventitiously
timely arrival of the Crown Prince and his army on the
field, that it may not be amiss to give a short statement of
the actual facts. There was no more element of chance in
the victory of Sadowa than in that other " meisterstrich "
of Moltke's, four years later, at Sedan; both were the
results of steadfast, determined preparation. If Bis-
marck, as he admits, felt nervous about the outcome of
Sadowa, it was only because of his insufficient acquaint-
ance at that time with the character and methods of his
greatest colleague in King William's service.

Moltke always protested indignantly against the notion
that his victory over Benedek was the fruit of anything
but the due carrying out of a carefully preconceived plan
of campaign. He used to say that, in his opinion, the
highest point of strategy attainable by any general was
the bringing together on the battlefield of two armies
from divergent points against the enemy's one — exactly
what he succeeded in doing in Bohemia on that rainy July
day of 1866, the taking of one's adversary between two
fires, " in der taktischen Mitte," as he puts it.

He himself, from the beginning of the operations until
his departure with the King from Berlin on June 30,
directed the movements of the Prussian commanders in
the field, Prince Frederick Charles, the Crown Prince,
and General Herewarth on Bittenfeldv* by telegrams.

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

Prince Frederick Charles and Bittenfeld had effected their
union at Gitschin in Bohemia on June 27, and now
formed what was known as the Second Army, while the
First Army, that of the Crown Prince, coming down to
meet them through Silesia and the Riesengebirge, reached
Koniginhof, a spot some thirty miles from Gitschin, on
June 30.

Meanwhile the Austrians and their allies, the Saxons,
being pressed in ever more closely by the converging
Prussians, were falling back towards the centre of
Bohemia, where they might find a favourable ground for
a defensive battle on a large scale. They fixed on a
stretch of land between the Elbe and two smaller streams,
the Bistritz and the Trottina, occupying both sides of the
highway between Gitschin and Koniggratz and some dis-
tance in the rear of the latter fortress. Thus Benedek
had the Bistritz on his front and the Trottina covering
his right flank, with the fortress of Koniggratz and the
Elbe in his rear, a very strong position.

On July the 2nd, the Prussian leaders were still in
doubt as to whether Benedek had thrown his whole
strength to the further side of the Elbe or not; they
surmised that he intended to place the wider river be-
tween them and himself and take up a position under
the very walls of Koniggratz. In order to determine
exactly the extent of his retreat a reconnoissance was
ordered to be made, in the direction of Josefstadt, by
cavalry of Prince Frederick Charles' army. The latter's
quarters were at Horitz, some ten miles nearer the
centre of the Austrian outposts than was Gitschin, where

£61

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

the Field Offices of the King's headquarters had been
established.

About midnight of July the 2nd Moltke was waked
out of his sleep at Gitschin by an adjutant of Prince
Frederick Charles, with the all important news that the
greater part of Benedek's army was still on the near
side of the Elbe, between the Elbe and the Bistritz, with
a front centre on the last named stream at the village
of Sadowa.

Moltke instantly perceived that an immediate attack
must be made with the whole force at his disposal, before
the Austrians should have time to cross the Elbe. With-
out losing a moment he conducted the mud-stained
adjutant to the King, who was sleeping at the Burgo-
master's house, to obtain his sanction for the proposed
general attack in the morning. The King, satisfied of
the urgency of the case, accorded his assent, and the
Adjutant rode back to Prince Frederick Charles with
orders to that effect. A second messenger was des-
patched to where the Crown Prince lay, at Koniginhof,
with a pressing summons to advance to the assistance of
the King's Army and fall on the Austrian right flank
from the northeast. The plucky messenger, who made
his way as by a miracle forth and back through the
swarming patrols of the enemy, returned to Gitschin at
four in the morning with " Unser Fritz's " promise that
he would not fail to do what was required of him. The
battle was ordered for seven o'clock, by which hour it
was supposed that he would have had time to cover the
intervening distance.

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

It must be explained that Benedek, the centre of whose
line, as has been seen, was at Sadowa, had drawn up his
army on a line of hills that fell in natural terraces down
to the wide marshy tracts bordering the river, which
could only be crossed at Sadowa itself and at Nechanitz;
these hills were topped by the village of Lipa, and that
of Chlum with its dense woods and pretty little church,
the very pews of which were afterwards found covered
with the marks of bloody fingers where the wounded had
gripped them in their sufferings. On the right flank,
protected by the Trottina, was a second range of hills
falling to the water's edge and called after the villages
of Prim and Problus — hills crowned by no more than
two trees which served as a landmark and objective for
the Crown Prince's attack.

Morning broke rainy and gray, " regnerischer, triib-
seliger morgen," to use Moltke's own words, and very
early he attended on the King, accompanied by his Ad-
jutant, Alvensleben. From Gitschin the royal Staff set
out in carriages to where their horses were awaiting them
at Horitz, in pouring rain. Here the old King, prudent
man, put on his goloshes and a groom buckled his spurs
over them. A few perfunctory salutes and greetings were
exchanged between the newcomers and those already on
the ground, and then King William led the whole group
of officers a little way further to where a better view of
the day's proceedings could be obtained. He turned once
to Moltke, who rode a yard or two behind him, to ask
his opinion of the probable outcome of the impending
encounter, and it was then that he received the famous

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

answer, given in tones of quiet confidence, "Euro Majestat
wird heute nicht nur die Schlacht, sondern auch den Feld-
zug gewinnen." (Your Majesty will to-day win not
only the battle but the campaign.) After which the
King turned away in satisfied silence and applied himself
to studying the distant, rain-dimmed hills and the long
lines of blue-coated infantry moving forward under
General von Stubnopl to the attack on the Austrian out-
posts at Mokrowens, Dohalicz and Dohalicka.

Presently Moltke, deciding that his presence was not
immediately necessary, and full of eager interest in the
movements of the troops, drew aside and made a sign to
Alvensleben to follow him. The two rode quietly away
for some little distance towards the enemy's positions,
keeping well on the flank of Stubnopl's advance. Their
road lay through the heart of some fir plantations over
which the first Austrian shells were bursting. Moltke's
object apparently was to see for himself the range and
bursting capacity of these; it is said that the only inci-
dents of the ride that remained long engraved on his
memory were the sight of a lonely ox grazing placidly
by the wayside, undisturbed by the increasing roar in the
air, and that of a solitary peasant driving his team to
work as usual, as though nothing extraordinary were
taking place around him. In answer to the natural
question as to whether he were well advised in doing
so, he replied with a shrug of the shoulders, " Well what
difference does it all make to the likes of me? One
must work to live."

Soon the two retraced their steps and rejoined the

264

War clouds and war stories

Headquarter Staff, now augmented by the arrival of
Count Bismarck on his big sorrel horse. For him, per-
haps more than for anyone there present, the fate of the
day must be his own, and before its close he was destined
to undergo moral tension more severe even than that sus-
tained by the King, for whom defeat might well have
meant abdication; more than once before the first spat-
tering rifle fire between Prim and Problus announced
the arrival of the Crown Prince that afternoon, the man
of " blood and iron " was to think desperately of asking
his Sovereign's permission to lay aside his civil character
of Minister for his old military one of a major of cuiras-
siers, so that he might find at least an honourable death
on the field.

By this time the action had become general all along
the line of the Austrian front; some eleven hundred guns
were indulging in an artillery duel that made it difficult
for one man to make himself heard by his neighbour
without shouting. The Prussian advance was pushed on
successfully until Benedek's outposts, including even
Sadowa itself, had fallen into their hands, giving them
possession of one of the passages over the Bistritz. Thus
far they had been enabled to penetrate the enemy's posi-
tion, thanks to the slowness of the infantry fire, since the
Austrians were armed only with the old fashioned muzzle-
loading weapons to which, despite what they had seen of
the results effected by the Prussian " Ziindnadel gewehr "
during the Danish war, two years earlier, they still
adhered. Nevertheless their fire was terrific; so much so
indeed, that, before long, their adversaries' advance be-

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

came slower and slower, ceasing at last altogether. By
midday it was all that the Prussians could do to maintain
themselves in their hard-won positions along the river line
of the Bistritz, although, owing to Benedek's resolution
to adhere strictly to the defensive, they were not, with
the exception of a single commander, in any danger of
being compelled to retreat. This exception was that of
General von Fransecky — " Fransecky vor ! " — as he be-
came popularly known to the soldiers later, in 1870, for
his fiery courage against the French, upon whom, on one
occasion, he led his hard pressed men with a shout of
"Vor! " — the colours which he had snatched from an
ensign in one hand and his sword in the other. But it
was during all the forenoon of Koniggratz that " Father
Fransecky " first won the hearts of his men by his ob-
stinate defence of the wood of Maslowed, from which
he had driven the Austrians and which he continued to
hold throughout the day until the arrival of the Second
Army, when he was at last able to advance with the rest
of Prince Frederick Charles' command.

As time wore on and no changes showed in the posi-
tion, a certain uneasiness began to make itself felt among
the members of King William's Staff; there was no sign
as yet of the Crown Prince, and by one o'clock some
trifling disorder was beginning to show, away down on
the Prussian front, where in one or two places the infan-
try was giving way under the terrible, sustained punish-
ment of the Austrian batteries.

This staggering and restlessness of the infantry was
noticeable to the Royal Staff, who began to exchange

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

looks of questioning behind the backs of the three
" responsibles," the King, Moltke and Roon; it was at
this moment that the well known incident so often told in
later years by Bismarck took place.

The situation began to look critical and he could not
help taking into account the possibility of a defeat — a
thought that was becoming increasingly terrible to him
as the minutes succeeded one another aud nothing could
be seen of the Crown Prince, upon whose timely appear-
ance on the field the fate of Prussia and of all the fore-
most characters depended. Again and again did Bis-
marck cast furtive eyes towards where the Chief of the
General Staff sat motionless on his horse surveying the
battle-field imperturbably through his glasses. At length
the Minister could stand the uncertainty no longer and
determined to test his colleague's frame of mind for his
own satisfaction. What did Moltke think of the state
of things? — that was the question that was tormenting
the other. Riding up to him, he asked the soldier whether
he might offer him a cigar, since he saw that he was not
smoking ; to which Moltke replied that he would be glad
of one if Bismarck had one to spare. Upon this the
latter produced his case containing only two cigars, the
one a Havana of excellent quality, the other of a some-
what inferior brand. Moltke looked them over and even
handled them carefully to ascertain their respective merits,
and then, with great deliberation, took the Havana, re-
marking as he lighted and drew slowly at it, " Ausgezeich-
net! " (First rate!). At once Bismarck was reassured,
arguing that things could not be far amiss, if Moltke

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

could give so much care to the choice of a cigar; a con-
clusion that was justified a little later, at about twenty
minutes past two, when a cloud of smoke was seen to
rise into the air and hang there some seconds, until its
volume was increased by a second and a third over the
two solitary trees on the hill top by Problus on the further
side of Benedek's position, where no part of the King's
Army could possibly be. Any lingering doubts as to what
was taking place were dispelled by the sight of a fresh dis-
turbance and unrest among the Austrian troops, of whom
a portion was being moved from side to side of Benedek's
position to repel some new enemy on his right flank.
The Crown Prince had kept his promise and, after a
march of eleven hours through the almost impassable
mud, had arrived in time to deal a mortal blow.

His army, including the Prussian Guards, among them
Erich von Rabe's regiment, the Fusileer Battalion, now
proceeded to storm the villages of Problus, Prim and
Rosberitz, house by house, a task which cost them dear
in men and officers, including Prince Henry XII of Reuss-
Schleiz-Koestritz, a Captain of Foot Guards who, mor-
tally wounded in the attack on Rosberitz, died on the
15th of August. His brother, Henry VII, became a great
friend of mine a few years later, in Vienna. The Aus-
trians lost, also from wounds received at Koniggratz,
Prince Ludwig Karl of Hohenlohe, at that time a Colonel
on the Reserve.

Benedek had sent Count Clam Gallas, with a large
force of cavalry, to intercept the Crown Prince's advance.
But Clam Gallas, angry at having a commoner put over

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

him, scarcely attempted to carry out the order. Benedek
had at first received the news of the Crown Prince's
attack and of the piercing of his own flank almost in-
credulously; but he was soon forced to recognise the
fact and to withdraw some of his forces from his front
to hold it in check; and here there appears to have oc-
curred some inexplicable misunderstanding on the part of
one of his subordinates, " der schone Gablentz " as the
good looking and good natured Field Marshal Lieuten-
ant, the Freiherr von Gablentz, was popularly known.
Gablentz had defended himself successfully until then in
the post assigned to him, on the southwest front of
Benedek's position. Now, suddenly, he seems to have
received the impression that his orders from the latter —
consequent, naturally, upon the transverse movement of a
part of Benedek's reserves from his front in order to
defend his flank — were to retire upon the weakened
front centre to reinforce it ; whereas, the Commander-in-
Chief's intention was only that Gablentz should retreat
sufficiently to get into firmer touch with his brother Com-
manders on either hand, in the now tightened line of the
general defence. So that Gablentz instead of continuing
to hold the village of Chlum — an almost impregnable
natural fortress, with its mask of dense woods — fell back
towards the rear of Lipa, whence Benedek was directing
the battle, leaving Chlum undefended but for the small
containing force that he considered sufficient to hold it
against the Prussians who had remained motionless be-
fore it for some hours.
No sooner, however, did their leader, General Hiller

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

von Gartringen, grasp the fact of Gablentz' retreat,
from the slackening of the fire, than he saw his chance
and took it; throwing himself upon the woods, he pushed
out the enemy from there and, after frightful losses,
succeeded in establishing himself in the village above
them, an Austrian Division to right and to left of him.
The extent of his casualties incurred in storming the
place may be judged from the case of one particular regi-
ment alone, that went into the woods with a strength of
three thousand men and ninety officers, and emerged from
them eventually with no more than a hundred and eighty
men and two officers unwounded.

Hiller's action was decisive; he found himself in the
middle of the Austrian line, and turned the artillery cap-
tured from the detachment left behind by Gablentz upon
his disconcerted opponents on either hand; again and
again despite the desperate efforts to oust him from his
point of vantage, he threw back their attacks upon him,
until he was killed, and a subordinate took over the com-
mand in the same spirit of relentless determination to
hold the village to the end at all costs.

But with the success of the Crown Prince's attack on
their flank and rear the Austrians began to crumble up;
it was all they could do, as it was, to keep open their lines
of retreat upon the Elbe and Koniggratz; hemmed in
more and more tightly between the two Prussian bodies,
they broke at last into flight to the eastward, just as the
rain stopped and a glorious sunset dyed the sky in rear
of King William's Staff, who now rode down into the
battlefield across the Bistritz to 'meet the Crown Prince.

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

By then the old King had recovered from the ill humour
which had beset him until his son's arrival ; it was with the
younger regimental officers that he had been displeased.
" They have forgotten everything we ever taught them! "
had been his irascible comment upon some unusually
marked departure from the strict parade discipline of
Potsdam and Berlin. Only when, before the last attack,
the officers had pressed about him in passing, to kiss his
hand and even his coat sleeve, had he had difficulty in
hiding his own emotion. " I never knew," he wrote after-
wards, " what it was to be loved, till then."

As the General Staff rode on to mix with that of the
Crown Prince, congratulations were exchanged by the
chiefs; of these Frederick William's principal adviser
was that same careful Blumenthal by whose side he de-
feated Macmahon so decisively, four years later at
Worth. One can only imagine the heartfelt gladness of
all as they watched the Austrian retreat towards where the
smoke from a score of distant trains showed that the
enemy was already being carried rapidly away over the
Elbe and towards Moravia.

When it was all over, the King returned to spend the
night at Horitz, but poor Moltke was obliged to ride all
the way back to Gitschin where the Headquarter offices
were still established; twenty miles through the night,
past endless columns of ammunition wagons with his
Staff. At last the great soldier threw himself upon his
bed, feverish with fatigue, to get what sleep he could
before the early hour next morning when it would be
necessary for him to set out once more from Gitschin

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to Horitz in order to obtain the King's ratification of the
altered movements called into question by the victory.

And yet, notwithstanding his defeat and ruin, it may
well be held that the day saw no more sublime hero than
Ludwig von Benedek. A glimpse of this very perfect
gentleman and faithful servant of his Emperor may not
be uninteresting, viewed in the light of the criticisms to
which he was subsequently subjected by the press of his
own country.

Benedek, on being sent for by the Emperor to take com-
mand of the united Austrian and Saxon forces in Bohemia,
at first begged to be excused from so arduous a task, urg-
ing his own unfitness for coping with the Prussian leaders.
" I am nothing but a corps commander," he asserted.
" Your Majesty has need of a more highly educated man
to handle large bodies of troops in the field. I learned
what I know in Italy and would beg your Majesty to let
me serve him there in a country with which I am ac-
quainted, rather than in Bohemia, of which I am ig-
norant." He implored the Emperor to entrust the
Northern Army to the Duke Albrecht who had been sent
instead into Italy against the Sardinians. But the Em-
peror insisted and Benedek had to give in. At the same
time there have passed between them some correspond-
ence which, had it been produced later on, at the in-
quiry into Benedek's leadership, would have effectually
absolved him from any charge of cognisant incompe-

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WAR CLOUDS AND WAR STORIES

tence, but which might have placed his revered Sov-
ereign in an unbecoming position in the matter. Be
that as it may, although such papers were known to
exist, not a trace of them could his wife or his friends
discover; he had destroyed them, preferring to take the
entire blame for what he believed from the first to be
inevitable, upon his own shoulders, rather than betray
his Sovereign's confidence.

So Benedek was sentenced to be dismissed from the
Army and to other penalties, which latter the Emperor
remitted at once.

Benedek, now in his sixty-third year, went to live in
retirement at Gratz in Styria; it was typical of the man
that, during the months he had to wait in Vienna while
the inquiry was in process, he wrote to his adored wife,
who had been complaining bitterly of the treatment
meted out to him, that, unless she could restrain her
criticisms of the Emperor's attitude in the matter, he would
have to go away from her and spend the rest of his days
apart.

Towards the end of 1880 he went to Vienna to consult
a specialist as to certain pains in the throat from which
he had been suffering for some time; after examining the
trouble, the doctor, on being asked for a diagnosis, tried
to approach the fact of what he had to say by some
small equivocation, when Benedek, seeing through the
manoeuvre, turned on him.

" I command you to tell me the truth! " he ordered
in the voice of other days, long past. " What is the
matter with me?"

*73

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

And the other told him — cancer; adding that noth-
ing could be done to cure it at that stage.

" And how will it kill me? " asked Benedek.

" By starvation or suffocation," was the answer.

Benedek went back to Gratz, but said nothing to his
wife so long as it could be avoided; only when the truth
could no longer be hidden did he break it to her. The
only sign he ever showed of resentment for the injustice
of 1866 was that he gave express orders that he was not
to be buried in the uniform which he had then laid aside,
but in civilian clothes. With him died his jealously
guarded secret, on April 27, 1881.

274

CHAPTER XVI

THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND THE DANISH WAR

Italy's Share in '66 — Custozza — The "Conquest" of Venetia — Austria's
Internal Troubles — Lissa — The Mexican Tragedy — Miramar — Na-
poleon Ill's Cynicism — Meeting Between the Empress Carlotta and the
Emperor and Empress of France — Final Insanity of Carlotta — King
Leopold in Vienna — The Family Vault of the Hapsburgs — The Coffin
of Maximilian — Gozzadina Gozzadini and Lily Conrad — Dresden —
Saxony in '68 — Visit of Frederick William and Bismarck — The Danish
Grandmother and the Invading Prussians — Von Moltke and Bismarck —
"Very Appropriate" — General Wrangel — A Pretty Compliment.

ITALY'S share in the successes of 1866 was what I
should like to call a psychological one. She reaped
fruits out of all proportion to her actual exploits, but fully
merited by the efforts and sufferings of past generations
of her sons. Educated Italians are loth to speak of the
war itself, for it was marked by unpardonable incapacity
combined with cowardice and vanity among the leaders,
although the troops, both on sea and land, showed admir-
able constancy and courage. Experts say that battle
should not have been offered at Custozza — already
the scene of an Italian defeat by the same enemy in 1848 ;
and certainly neither Victor Emmanuel nor La Marmora
had the grasp of conditions which would have enabled
them, even there, to strike a decisive blow at Austria nine
days before Prussia did so at Koniggratz. Superior in
numbers, strong in the knowledge of the great strength
of their Northern ally, they could and should have gath-
ered the first laurels of the war. But they hesitated,
scattered their forces, and sustained at Custozza a crush-

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ing defeat which effectually crippled their movements for
two all-important weeks. By the time they had pulled
themselves together Koniggratz had been lost and won,
Austria had hastily recalled her Italian garrisons to repel
the Prussian invaders, who marched triumphantly almost
to the gates of Vienna, and had tried to get rid of Venetia
the day after the battle, sending a messenger to Napo-
leon III with the offer of the disputed territory and an
entreaty that he would negotiate a truce. Venice was as-
sured to Italy, but the Italians could not accept gracefully
what their ally had won for them. To use an American-
ism, they " were out for trouble, " and they wanted a run
for their money. So, while Europe looked on, amused and
rather scandalised by this tardy fervour, General Cialdini
crossed the Po and " conquered " Venetia, where there
was scarcely an Austrian soldier left. A six weeks' cam-
paign sufficed to salve the Italian vanity, further ministered
to by Garibaldi and his braves who played about a little
on the Tyrolese frontier. Nobody took much notice of
either. The questions pending were practically solved
already and Italy's part in the achievements was not much
more effectual than that of the American citizen who
called his neighbours together to see him vindicate his pa-
triotic feelings, during the Cuban War, by decapitating
his Spanish cock in a New England back yard.

Matters were much worse at sea. The country had
spent, since i860, three hundred millions of francs on its
fleet, but had paid no attention to discipline, practice or
drill. There must have been at least a few capable officers
in the service, but Admiral Persano, a hopelessly ineffi-

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THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND DANISH WAR

cient person, was picked out for the supreme command.
He was scarcely a sailor; he had conferred the promotion
to the rank of Admiral on himself while acting as Minister
of Marine, and he appears to have taken no steps to pro-
vide the costly warships, for which the people sweated
and starved, with either trained gunners, skilled engi-
neers, or competent officers. The story of Lissa is an
agony. Persano beats about, flies from any encounter,
sends agonised telegrams to the Government prophesying
fatal disaster and imploring for help, and has to be abso-
lutely kicked into action by the furious authorities. He
has altogether eleven battleships and seventeen smaller
vessels, a fleet which was considered exceedingly fine and
strong in those days, but he telegraphs for more. He
picks out the small fortified island of Lissa, loses men,
wastes tons of ammunition, disables one of his best ships,
and is caught and destroyed by Tegethoff, with seven
shabby old ironclads and one frigate, manned in part too
by Venetians, of all people! Persano's sailors fight like
heroes; the chief gunner of the " Re d'ltalia " fires the
last shot from the sinking ship when the water is up to his
waist; the men go down cheering and shouting "Venice
is ours! " Persano cannot even get himself killed. He
moves his flag from one ship to another, issues confused
orders which are misunderstood or disobeyed — and
lives to go back to his King, to be charged with treason
and cowardice — to be convicted of incapacity and negli-
gence, to be expelled from the Service. " It required a
face ! " as the Romans say.
Tegethoff covered himself with glory, but he must have

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been bitterly disappointed when, so soon after the battle,
came the cession of Venice. Only the hope of saving
the province for his country induced him to face such
odds; but the change had long been registered among
the sealed orders of Fate, and the loss was a gain to Aus-
tria, if anything ever can be a gain to that eternally
unlucky Empire. A large, deeply disaffected alien popu-
lation can never be anything but a drain and an embar-
rassment to any government. Spain has found new life
since she was cut loose from the log of Cuba. But
Austria's troubles are, unfortunately, more deeply seated
than ever were Spain's. They have their source in serious
flaws of outlook and character, in class traditions as bitter
and uncompromising as they were in Maria Teresa's
time, and, worst of all in this, that if she were to rid her-
self of all her alien or disaffected inhabitants there would
be very little left of Austria except Vienna and the Tyrol,
where, by the by, there still exists the most violent hatred
and contempt for the Italians. " Die Leut' sind nicht des
Landes werth " * say the sturdy Tyrolese, wondering why
Providence has bestowed the beautiful garden across the
frontier on a race so deficient in all the virtues that the
mountaineers admire. Perhaps the latter have hardly a
fair opportunity of observing it; the wandering organ
grinders and pedlers and vagabonds who find their way
to Botzen and Brixen and Salzburg can hardly be called
more favourable specimens of Italians than Garibaldi and
his detested redshirts, who left execrable memories of
themselves in the country.

* " The people are unworthy of the country."
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THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND DANISH WAR

By October all interest in Northern developments was
over, and we were watching the Mexican tragedy with the
pitiful sympathy which had been aroused by the Empress
Carlotta's fruitless visit to Rome in the summer, and its
sad, though for her, merciful ending. It will be remem-
bered that four years earlier three great powers, Eng-
land, France and Spain had united to correct the exceed-
ingly bad manners of the Mexican Republic, which had
been outraging international decency in its treatment of
foreign residents. Soon after the arrival of the allies'
fleets and troops, the President, Juarez, had found it wise
to listen to their representations, and had entered into a
convention which fully satisfied England and Spain and
might have been expected to prove acceptable to France.
But France stood in rather a different position towards
the Republic. She had many subjects there who had suf-
fered loss of property estimated at 12,000,000 francs,
and they clamoured for indemnity. The cost to France
of her part in the punitive expedition had been high,
270,000,000 francs, and Napoleon III was anxious to
shoulder it safely out of the budget and also to have
something besides moral prestige to show the country,
some solid advantage which would please the French and
increase his fluctuating but all important asset, popularity.

So he refused Juarez' terms and decided not only to
continue the war but to establish an Empire which should
owe its inception to him and remain a kind of tributary
of France. A great name, a real name was wanted, and
like Napoleon I, he went to Austria to find it. The
Archduke Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor Franz

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Joseph, was the man he fixed upon, young, good-looking,
greatly beloved at home and married to the most charm-
ing of women, Maria Carlotta, the daughter of Leopold I,
King of the Belgians, whose mother was a daughter of
Louis Philippe. Mexican affairs had long been in a par-
lous condition and Maximilian was not to be dazzled into
accepting the crown until he was assured by the fashionable
method of a plebiscite that the people really desired him
to reign over them. We all know now how the plebiscite
was managed. It differed little from many of the Euro-
pean ones, being engineered from beginning to end by the
advocates of the new Monarchy, who managed to dis-
qualify the votes of the large masses who opposed them.
The French agents of Napoleon III had had plenty of
practice in such matters, and succeeded in sending to Mi-
ramar a deputation which looked so thoroughly Mexican
that Maximilian was deceived into believing it genuine.
Dear beautiful Miramar! The year after he was shot I
visited the place and sat before the writing table on
which still lay the pen with which he signed his agreement
to the deputies' proposals and his renunciation of all claim
to the Throne of Austria. His brother, the Emperor,
looked on the scheme with disfavour. The records of
intimate relations between France and Austria as exempli-
fied in the fate of Marie Antoinette and the disappoint-
ments following on the marriage of Marie Louise to
Napoleon I were hardly favourable portents. But his ob-
jections were overriden and he had to satisfy himself with
separating the new Emperor's interests from those of
Austria absolutely and finally. Each Hapsburg seems

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THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND DANISH WAR

\

doomed to leave one blot on an otherwise blameless name ;
Franz Joseph, the beloved, the honourable, the revered,
saved himself in 1866 by the heartless immolation of the
noble Benedek; Maximilian, the gallant young martyr to
French cupidity and French ambition, travelled straight
from Miramar to Paris and told Napoleon III that
his renunciation of all claim to the Austrian succession
had been wrung from him by coercion and was null and
void.

The Church tells us that we should be thankful to re-
ceive the punishment of our faults in this life rather than
in the next. Franz Joseph and Maximilian surely ex-
piated theirs, the one by every sorrow that can fall on a
Monarch, a husband and a father; the other by the
heroic generosity which made him cry " Long live Mex-
ico ! " with his last breath.

His wife never knew of his fate, and when it overtook
him he believed her to be dead. They were so devoted
to one another that, although he was prepared to do his
duty to the end in the mission into which he had been en-
trapped, yet the belief that she could not share it reconciled
him, they say, to his early death. She had left him a year
earlier to seek, by a personal appeal to Napoleon, the
promised aid which he had cynically withdrawn when
Maximilian found it impossible to pay the further prom-
ised instalment on the 270,000,000 francs which France
had sunk in the Mexican enterprise. The first 64,000,000,
besides the 12,000,000 indemnities to French subjects he
had paid out of the funds advanced by a London banker,
a negotiation by the way which had put many millions

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

of francs into the pockets of French financiers. But the
National party in Mexico had never accepted his rule;
he found himself plunged into all the costly tribulations
of Civil War from the moment of his landing; the French
had lost confidence in the Mexican scheme, and Napoleon
III, when the Government of the United States brought
heavy pressure to bear upon him, was thoroughly alarmed
and became anxious to drop the whole thing as quickly as
possible. He made the default of payment of the yearly
instalment the excuse for withdrawing the French troops
and refusing the pecuniary and moral aid which he had
solemnly promised to furnish until the Empire should be
firmly established in Mexico. The Empress Carlotta
probably underestimating the resolutely hostile attitude of
the United States Government, believed that she could pre-
vail upon Napoleon III to change his mind, and early in
1866 besought Maximilian to let her go to Europe alone,
and argue with the powerful traitor. The history of her
mission is one of the saddest ever recorded. At first the
French Emperor refused to see her. When at last, after
humiliating rebuffs, she succeeded in obtaining an inter-
view, his wife was present — the old resource of the mean
man who fears that his heart may soften to a sweet, lov-
ing woman pleading her husband's cause with the elo-
quence of despair. Carlotta's heart must have failed her
when she saw the other woman there. Eugenie's presence
proclaimed the verdict before Napoleon III had spoken.
Maximilian's wife pleaded, argued, finally went down on
her knees before the hard-hearted bourgeois couple, and
prayed for the love of heaven that they would take pity

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THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND DANISH WAR

on her husband's desperate situation. It was all of their
making, but they had only harsh words for the distracted
woman, who finally sprang to her feet with a bitter cry
of self-reproach for having forgotten that she, a daughter
of the Bourbons, was dealing with mere upstarts and ad-
venturers like the Bonapartes. It must have been quite a
relief to their nerves when she fainted away and was
carried out of the room.

One resource, as she hoped, still remained, and she
came to Rome in the early summer of 1866 to try to per-
suade the Pope to consent to the sequestration of Church
property in Mexico and thus provide funds to carry on
the war. But it was impossible for Pius IX to grant such
an utterly unconstitutional request. The property was not
his to dispose of, and to his deep regret he could do
nothing to help Maximilian, whose situation was daily
becoming more hopeless, not only through the opposition
of the National party and the guerilla warfare carried
on by them, but through the estrangement of those who
had been inclined to support him and who were now indig-
nant at his unwise and arbitrary measures. Carlotta
realised that all was lost, and little by little it became evi-
dent that her mind was failing under the fearful strain.
She was so pretty and attractive, her misfortunes so heavy
and undeserved that the warm hearted Romans felt much
sympathy for her especially when strange stories began
to be told, of how Carlotta imagined that someone was
trying to poison her, of how she had tried to poison
herself by drinking the ink on her writing table, of how
she had attempted to throw herself out of a window.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Finally she became hopelessly insane, and her brother,
who had taken her misfortunes with truly Leopoldian
calmness till then, was obliged for decency's sake to
bring her home to Belgium and provide her with an
asylum in one of his chateaux, where the remainder of
her darkened life could be passed in retirement and
safety.

I met this chivalrous gentleman in Vienna when he
brought his daughter to marry the Crown Prince, and
though I trust I have a proper respect for Royalty as such,
I must in conscience say that King Leopold did not im-
press me as a favourable example of the species. He
seemed theatrical and insincere. Looking down at me
from his towering height, he held my hand and poured
out to me the undying love and gratitude which, he
declared, burnt in his heart for England. " I only exist
because your noble country so wills ! " he exclaimed, while
his long beard waggled benevolently above the tapestry
of decorations which adorned his coat. I was rather
glad when the kind, charming Queen turned to me and
drew me into conversation with herself.

Under our feet, during a part of that triumphal day, lay
the coffin of Leopold's brother-in-law, poor, doomed
Maximilian, who was, as all the world knows, executed
on the 1 6th of June, 1867. An outrageous photograph
of his corpse, stripped of all clothing, was taken by his
murderers, and was for a long time on view in the public
library of a large town in the United States. The body
was afterwards brought home by Admiral Tegethoff,
the hero of Lissa, on board the " Novara," and at last

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THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND DANISH WAR

laid to rest among all the other dead Hapsburgs in the
Imperial vaults of Vienna. One day I had wandered
through those grim halls, which branch off on either
side into transepts and chapels piled to the ceiling with
coffins no one would dare to move now, for they would
fall to pieces at a touch. Somehow the sentence " ashes
to ashes, dust to dust," had struck me as a kindly one
which ought always to be obeyed. This harvest of
death, garnered through long centuries, had become a
mere lumber of corruption which had no right above
ground. It should long ago have been confided humbly to
mother earth to dispose of. The atmosphere was un-
breathable, and I was turning to flee when a single ray of
sunshine from a distant opening far overhead attracted
my attention, and I made for it, as hastily as I could
without falling over the endless rows of black coffins that
lay in the central aisle. When I reached the spot I found
the little sunbeam resting on a coffin not black, but pure
white, with a name and a date in gold. " Maximilian,
1832-1867." A wreath of sweet, fresh flowers had been
laid on it that morning. That was in 1882. Someone
had remembered, for fifteen years.*

I was at Miramar in 1868 and never managed to visit
the place again though I always hoped to do so when
we were living in Vienna. Now, I am rather glad I did
not, for it would have been hard to better the impres-
sion I got of it on the perfect October day we spent
there. The Adriatic was one stretch of calm sapphire

* It is said that the Prince of Wales (our Edward VII) got possession of
Maximilian's bracelet, and was buried with it on his wrist.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

and Miramar lay on the waves like a great white pearl
washed up by the sea. Built of purest white marble, its
front rose sheer from the water, which lapped in crystal
wavelets against the walls a few feet below the ground
floor windows and sent soft music all through the house.
Good people had lived there; the atmosphere of those
lovely rooms was pure and gay; there was a noble
simplicity about it all and one felt that each detail had
been thought out to fitness and beauty without any
taint of ostentation or luxury for its own sake. Beyond
the house the garden bordered the sea with long white
balustrades where the roses climbed over and looked at
themselves in the water. In one or two places the balus-
trades opened on to a flight of broad white steps leading
down to a little harbour surrounded by low walls of the
same snowy Carrara, pierced and fretted to let the sun
through on the dainty shallops that danced at anchor,
waiting for the happy master and mistress who would
never return. The place was so exquisite, so unearthly
in its stainless whiteness and delicately stately lines that
it seemed to me — I was only seventeen when I saw it —
a fairy palace reared by no human hands and only visible
to mortals by some special grace — sure to melt into
the mist and float back to fairyland some summer night
of full moon and warm winds. Everything in the house
had been kept just as Maximilian and Carlotta left it,
a book thrown down on a table, a chair pushed back
from a window, the writing paper, the very cigarettes lying
temptingly close at hand — one would have thought the
owners had slipped out of one of the long French win-

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THE MEXICAN TRAGEDY AND DANISH WAR

dows to have a look at the sea and might return at any
moment.

The visit to Miramar was the crowning pleasure of
a wonderful summer for me. For some reason I had
that year been allowed to arrange the programme for
the three or four months during which we always had
to be absent from Rome, and I had made our travels
include a number of places which I had long been wish-
ing to see. The preceding summer had been spent partly
at Venice, then in Geneva with the regulation visits to
Chamounix and Montreux, and had ended with a stay at
Aix-les-Bains where we made some amusing acquaint-
ances, notably that of a little lady from Bologna who
rejoiced in the name of Gozzadina Gozzadini. She was
about five feet high, amazingly pretty, and the most
jealous little firebrand that ever lived. We had with
us the friend of whom I have spoken before, Lily Con-
rad, a girl to whom I was slavishly devoted, but who
was anything but convenient to take about, for every
head turned as she passed, and wherever she appeared
she excited a little storm of admiration and curiosity.
Her people were Southerners, driven abroad by the
ruinous results of the war, and those Southern women
have a strange magnetic beauty which generally throws
everything near them into the shade. My friend was
much too tall, but that only served to lift her golden
head and perfect face above the crowd, and the crowd
fell down and worshipped gladly. I remember that
Worth, the original Worth, was at Aix that year. We
passed him as he lounged on a bench in the gardens of

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Marlioz, and when Lily swept past him the man started
up with a gasp. " Je voudrais l'habiller, cella la ! " he
murmured enviously. But he could not have improved
her. Her wardrobe was of the most limited kind, but
whatever she wore seemed costly and beautiful. I re-
member once going out to spend the day with her and
her stepfather, the Marchese Cavaletti, at a place they
had at Frascati. He drove us himself and beside the
phaeton rode one of Lily's many slaves, a handsome
young Frenchman in the Pontifical Zouaves. Most girls
would have looked up something decent to wear. Not
so Lily. It was a hot day and she had found an old
muslin frock with black dots, washed so often that each
dot had opened into a hole. With the calmness of su-
preme beauty she put the rag on and when I protested,
merely said, " Why the holes make it cooler, my dear! "
When we arrived at Frascati the midday sun was scorch-
ing and I was conscious of being as red as a tomato.

" Come along, we will wash our faces," said Lily, and
she dragged a horse bucket full of cold water out on to
the bricks of the courtyard, knelt down, and plunged her
head in it. When she looked up, the crystal drops cling-
ing to those deep waves of golden hair, running down
from her dark eyes and June rose cheeks, drenching the
old frock and scattering showers around her, she laughed
in triumph at our faces, for we three were gazing at her
as devoutly as if she had been Venus arising from the
waves. It was a picture such as one does not see twice
in a lifetime. She danced out into the sun again to get
dry, and the sun, which would have taken the skin off any

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other face, only made hers more perfect in its matchless
colouring.

All this will explain why Lily got into disgrace with
little Marchesa Gozzadina. The Marchese, a susceptible
young gentleman, had been making eyes at the American
girl and had begun to follow her round rather persist-
ently. Lily took no particular notice of him, but I think
Gozzadina had been nursing her wrath for two or three
days when one morning Lily and I wandered aimlessly
into her room in the hotel, and began to talk about the
endearing subject of clothes. Gozzadina ran to a bureau
to pull out some cherished chiffons to show us, and we
followed her. The door was open into an empty room
beyond, and Lily slipped in to see what it contained.
Gozzadina sprang after her with a cry. " Come out of
my husband's room ! How dare you go in there? " And
standing on tiptoe she administered one or two sounding
thwacks on poor Lily's shoulders. It seemed incredible
that such an atom of a creature could hit so hard. Lily
could have taken her up and dropped her out of the
window with one hand, but she only considered her
calmly for a moment and then left the room, I follow-
ing as fast as I could, for there was the light of fury
in the little lady's eyes! The worst of it was that
we depended on Gozzadina for a good deal of chap-
eronage at that moment, my mother having run off to
Paris for a fortnight, after commending her tribe of young
people to one or two married women in the same hotel.
And we were a tribe that year — Annie and I and Lily,
the little half sister and brother with their nurses, and

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

two exceedingly pretty maids from the " Castelli " who
required much looking after in fashionable hotels. Their
mother was a stern old peasant woman known to us as
" Mamma Rosa;" her three daughters, besides being
pretty, had remarkable voices, and more than one im-
presario tried to lure them on to the stage; but Mamma
Rosa indignantly flouted the tempting offers. Was the
theatre a proper place for virtuous girls? No, indeed,
no daughter of hers should ever embrace such a disrep-
utable career! Her anxiety as to their morals caused
us a trying moment that year. When we left Rome sev-
eral friends came to see us off at the station, and Mamma
Rosa, nearly six feet tall, in her peasant costume, loomed
up in the background. She had felt it her duty to
be present. When all the good-byes were said and the
friends, among whom were some young men, stood clear
of the carriage, Mamma Rosa stepped forward and in
a stentorian voice thus addressed my mother. " May
you have a good journey, gracious lady, and bring back
all these beautiful girls, your daughters and mine, and
the Signorina Lili, there, in good health — e tutte
vergini! "

The train moved out at that moment but all its puffing
and rumbling could not drown the echo of some irre-
pressible laughter on the platform.

The next year, as I said before, I took the family
whither I wished, and we began by spending two months
in Dresden, where Annie and I went nearly crazy over
our first experience of Wagnerian Opera. Fortunately
for us the Master was still in his first style. I do not

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think we should have loved him so much if we had not
heard Lohengrin and Tannhauser first, if we had not come
to the later works by gentle degrees. As it was, Lohengrin
opened up such amazing new avenues of joyful wonder
in our minds that we — who usually talked from morning
to night — were literally dumb for two whole days after
hearing it. Fraulein Mallinger sang Elsa. We were told
that Wagner himself had taught her every note and
movement, and the result was a perfection of rendering
which has made it difficult for me to appreciate other
singers in the part. Herr Lohengrin was Tischachek, old
already, but singing splendidly still, and acting with all
the elan and passion of youth. How we loved that Dres-
den Opera house, with its nobly careful productions, its
perfect orchestras, its early hours and simple ways! It
was so delightful to be able to walk in there in short skirt
and hat, feast on music without all the bother of evening
gown and closed carriage, walk home again in the clear
summer night, and get to bed by eleven o'clock ! There
were open air concerts too, in public gardens — music
and bands everywhere, besides the inexhaustible pleas-
ures of the picture gallery, and the modern paintings
exhibitions which happened to be particularly good that
year.

The feeling against Prussia was still very strong in Sax-
ony in 1868. It was only two years since Prussia's im-
perious manifesto had broken up the " Bund " and
the easy going Saxons, to whom everything Prussian —
speech, manners, religion, and general attitude towards
life, was intensely antipathetic, had of course thrown in

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their lot with Austria, believing, as most people did
before that illuminating seven weeks' war, that all the
real strength was on her side. The avowed causes of
great wars always seem so insignificant that one wonders
the historians have the face to record them at all. The
world looked on in amazement when the entire German
Confederation was broken up because Prussia and Austria
could not agree about their joint house-keeping in Schles-
wig-Holstein. The quarrel resembled the beginning of
those private ones, which, after years and years of friction,
are put forward in a divorce court as a plea for separation.
One couple, I remember, disagreed a week after their
marriage, on the question of taking a cab or walking home
in the rain, and treated each other so badly that they finally
obtained a decree nisi; another harmonious pair could
not come to terms as to the right hour for breakfast,
and carried on the contention until both parties had some-
thing really worth while to complain about. The Great
Powers seem to be entirely deprived of the dramatic
sense and take no trouble at all to work up a sensational
issue to present to the public. Austria and Prussia were
quite at one about recovering Schleswig-Holstein from
Denmark in 1864, but when the Duchies were in their
own keeping they could not agree as to who should be
their caretaker there. Bismarck solemnly informed Eu-
rope that this was a question of international importance
— that the little territories meant everything to Germany
at large and must be governed in the sense that Germany
at large (of course, not Prussia in particular) desired.
The great man was listened to respectfully enough, since

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he chose to thus declare himself, but everybody knew that
Germany at large detested everything Prussian and that
Prussia's intention was to correct this aesthetic error by
means of the needle gun, which only she of all European
nations (except Russia) had been intelligent enough to
adopt. The needle gun and Clam Gallas' incompetency
won Koniggratz for her; the needle gun had subdued
Saxony ten days earlier, and Saxony's Sovereign, like
a wise man, had accepted the new order of things and kept
his crown — in a way. But he and his people knew that
they had met their masters, and while I was in Dresden,
in 1868, the masters, Frederick William of Prussia and
Bismarck, came over to have a look at them and review
the troops.

Then the bright little city changed its aspect and smiled
no longer. Everywhere one met sullen faces, heard
growled imprecations. What did the " verdammte Ber-
liner " mean by riding in among them and reminding
them of their misfortunes which they had been trying
hard for two years to forget? What right had the
King of Prussia to review their beloved, untidy, ill-drilled
Saxon boys? They would show him what they thought
of him, that they would!

So they received him in scowling silence which I think
he did not even notice, (for he was a silent person him-
self) and which probably amused Count Bismarck con-
siderably. He never felt really comfortable unless he
was markedly unpopular. And, for us strangers who
looked on, the review was one of the most depressing
sights possible. The two Sovereigns never spoke to one

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another the whole time. The King of Prussia's usually
kind old face looked that day as hard as iron, with set
brows and mouth drawn down in disapproval, and the
expression on the countenance of the aged King of Sax-
ony was one of such deep humiliation and sorrow that
it brought tears to one's eyes. Their respective Staffs,
though forced to ride together, were silent and cold,
the dust was choking, the men, sulky and despondent,
paraded atrociously. It was a real relief when the mel-
ancholy spectacle came to an end; and when, a day or
two later, the " verdammte Berliner " departed, the
Saxons rejoiced openly and forgot all about them as
quickly as possible, in true Saxon fashion.

Who would have foretold that two years later these
very Saxon troops would cover themselves with glory at
Saint Privat and Sedan, even as they had done before,
at Waterloo ? Of course much can be done with an army
in two years, but one must also give its full due to the
fact that in France they were fighting a national enemy
for the very existence of the Fatherland, while in 1866
they were taking up arms only against a relation, so to
speak, a most irritating and meddlesome one certainly,
yet speaking their own language and as truly German as
themselves.

One gets one's history in funny scattered bits. Only
four or five years ago I had for a little while a Danish
man-servant who was a source of constant delight on ac-
count of the stories he told me. To quote an illustrious
authoress " it is not generally known " that servants are
often uncommonly good story tellers. Some of the queerest

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tales I ever gathered were given to me by servants,
notably " Antonino Scaffati," told me in chapters by my
brother's Calabrian butler, night after night, as he waited
on me at my solitary dinner. In Italy we make friends
of our servants, and they kiss our hands and bring up
their children to wait on ours. The term " famiglia "
(family) applies exclusively to the portion of the house-
hold that lives downstairs, never to the masters, in my
part of Italy, and the tie between the two is very real
and lasting. We take our mutual responsibilities pretty
seriously; the masters are served with the heart as well
as the hands, and the servants know that if they behave
themselves they can live with us till they die, and their
children will be looked after if they need it. I suppose
it is owing to these inborn traditions of mine that my
servants (and they have been of every nationality under
the sun almost) have always been good and faithful. I
can scarcely remember a bad one anywhere. Well, my
Dane, John, was like all the rest, ready to go to any
trouble to make me comfortable or to give me pleasure,
and when he found that I liked stories he gave me
streams of them, always from the peasant point of view,
about Denmark, about " his " King and Queen as he
proudly called them, about the " Feuer Prinzessin," the
French wife of the Crown Prince, whose passion for
watching conflagrations would bring her out at any hour
of the night or day if she heard the fire engines go past,
thus earning for her the title of " Fire Princess." But the
quaintest of all was a little anecdote about Bismarck in
1864. The Prussians had invaded Jutland and were

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taking possession of Friedericia, John's own city. John's
grandmother, by the way, refused to move with the
women and children, who were all sent off into the coun-
try after the battle, when the Danes decided to evacuate
the place, and the Prussians under General Wrangel were
to take possession. " Leave my city where I was born
and have lived in honour for seventy years? " cried the
brave old dame. " No, indeed 1 Go, you cowards! You
are no true Danes ! I will go out and meet those robbers
and tell them what I think of them! " And so she did.
Taking up her position on the top step of a monument
outside the city gate she awaited the approach of the
Prussian troops, and as each regiment marched past her
she shook her fist at its Colonel and called him every
name she could lay her tongue to. The soldiers first
laughed and ended by cheering the gallant old woman.
I do not know whether she recognised Bismarck, the
author of Jutland's disgrace, but I fancy Von Moltke,
who was riding beside him, came in for the heaviest
vials of her wrath.

The Von Moltkes were originally Mecklenburgers, but
in the troubles of 1808 had fled to Jutland and had lived
there for many years. Helmuth von Moltke not only
had a very warm feeling for the Province, but strongly
disapproved of the whole war, so that it was much against
his will that he was obliged to enter the city which had
sheltered his boyhood, as a conquering warrior.

He knew every street and house in it; Bismarck had
never seen it before and looked around him curiously.
" That is a fine house," he remarked, pointing to a large,

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imposing building which cast all the others into the shade,
" I will take up my quarters there."

" Very appropriate," replied Von Moltke dryly.
"That is the State Prison!"

General Wrangel must have been a very old gentleman
when he led the Prussians into Jutland, for, not long after-
wards, he retired from the active list, covered with years
and honours, and became the privileged " enfant terrible "
of Berlin, where Annie's brother-in-law was given a post
of anxious responsibility when he was appointed his
aide-de-camp. The General's mind was failing, but in the
most cheerful way. He loved society, would go to all
the parties, and spent much time in the Public Gardens,
where he insisted on stopping every pretty girl he met,
telling her she was a darling and chucking her under the
chin. The children adored him and would leave all their
games to run up to him for the sugar plums he carried
about for them. Oscar had to see that his pockets were
full of these before he started on his walk, and most of
the young man's time was spent in making apologies
for his Chief's innocent but undiscriminating gallantries
" Unter den Linden." I think it was on that famous
promenade that one young lady received a very pretty
compliment from a handsome lieutenant who knew his
Heine. He stopped before her, and she drew back in
surprise, for he was an utter stranger.

" Gnadiges Fraulein," he began, " I have a message
for you. May I deliver it? "

"A message for me?" she exclaimed. "From
whom? "

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" From a great poet. He said * Und wenn du eine rose
siehst, so sag ich lass sie grosser!/ * I obey and greet the

rose."

History has not recorded the end of the romance, so
doubtless it was a happy one.

* "And if thou shalt behold a rose, then say I send her greeting,'!

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CHAPTER XVII

DISTINGUISHED FOREIGNERS AND FAMOUS AMERICANS

Admiral Wrangel — Rudolph Lehmann — Lisa's Debut — Madame Helbig —
Liszt — His Romance — Lothrop Motley — Prescott — Lowell — The
Elder Agassiz — Bayard Taylor — General Grant — Sherman — McClel-
lan — A Disappointed Man — Longfellow — A Memorable Day at Sant*
Onofrio.

THE name of Oscar's old General reminds me of
the famous Admiral Wrangel, who, I think, was
his brother. He spent one or two winters in Rome
somewhere between 1865 and 1868, and we saw a great
deal of his daughter-in-law and granddaughters. The
Admiral was a gentle little old man in delicate health,
and it seemed difficult to connect him with the frozen
island in the Arctic seas and the Alaskan volcano which
both bear his name. The girls became great friends of
ours and at once took their places in the informal musical
and artistic circle which gathered in the Palazzo Odes-
chalchi. Two notable figures in it were Rudolph Lehmann
) and his wife, he dominant and imposing, she, almost as
gifted in her way, a gentle, sweet-voiced woman who
never talked about her work or herself. Mr. Lehmann's
appearance was peculiarly striking. His snow white hair
crowned a perfectly colourless, strongly aquiline face out
of which shone black eyes of uncanny size and brilliancy.
He made the impression of having come from some icy
planet where there were no such tints as our earthly reds
and browns. His voice, too, in speaking, had a curious

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" timbre " that reminded one of the north wind whistling
through the trees. But he was a cheerful, talkative man,
and if his laugh was a little cold too, at any rate it came
very often. His wife was a woman of a type rarer now
than formerly, a delightful singer, an artist to the
ends of her fingers, but shy and gracious as the very ex-
ceptional Duchess whom Taine describes so admiringly
in his book on England, naively holding her up as the
type of British aristocratic womanhood. Perhaps in
Taine's still Victorian epoch great ladies did blush like
schoolgirls when strangers were presented to them, but
that artless accomplishment has so long gone out of
fashion that the beauty makers (at so much an hour)
advertise certified cures for it. That seems hardly neces-
sary in an age when women lift up their voices in public
on every conceivable question, and publicity at any price
is the avowed aim of social life. They speak uncom-
monly well sometimes, but at a cost of which they them-
selves are unconscious, the cost of charm. That depends
on a certain delicate mystery, on the rich reserves of a life
led for home and friends, on which the outsider can only
look as at the lighted windows of a beautiful house. The
tempered radiance which they give forth indicates a thou-
sandfold greater glow and light within.

Rudolph Lehmann's wife was a true artist in a very
imaginative feminine way. When we were all at Sor-
rento together during the " Mowen's " summer she was
illustrating Chamisso's " Frauen Leben und Lieben " and
now the poems never seem quite complete to me with-
out those pictures. Of all the poems in the world that

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little cycle comes closest to the inner workings of a
woman's heart, through maidenhood, wifehood, mother-
hood, widowhood; the " lieder " came to me first as
poems, then as pictures, then, a year or two later, as
music, for they were divinely set either by Schumann or
Abt, I blush to say I forget which, and I heard them
sung till they were a part of the best and happiest years
of my life. I wonder where all the gratitude one feels
for such things is due ?

There was a great fount of music in the Lehmann
family. Lisa, so well known now for her charming com-
positions, was a tiny girl in the nursery when I first knew
them all, fair-haired and blue-eyed like her mother.
Then they left Rome and went to live in England and I
did not see them again till Lisa was grown up and her
mother brought her down to Rome to take us all by
storm with her singing. It was a reception day and the
rooms were crowded with people and full of sunshine and
flowers, I remember, and dear Mrs. Lehmann, pretty
and fragile as ever, wanted to hear the musical world's
opinion on her daughter's attainments after the careful
training which had been bestowed upon them. Countess
Gigliucci was present and another lady whose opinion

was considered worth having, Madame H , a lady

so well known in the Paris of the Third Empire; she
had a beautiful voice and had subjugated Napoleon III
and his gay satellites chiefly by the singing of coon
songs. Coon songs and pretty American women were
still novelties in Europe in the Sixties, I believe. Sgam-
bati was with us too, that day, and Madame Helbig,

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so altogether it was rather an imposing audience. Lisa
was white as death when she stood up to sing, and
her mother had tears of nervousness in her eyes. What
makes the real people always so humble, I wonder?
When the song ended, the hush of breathless appreciation
lasted for a moment, and then Countess Gigliucci and
Sgambati and Madame Helbig and a dozen others
pressed forward to thank and congratulate the girl. Not

so Madame H . She maintained a frozen silence

and looked deeply displeased, and I think Mrs. Lehmann,
in her sweet honesty, was terribly troubled by the lady's
attitude. As events have shown it was a tribute.

Madame Helbig's name requires comment, outside
of the circle where she was a dominant figure for many
years without accepting a single one of the conventions
and traditions which ruled it. Her name ought to have
been "Das Ding an sich;" she was so independent of
the ordinary standards as to seem really unconscious of
them and nobody attempted to weigh her conduct by
them. This does not mean that she was an intellectual
or moral anarchist; her idea of the duties of life was
unusually high and sacred, but outside that domain she
settled every question for herself with high-handed calm
invulnerable to approval or disapproval. Enormously
tall and disproportionately stout even for her height,
when she sailed into a room full of ordinary men and
women it was like seeing some mammoth warship bearing
down on a fleet of pleasure boats. All through her life it
had been impossible for her to get into a real frock, and in
all the years that I knew her I never saw her in anything

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FAMOUS FOREIGNERS AND AMERICANS

but a plain black skirt and jacket, the latter cut straight
like a man's coat and provided with two pockets always
measured on a " Peter's " edition, so that she could carry
her classical scores about with her everywhere. Her
thick brown hair was chopped off exactly at the top of
her narrow linen collar — it would have given her apo-
plexy to attempt a coiffure and no hairpins would have
resisted the wild toss of the head with which she some-
times emphasised her speech. Her features would have
been fine in a less redundant setting, but features, figure,
dress, and all the rest of it were forgotten when once
one had met the fire, the glance of happy battle in her
blue eyes or heard the ringing tones of her great honest
voice. She was a Russian, a Princess Schachowskoy and
as a girl had been looked upon by her family as a melan-
choly example of degeneracy, for she only cared for two
things, music and archaeology. On coming to Rome archae-
ology had got the upper hand, and she would spend day
after day nosing about in the catacombs till, as her people
complained, she was such a mass of dust and cobwebs
that they could not brush her clean.

Now the German Embassy in Rome is a very complete
and imperial institution, having a department of archae-
ology in its great palace on the Capitoline, with a dis-
tinguished professor in charge. This learned man found
in the young Princess Schachowskoy an apt and most in-
teresting pupil. He guided her on many underground
excursions and at last, gathering courage from the shades
of Roman heroes and Christian martyrs, ventured to ask
her to be his wife. The marriage looked incongruous

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

enough, but it turned out very happily. The bride
dropped her title and threw herself heart and soul into
her husband's pursuits, while he, good, quiet man, ac-
cepted the musical half of her life with perfect equanimity.
Her salon became the gathering place for celebrities of
both spheres. Liszt adored her and would play by the
hour with her or for her. Her own gifts in that way
were superlative. Liszt and Sgambati could never have
enough of her music. Under her hands the piano spoke
like an orchestra. In a year or two after her mar-
riage something else occasionally spoke too, an imperious
baby whom she entirely refused ever to leave at home.
To see Madame and Professor and Miss Helbig arrive
at a party was really funny. Madame always carried her
daughter herself, and the Professor followed, abstracted
and calm, with a basket containing Miss Helbig's feeding
bottle and other infantine necessities carefully tied up in
a napkin. When Madame had been lured to the piano
and a roomful of people waited eagerly for her to begin,
she relinquished the baby to its papa, and swept herself
and her audience away into another world, a world of
glorious sound and progression which has no connection
with domestic responsibilities at all. In some funny way
all this reacted on the child, who in due time grew up to
be a very thoughtful, gifted woman with one great desire
in life, to do good. The first children's hospital had
been started some time before, by the Duchessa Salviati,
in a most original way. After the Civil War Rome was
flooded with rich Americans whose fortunes had either
burst out of the ground in " gushers " of petroleum or

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FAMOUS FOREIGNERS AND AMERICANS

had been made by army contracts. These last did not
confer distinction on their owners, for from the days of
the Revolution down, the army contractor has only too
often proved himself a heartless, unpatriotic wretch,
cheating the poor soldiers of food and clothing so shame-
lessly that George Washington exclaims in one of those
letters which seem to have been written with a red hot
pen, " If I had the power I would hang four or five of
these damnable scoundrels in every town to serve as an
example to the rest ! " I quote from memory but I think
these were the precise words. My dear mother used to
say: " I will receive oil; the Lord gave it to these good
people Himself, and they will learn English and manners
in time, but ' shoddy ' I will not have in my house ! "

The charitable Duchess Salviati, remembering, doubt-
less, the Italian proverb which says : " Riches have
neither smell nor colour," had no prejudices about
" tainted money." The " Nouveaux Riches " were eager
to get into Society, and she let it be known that whoever
sent a fat subscription to the Children's Hospital should
receive cards for her balls. Never did anything go up so
fast as that hospital! But the good Sisters of Charity
who took care of it and the kind persons who visited it
felt as if it would never be large enough to take in all the
little sufferers who needed care. The Romans of the
poorer classes are woefully ignorant of infant hygiene.
My mother was present when two contadine from the
hills brought in very sick babies. " What have you fed
this child on? " the doctor inquired of one. " Chestnuts
and water — I had nothing else ! " was the reply. Turn-

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

ing to the other woman he repeated the question. " My
baby had wine and coffee ! " she announced proudly.
Both children were in the last stages of fever and
emaciation.

Daisy Helbig's heart went out to the crowds of sick
children and she devoted herself to them almost entirely,
and her mother took up the work with all the enthusiasm
of her great, uncompromising character. And then came
a day which was a very sad one for Madame Helbig's
friends. The piano was closed forever and the musical
world knew her no more. She could not serve two
masters.

I think it would have broken Liszt's heart, but Liszt
was dead. His presence was so bound up with Rome
that I have often felt in passing Palazzo Caffarelli that
I should see him mounting the long, sun-bathed way to
Madame Helbig's old apartment there, the apartment,
which, as she used to say, made every other house in the
city seem dark, coming down from what she called
" Dieser Prall von Sonnenschein." Liszt was a child of
the sun, too, and had plenty of it in his rooms at the
convent of Santa Francesca Romana where he spent his
later years. His was a happy life, for besides his genius
and his fame he had the highest grace of all — he was
always beloved. Much has been said in other countries
about his vanity and his affectations. Those who knew
him in Rome were never aware of such faults in him.
His strange, ugly face beamed with such gentle kindness,
he was so quick to understand where a word of sympathy
and encouragement would raise some desponding heart

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to the seventh heaven of hope and joy, he was so gener
ous with his adorable music, always playing for those
who wished it, so humbly faithful to his religion, so merci-
ful to any in distress, that it was impossible not to revere
and love the man. One very great lady had loved and
followed him about all his life. They were both so old
when I saw them that it was out of the question to connect
any scandal with the attachment, which, I believe, on his
side, at any rate, had never overstepped the limits of de-
voted friendship. But the Princess had a husband, and
I am afraid he had much reason to complain of her
attitude. When she was between sixty and seventy, or
thereabouts, the Prince died, and it looked as if his widow
even at that age might persuade the great musician to
marry her. But Liszt retired from the difficult situation
quite gracefully. He assumed Deacon's orders and be-
came an Abbe, and withdrew to the dignified retreat of
an independent apartment within the walls of a convent.
The Princess, whom I remember as a quaint, prim little
old lady, with extraordinarily bright eyes and a close fit-
ting black bonnet, accepted his renunciation of the world
in good part but did not long survive it. She must have
been a person of unusual strength of character, for, at
the age of seventy, she, who had never touched a piano
in her life (though she knew everything there is to
know about music theoretically) took it into her head
to learn a long, extremely difficult sonata which was
a favourite of Liszt's, and succeeded in playing it very
creditably.

When I look back on these few years of my girlhood

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there rises up before me such a crowd of interesting per-
sonalities that I wonder how I had time to know and
appreciate them all. Yet each is as distinct as those I
met but yesterday. America seemed frightfully far away,
but one after another almost all my mother's old friends
found their way to Rome. Lothrop Motley and his
daughters were constant visitors at our house one winter.
I was rather in awe of the distinguished historian whose
wonderful opening chapter of the " Rise of the Dutch
Republic " had been always held up to me as the model
of pure and impassioned English. Ah, the English that
highly educated Americans spoke in those days, I shall
never hear again! It was the pure, incisive language of
Addison and Pope, faultless in construction, delicately
balanced, and delivered in clear, musical tones which were
a joy to the ear. Even the dear Sewells had nothing like
it, and they spoke better than any English people I ever
listened to. In my many wanderings I have often been
amused and irritated too, by the remarks of my husband's
country people. " You an American?" they would cry.
" Why, it seems impossible! You don't speak like one."
I always replied, " I try to speak like the Americans
who taught me, but I have been too much with English
people to succeed."

Mr. Motley did not talk much, but what he said was
always worth listening to, though he spoke in a very
quiet, modest way, and did not at all take it for granted
that his listeners might agree with him. I was quite
young when he came to Rome, but he was very kind to
me, and took trouble to encourage me to persevere with

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my serious reading which was being endangered just then
by a too sudden plunge into the world of romance. His
eldest daughter, Mrs. Ives, was in deep mourning. She
had been married a month when her husband, a brave,
handsome boy, was killed in one of those fierce, use-
less battles of the Civil War. She seemed utterly broken-
hearted, poor girl. Her younger sister, Susie Motley, was
full of fun and nonsense — she was one of those irre-
pressibles whom not even a family tragedy can subdue for
more than a very short time. Mrs. Ives was so young
and so attractive that people hoped that life would still
show her a bright side, and after several years it did, for
she married a distinguished Liberal M. P., and must
have found an endless source of interest and amusement
in the renowned statesman's career.

Our other historian, Prescott, I do not remember, but
he had also been an early friend of my mother's, and she
told me that he was distinctly an original, passing in his
own family for a hopeless idler who would never come to
any good. His relations were constantly imploring him
to do something useful, to take up some respectable career
instead of sitting all day locked up in his library, eating
soap. He used to keep a cake of this on his writing
table and nibble at it constantly, saying, when he was re-
monstrated with, that people should be clean inside as
well as out. Except for the soap and the inkstand the
table was always bare when anyone gained admittance to
the room, but it had deep drawers. For ten long years
Prescott bore all his family's reproaches in complete
silence, never once excusing or explaining his conduct.

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Then he produced his first great historical work and it
was the family's turn to apologise.

Another friend was dear Lowell, smiling, low-voiced,
with deep observant eyes. I do not think I appreciated
his poetry then as much as I did later, but the man at-
tracted me greatly, and in consequence it used to make
me furious to feel that I could never make him take me
seriously. By the time he came to see us I took myself
very seriously indeed and delivered my impertinent little
opinions with complete self-confidence. I remember so
well the slow turn of the head and the amused glance
he cast upon me as he sat beside me at dinner. " You
really think that?" he said in answer to a scornful pro-
nunciamento of mine on modern American fiction. " Oh,
well — " and then came a quiet smile — and he went
on with his dinner. I could have thrown my plate at
him!

He wrote sparingly, and some of what he wrote will
not live, but I think there is little in modern humour to
compare with the Biglow Papers — and for the poetry
that goes to the aching heart of things what can be more
poignant than the lines written after his wife's death,
those that end:

" That little worn shoe in the corner
Talks all your arguments down";

or the stanza in the " Vision of Sir Launfal " where the
transformed beggar rises up in all His Divinity before
the humbled, broken-hearted Knight who has given him
his last crust and tells him the secret of true charity:

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" Who gives himself with his gift feeds three,
Himself, his hungering neighbour and Me."

Other distinguished men from over the water came to
us in those years. I shall never forget an evening,
almost a whole night, that the elder Agassiz passed
with us. He had come out with a scientific party to watch
the transit of Venus from some remote spot in southern
Europe, I think, and, when he and my dear mother had
talked out their joy in meeting again after so many
years, he gathered us round him and gave us an account
of the great stellar event, with a fulness and lucidity
that brought abstruse mathematical calculations within the
reach of our minds, and would have convinced a casual
listener that his life had been devoted to the study of
astronomy alone. He must have talked for several
hours, and they seemed to us like minutes when he
ended. There was something about Agassiz which I
missed even in Lowell, and do miss in the make-up of
most learned Americans * — vitality. They may be truly
learned, courteous, and refined, but the temperament
seems to be below par. Could one test it with a clinical
thermometer I am sure it would fall short of normal
heat — the point at which in corporeal sickness the physi-
cian prescribes stimulants. The nice, good, cultured
American strikes us more vigorous Europeans as either
fundamentally effete or temporarily under vitalised. You
can never get a good hot flame or a hard hit out of him.
He is more of an eclectic than a producer, an intellectual

* Though Swiss by birth Agassiz had lived so much in America that he
comes justly under this classification.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

epicurean, whose loves and hates are represented by a
careful yet tepidly neutral attitude of criticism or approval.
But two or three whom I have known did not come into
this category, and Agassiz was one of them. Everything
about him was big, individual, definite, and of the things
that appealed to him he could speak as a lover speaks
of his mistress, with flashing eyes and ringing voice.

Bayard Taylor was another who seemed most fully
alive and brought nameless inspiration with him. I saw
a great deal of him at one time, and had learned a little
humility then, so that I was glad enough to listen defer-
entially to his flow of talk. He was very much captivated
by Rome, I think, and enjoyed every minute of his stay
there, in spite of the fact that he was mercilessly lionised
by all the hostesses who could get hold of him. I re-
member one horribly crowded party when everybody in
turn was brought up to shake hands with him as if he had
been a newly elected President. He was a big, broad-
shouldered man, noticeable in any room, and when I
caught sight of him the obligatory smile on his face had
lasted so long that it had set into a contortion. With the
boldness of youth I set about freeing him and was re-
warded by the sigh of relief he breathed when I drew him
away to talk or be silent as he liked. I at least was not
a gushing stranger!

After the war was over some of its heroes came to
refresh themselves by a look at Italy. General Grant
was one. There was no deficiency of vitality there. As
I remember him he was a burly, thickset soldier with a
strong, ugly face and twinkling eyes that seemed to find

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amusement in everything. His laugh was contagious, but
so loud it drowned the echoes it roused. One was glad
to be in the same room with him; he had the very aura
of success, and everything young and hopeful was drawn
towards it irresistibly.

Sherman was a much more polished soldier, a more
complicated, introspective person altogether. Exquisitely
groomed, his gold lace much brighter than that on Grant's
rather worn uniform, his handsome face amiably im-
mobile, he struck one as a man who still found time to ask
what others thought of him, a consideration which I do
not believe Ulysses S. Grant ever entertained for a mo-
ment during his whole life. Sherman seemed to enjoy
the lionising; Grant evidently regarded it as a huge joke.

McLellan too came to Rome, but a cloud hung over
him, the cloud of disappointment. He was disappointed
with his career, which had been neither altruistic nor suc-
cessful, and his countrymen felt that they had cause to be
disappointed in him. So much was expected of his
talents and character when he was raised to the chief
command of the Federal Army in 1861; so much was
lost by his inexplicable hesitations and procrastinations
afterwards, that he had to carry through life the suspicion
of having failed in courage. His political aspirations had
been rudely nipped when he ventured to come forward as
a candidate for the Presidency beside two such men as
Lincoln and Johnson, and the fact that he resigned his
commission in the Army on the day of the election —
while the war still raged between North and South — -
cast a serious slur on his patriotism.

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

Far and away the most interesting and lovable of
our visitors was Longfellow. As a child I had learned
almost all his poems by heart; by the time I had done
growing up I loved them better for his sake than for
their own. Perhaps it is true that he was lacking in some
of the qualities which go to make a really great poet, but
he wrote of high inspiring things in lovely metres and
gravely beautiful English. His poetry, in its harmony
and simplicity, is comprehensible to the capacity of a
child, yet must always keep its place among the recog-
nised classics of our age.

As life goes on, one's mind comes to resemble a many
times inscribed palimpsest; in the early years good
things are written on the clean blank page, things which
disappear under the manifold scorings of fuller and
more ardent periods. But when these in turn have
passed by, their requirements satisfied, their harvests,
whether good or evil, garnered, the records of them
mostly fade out and the simpler, richer impressions of
intellectual childhood show forth once more, bringing
the old conviction with them and causing one to ask why
one should have had to travel so far only to return
gratefully to the original starting place?

When Longfellow came to us in Rome my appreciation
of his writings was temporarily obscured. I had flung
myself with all the eagerness of my age into the works of
Victor Hugo, Musset, Theophile Gautier, even Swinburne,
with the exception of certain portions which my sister Annie
made me promise not to read, and the fiery exuberance
and colour of my new loves had made the old beacons

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look very pale and dim, though they shine out kindly
now. It was the man himself who captivated my admira-
tion when I saw him at last. His name had been a house-
hold word among us as long as I could remember. In
youth he was my mother's playmate, friend, ancl very
nearly something more, but, perhaps because she had
known him all her life, she could not go so far as to fall
in love with him. His " Maiden with the Meek Brown
Eyes " was written to her youngest sister, my aunt Annie,
who, I think, deflected a little of the romantic affection
he cherished for my mother towards her demure, gentle
self. Life separated them all quite early. Longfellow
was twice married; the tragic end of his second wife —
she was burnt to death — very nearly broke his heart.
But there was no crushing that strong, serene nature,
and the sharp sorrow only carried his love and faith to
a higher, less vulnerable plane.

In his age he seemed to be enjoying a wealth of calm
happiness; the glance of his eyes, so young in their deep,
clear blue, was like that of a prophet sent to prophesy
good things. There was a leonine confidence, too, about
the broad forehead and square face framed with thick
white hair and beard that shone like silver new from
the mint. His features were bold and regular — my
mother said he had been wonderfully handsome as a
boy — and his voice had a pleasant ripple that altogether
belied his age, and made his reading a great treat to his
hearers. One of our most memorable days with him
was spent at Sant' Onofrio, the convent on the Janiculum
where Tasso lived for awhile, and died. It was Long-

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fellow's first visit to the place, and it seemed almost as
if the great Italian's spirit had returned there to welcome
the man who knew his work so well and had translated
it so perfectly. We kept silence while the poet from over
the sea moved about the room examining one relic and
another and gazing long and lovingly on the waxen cast
taken when death had set its seal of peace on the worn
yet noble features so deeply scored with the sufferings of
life. Then we drew him away and led him out to the little
ruined fane on whose semi-circle of marble seats the
Arcadians used to sit and look out over the city, while one
and another of their number recited or improvised poems
and tales in the shade of a little grove of which but one
tree now remains — Tasso's oak.

It was a perfect afternoon of the Roman spring.
Where the hill sloped steeply from our feet little almond
trees were in bloom, filling the air with their unreal yet
haunting perfume. The Tiber ran below, full and yellow,
and breaking into spray round the piers of its many
bridges, and beyond, the whole vast city lay in its match-
less richness of colour and architecture, each church and
palace and monument standing out clear and distinct,
yet all blending in a haze of topaz and sapphire till Rome
looked like one great liquid jewel melting and spreading
over her Seven Hills. A little breeze came up from the
west and the Campagna, bringing scents of mint and wild
jonquils, and now and then the faint tinkle of sheep bells
from the great flocks that roamed at will over that empty
twenty miles of forsaken beauty. All were silent for
awhile, we, the native born, and our poet, the stranger

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from a newer, harder land, who had indeed visited Rome
in his youth, but, with all his appreciations matured, told
us that he felt he was now really seeing her for the first
time. Then he opened his Tasso and read to us — sit-
ting where Tasso used to sit — his favourite Canto in
the Gerusalemme Liberata.

When he closed the book, the sun was setting on a
day that will stand out forever in my memory. We
carried him home wkh us and kept him all the even-
ing. He seemed to belong to us and we were a little
jealous of the quietly watchful son and daughter who
used to take him away, fearful, I think, lest the highly
charged atmosphere of the Palazzo Odescalchi should
prove too wearing for him. But he fitted in so well there,
seemed so content and satisfied in those sumptuous,
flower filled rooms, that when, a few years ago, I visited
the bare little house in Portland, Maine, where he was
born, I said to myself, " My Longfellow never belonged
here; he was far more at home with us in the old
Odescalchi!"

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CHAPTER XVIII

TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

The Palazzo Odescalchi — Pope Innocent XI — Palazzo Savarelli — "Tolla"
— Nameless Visitant — The Shadow Ghost of the Ball Room, the Mys-
terious Coach, and their Sequel — The Unavenged Chasseur — The Ap-
parition of the Sham Door — Sights from the Palace Windows — Pius IX
and the Drawer of his Writing Desk — Two Presentations — Cardinal
Antonelli — The Worst Hated Man in Rome — My First Meeting with
him at the Vatican — The Cardinal's Ring Box — "One might have to
take an Unexpected Journey!"

I AM sure my dear mother's many friends will forgive
me if I pause to say a few words about the Palazzo
Odescalchi, where she lived, with one short break, for
over thirty years. It had not the magic surroundings of
my birthplace, the old, old villa on the upper outskirts of
the city, but it became as truly a home to us, and though
I never ceased to regret the Negroni garden and visited
it as long as it existed, yet the ease and spaciousness of
the more modern house, its nearness to galleries and
libraries and the dwellings of friends, made it an ideal
place for a growing girl to live in, and the not unkindly
shadow of weird romance that hung over it appealed
strongly to my imagination.

Of course it was built by a Pope, Innocent XI, who
reigned from 1676 to 1689, during the doom-laden period
when it seemed as if Islam might descend with fire and
sword upon the very Vatican itself. Even the Protestant
historians admit that Innocent XI was an " able and zeal-
ous Pontiff," as indeed he needed to be, for the times

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were evil. In the year of his accession Poland had been
forced to sign a treaty of peace with the Turks, at
Zurawno, a deep humiliation for Christendom at large;
then the renegade Hungarian, Count Tekeli, led his ever
unmanageable countrymen into a revolt against Austria,
which was prolonged for five years, and crowned his
achievements by calling in the followers of Mohammed
to help him resist his Christian sovereign. The Turks re-
sponded joyfully to his appeal by proceeding to besiege
Vienna, and had not John Sobieski forced them back,
some of us in southern Europe would probably have been
subjects of the Porte at this day. We may be sure that
Pope Innocent did some very strenuous praying during
those alarming years. He had also to contend with
Molinos and the Quietists, the new sect which main-
tained that since all good comes from God, man need
make no conscious effort to pray or to insure his own
salvation. A frightful incursion of the plague visited
Italy just at that time (of which Shorthouse gave such
a vivid description in " John Inglesant") and the poor
Pope was besides constantly Worried by disputes with
the French king and the French bishops.

All the same he found time to build one of the most
princely of Roman palaces opposite that of the Colon-
nas, who doubtless looked down upon the Odescalchis
as mere modern upstarts when Innocent XFs more im-
posing pile rose up across the way, occupying, with its
courtyard, the entire block between two streets and run-
ning back as far as the Corso. At right angles to the
Church and the Odescalchi stands the Palazzo Savarelli,

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where the lovely heroine of About's romance, " Tolla,"
broke her heart and died while I was at school in Eng-
land. Annie saw her carried out to her grave. She was
the last to be borne thither after the old Roman fashion
for young girls, in an open coffin, dressed like a bride,
with orange flowers in her hair and a pretty touch of pink
on her cheeks. The populace very nearly lynched her
faithless lover that day.

Opposite to my own windows rose the bell tower of
the Santi Apostoli, the church where Michelangelo, as a
devout parishioner, used to go to Mass. No such illus-
trious memory haunted our house, but we had one or
two nameless visitants from the other world, who clung
to us faithfully enough. One was a gentle shade — really
a shade and no more — to whom I grew so accustomed
that I used to pause to say good night to him as I passed
through the ballroom on my way to bed. The ballroom
was fifty feet square and high in proportion, with three
tall windows opening to the floor and protected by iron
balconies, through the scroll-work of which the light of
the lamps in the Piazza was thrown high on the further
wall of the apartment at night. The walls were hung
with white silk painted with peacock feathers, every panel
set deep in fretwork of gold and separated from the next
by a great mirror. There were six double doors, of which
the panels were mirrors too, framed in gilt carving and
surmounted by lunettes containing delicate little land-
scapes, the whole thing carried out in the best style of the
First Empire.

We did not use the room much; it served chiefly as a

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playroom for the children until we built a little theatre
there; but, as Roman palaces are never furnished with
corridors, we had to pass through it constantly if we
wished to avoid the other side of the house where the
drawing-rooms opened into it. My good stepfather had
a passion for small economies, and no light illuminated
the ballroom at night except that thrown up from the
street lamps below. As soon as darkness fell and these
were lit, three squares of radiance showed on the white silk
of the opposite wall. Two were empty, but for the shadows
of the intersecting balcony bars; in the third stood the
figure of a man in early eighteenth century costume, lean-
ing pensively on the railing, his head on his hand, as if
looking down at us. The whole figure was as clearly
outlined as the scroll work of the iron, which it quite
eclipsed. No matter who came or went, the shadow
man was always there. We and our young friends used
to stand in the same window and amuse ourselves with
grouping our shadows round his, but his still showed
through, as if painted on the wall. Closing or opening the
glass made no change in the motionless figure. One night
my brother Marion grew irritated with its persistent pres-
ence ; some one suggested that it might be due to a freak
in the glass of the lanterns below; Marion ran down-
stairs and smashed them all, and came racing up again
before the police could catch him, to see if he had
destroyed the wraith too. Not a bit of it. There it
was, real as ever, and no explanation of it has yet been
offered. But I found the Shadow man's portrait a few
years ago, when a friend who had been making a collection

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of Piranesi's splendid engravings of Roman buildings
brought me one for a present.

" This is the Odescalchi, your old home," he said, " I
think you ought to have it."

Every detail of the well-known architecture stood out
in the dazzling black and white of the print, and there,
leaning out of the balconied window, his head resting
on his hand, looking pensively down on the world below,
was my old friend, the Shadow man. The original of
another ghost had been caught in the picture as well.
Night after night, between twelve and one, I have watched
a great lumbering coach drive into the empty Piazza,
and stop noisily under my bedroom window, before our
second porte-cochere, one which had always been walled
up in my time. The coach door was opened, a dark figure
jumped quickly out, said " Buona notte " to someone
inside, the coach drove on a few yards, and then the
whole thing disappeared. There was neither coach nor
passenger in the empty Piazza.

In the Piranesi engraving the coach was passing the
great door, evidently still in use when the artist made his
drawing. I wonder what the story was? My mother
used to declare that in certain rooms of the Odescalchi
the "very walls sweated wickedness"; they must have
seen more than one tragedy in their two hundred years of
existence. As I have said, there were only five palaces in
our Piazza; it was known that in one of them a man had
been walled up alive. But no one of the owners would
admit that this had taken place in his house; each shoul-
dered the reproach off on his neighbour. The Romans

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TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

as a rule take no interest in the history of their dwellings.
They are light-hearted people with a healthy dislike of
horrors, and it is very hard to drag family stories from
them, for most of the stories are tinged with tragedy of
some kind. The apartment in which we lived had at one
time been occupied by an Austrian ambassador, who had
killed his chasseur in a fit of rage. As an ambassador,
he could not be called to account for the crime ; his tem-
porary domicile was sacred soil, and no questions could
be raised as to what he saw fit to do there. The poor
unavenged chasseur never gave any trouble till my mother
brought an Austrian woman back with us from Vienna to
wait on my small brother and sister. Then, apparently
encouraged by the presence of a compatriot, he used to
appear to her as she sat sewing in the nursery of an even-
ing. She had never heard the story, but she described
his costume with great exactness, and, strange to say,
was not in the least disturbed by his presence. " He
never comes further than that door," she said to me once,
pointing to one which led into the ballroom, " He stands
quite still and never says anything. Why should I mind
the poor fellow? "

One of the doors in the ballroom was a sham one, put
into the wall for the sake of symmetry. Behind it, from
top to bottom of the house rose a great blind shaft, called
in Rome the " pozzo nero " (the black well), and in-
troduced into most of the larger palaces for two purposes
— to brace the building by its hugely thick walls, which
form a kind of central pillar to strengthen things gener-
ally; and, until modern drainage was invented, to receive

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refuse of. every kind, this being carried up to the roof and
pitched down into it. In some houses its locality had been
forgotten. The Duchess of San Teodoro (afterwards
Lady Walsingham) took my godfather's apartment in
the Palazzo Bonaparte for one or two winters. All
went well at first, and then suddenly the place became in-
supportable; the most horrible odours filled every room.
Experts were called in, and after prolonged investigation
located a " pozzo nero " the existence of which had not
even been suspected, filled to the top with garbage — and
worse. The masonry had sprung a leak somewhere and
the poison was filtering through.

The one in our house gave no such evidence of the
savage habits of a past generation, but it made one feel
rather creepy to know that the walls of our pretty rooms
were backed by this pillar of empty blackness some fifteen
feet square, and one night my sister Annie had a terri-
fying experience in connection with it. We were all owls
as to late hours, but she was the latest of all, often read-
ing or playing the piano till nearly dawn in her own
room, which was so far away that no sound from there
ever reached the rest of us at the other end of the apart-
ment. She was not a fanciful person at all, but she had
a kind of fear that she might meet a burglar, so if she
had occasion to wander about the house at night she al-
ways came out fully armed — with a pair of nail scissors!
One night she had gone to fetch a book from the room
where we had been sitting and was crossing the ballroom
on the way back, candle in one hand and scissors in the
other, when, to her horror, across the great dark space,

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she saw the mirrored frame of the sham door begin to
open, very slowly, inch by inch, till it swung wide. Then
— something came out. Poor Annie fell on the floor
in a dead faint. When she recovered consciousness she
was lying there in complete darkness; her candlestick
had rolled out of reach; she was still clutching the scis-
sors but they had ceased to inspire any confidence, and she
had to find her way back to a door, shivering lest she
should strike that one, and get to her room as best she
could. No question or persuasion could ever prevail
upon her to tell us what it was that she had seen — all
that she desired was to forget it as soon as possible.

But with all this the Odescalchi was sunny, cheerful,
and admirably adapted for the kind of entertaining that
young people love, theatricals improvised or long pre-
pared, harum-scarum dances and solemn concerts, croquet
matches of an evening in the ballroom, or, best of all,
some fortuitous gathering of kindred spirits towards mid-
day, when everybody had so much to say that the dinner
table had to be enlarged in the evening and we did not
break up till midnight. There was plenty of room for us
and the ghosts, too. Only in Italy could people of mod-
erate means have been housed as we were. I think my
mother paid two hundred pounds a year for an apartment
(unfurnished of course) comprising eighteen or twenty
large rooms running along the entire front of the second
floor, flooded with sunshine, panelled, painted, the walls
hung with silk, every door a study of decoration, the
very window shutters bevelled and gilded till it was a
pleasure to handle them. I had a bedroom thirty feet

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A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

square, painted to resemble the inside of a tent, with a
classical medallion in each fold of the simulated drapery.
Its four doors were so many mirrors; the long balconied
windows, looking out on the Piazza, each made an al-
cove many feet deep; my writing table always stood in
one, my easel and painting things in another. My sister
Annie had established herself at the other end of the
house — she always loved remoteness and solitude —
and her room was a museum of paintings, books, statues,
and bric-a-brac, dominated by a piano and a head of
Beethoven, a cast from my father's statue which stands
in the Boston Music Hall. There she could play all night
if she liked without disturbing anybody. Upstairs was a
warren of offices and servants' quarters where our men-
servants lived with their wives and families, and down
in the courtyard were good stables where our horses and
carriages were kept, with the tame nanny goat that our
coachman, true to Roman traditions, insisted on having
there to amuse the horses.

After my sister Annie and I were married, my mother
and stepfather moved into a smaller apartment in one of
the wings of the house, but it was arranged on the same
lines, they had all their household gods about them,
the sun shone into it all day, and when I used to return
from my diplomatic wanderings to visit them I forgot
even to notice the change.

I have seen wonderful sights from the front windows
of the Odescalchi. It was in 1868, I think, that Pius IX
came in state to the Church of the Santi Apostoli, where,
if my memory is not at fault, the original resting place

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of St. Philip and St. James had just been discovered.
That day every window in the Piazza was hung with the
long crimson silk draperies kept in every family for such
occasions ; the entire route from the Vatican to the church
door had been covered with fine yellow sand and strewn
with box and laurel; the Piazza itself was garlanded
from end to end and, of course, crowded with people. The
Zouaves in their picturesque uniforms were on duty to
keep order, and more than one so far forgot discipline
as to look up at our windows and smile at us. Then came
the splendid display of the Noble Guards, and close be-
hind them the Holy Father in his State coach — the last
time he ever used it. I think it was the same in which
he had re-entered Rome in triumph in 1850, after the
Revolution, a scene of which Von Moltke, who was pres-
ent, gives an impressive description. It was a great gilt
thing, shaped more like a boat than a carriage, swinging
easily on enormously long straps behind the four black
horses, all caparisoned in white and gold, the Papal
colours. The sides were all of glass, and Pius IX's pale,
noble countenance was clearly visible to the kneeling
people as he raised his hand to bless them. How they
cheered him, and how happy and serene he looked! I
had been taken to see him once or twice already after I
was grown up, and all my early impressions had been
revived and confirmed. His kind, clear glance, his look
of gentle regret when he was told that I had not yet
been received into the Church, the few grave words he
said, and the encouraging smile, and the blessing at part-
ing, all had been treasured up in my heart, and it was

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always a red-letter day for me when I caught a glimpse
of his face.

Although the times were troubled he still took his
drives outside the city walls, and our favourite roads
seemed to be his too, for we often met him " fuori di
porta." Etiquette required that we should stop our car-
riage, descend and kneel as he passed, and then we were
always rewarded by a smile of recognition and a special
blessing all to ourselves. The Marchese Girolamo
Cavalletti (known to all his friends as " Momo ") to
whom I have already alluded more than once, was con-
stantly in attendance on him in the Vatican and used to
tell us day by day what had been happening there. The
Pope looked upon him as a beloved son, and Momo took
advantage of his privileges to induce him sometimes
to humour his health by modifying the Spartan frugality
of his diet, which was much plainer than we were ex-
pected to furnish for our servants. A cup of black coffee
in the morning after Mass, one dish and a little cheese
or fruit, with a glass of thin cheap wine for dinner at
midday, and a good deal less for supper. This was the
Pope's menu. Long hours of prayer, still longer ones
of business, audiences public and private without end,
his only recreation was the drive or short walk in the
Vatican gardens in the afternoon. Never did he think of
himself, and he counted it a sin to spend even the tiniest
sum for his own comfort or pleasure. All he had of his
own went to the poor, to whom he was always accessible,
always an eager helper. In his writing table was one
little drawer where all the money he could dispose of

328

TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

was kept to meet their demands. Again and again the
little drawer would be opened in the course of the day,
and then, when the last penny had been extracted from
it some urgent case would present itself and Momo Cavel-
letti would be told to go and fetch what was needed.
11 But, Holy Father," he would exclaim, " we emptied the
drawer this morning ! There is nothing left ! "

11 Go and look, my son," the Pope would reply. " Since
it is for the poor you will surely find something there."
And his calm trust was always justified. There lay the
required sum, though an hour earlier Cavalletti himself
had taken out all there was. He said that at such
moments he wanted to go down on his knees, knowing
that he was in the presence of a Saint. But in ordinary
life Pio Nono was delightfully genial and witty, and
could tell a good story or listen to one with keen appreci-
ation. Some of the " bevues " of the foreigners who
attended audiences amused him immensely. There was
in those days an unofficial British representative who
was charged with all business connected with the Vatican.
Our friend, Clarke Jervoise, so long a notable figure in
the Foreign Office, filled this post for many years, and he
told me that of all the trying moments of his life the
worst had been when he had to take one over-enthusi-
astic compatriot to see Pius IX. The language on these
occasions had to be French, for the Pope did not speak
English, and during the drive to the Vatican Clarke Jer-
voise took much trouble to explain to his companion that
he must be careful to address the Pontiff as " Saint Pere."

By the time they had passed all the guards and sec-

329

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

retaries and chamberlains and Monsignori the stranger
was trembling with excitement. At last they were ushered
into the Pope's presence, and there he threw himself on
his knees in a fervour of veneration, exclaiming " Sucre
Pere ! " Surely never before had a Pope been sworn at
in the heart of the Vatican. Pio Nono kept his coun-
tenance and the naughty " cuss " word passed without re-
mark then, but how he must have laughed afterwards!
Clarke Jervoise said that he expected the walls to fall
on him and really never knew how he got his man out
of the room.

A genial American capped this feat years afterwards
on being presented to Leo XIII. " Sir," he exclaimed,
seizing the Pope's hand and shaking it heartily. " I am
glad to meet you. I knew your father, the late Pope ! "

At some distance from the Pope's rooms in that Vati-
can labyrinth was a sunny apartment, very stately and
remote, where Cardinal Antonelli lived. Pio Nono was
the best loved man in Rome, but his Prime Minister was
certainly the worst hated. Those who knew him and
saw him constantly became very much attached to him,
and he had kindly human sides, but no one trusted him,
except the Pope himself; that trust was worthily placed,
for the man was loyal through and through, but it came,
in the first instance, of self distrust. When Pio Nono
was elected Pontiff, he was, as I have said before, filled
with broad and liberal-minded aspirations, and was pre-
pared to confer on his people a large measure of con-
stitutional government. But he met with black ingrati-
tude and treachery; he had forgiven his condemned

330

TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

enemies only to have the liberty he had granted them
used for new attacks and insults, and he had lost all his
illusions about human nature as demonstrated in popular
politics. He felt that he had not understood his people,
that his clemency had been nothing but a mistake result-
ing in disaster. A stronger hand than his was required
to rule them, and after his return from Gaeta he decided
to relinquish a great part of the arduous task to Antonelli,
who, whatever his unpopularity, was a man of keen in-
telligence, and devoted heart and soul to his master's
interests. Antonelli was ruthless in retribution; he
punished the defeated revolutionists with greater se-
verity than he would have employed had he been more
sure of the firm attitude of the Pope. As things were he
was carrying a heavy responsibility single handed and he
could not afford to take any chances. He had the repu-
tation of being unscrupulous and willing to sacrifice many
things to gain his ends. Had he gained those ends and
succeeded in re-establishing the temporal power on a
firm basis the world would have hailed him as a hero,
for few successful statesmen have made a fad of scruples
or good faith, and Antonelli's record looks white beside
that of some others, Bismarck for instance. But he failed,
and since only exceptional virtue can afford to be beaten
and remain respected, Antonelli's name will go down to
posterity burdened with a good many unjust accusations.
His worst fault was that he was too credulous a states-
man, who could not understand the men on whom he
pinned his faith, Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II.
He had for so long ascribed honourable motives to both

331

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

of them that when their real ones became patent this
policy crumbled into failure — he had nothing to fall
back upon. A great deal more has been said about his
private life and his love of riches than the facts support.
As to the first it was not vicious, although it had not
been altogether immaculate. It must be remembered
that his rank of Cardinal was practically a secular one;
it made him a Prince of the Church, but it entailed no vow
of celibacy and could, at the time it was conferred upon
him, be borne by one who had only taken deacon's
orders and who could, if he wished, return to the
world. Antonelli never was ordained a priest. He
made no pretence of any ecclesiastic vocation, but,
barring one deviation in early years, his life was quite
moral and dignified, giving no room for scandal of any
kind.

He was the last secular Cardinal; there had been
many before him, but with the general tightening of
ecclesiastical discipline it has been decreed that there
shall be no more. Only a fully ordained priest can now
become a member of the College which elects the Pontiff.

As for his avarice, he did not leave any great fortune
behind him and I think he was more fond of beautiful
things than of money for its own sake. I had never met
him till the spring of 1867 when he invited my mother
to bring me and my sister to spend the afternoon with
him. He had a pretty little villa at the other end of the
town, near the foot of the Villa Aldobrandini of which
a large part was cut away to make room for the Via
Nazionale. Antonelli's place, was of course, pounced

332

TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

upon and the garden and the greater part of the house
swept out of existence on the same pretence, as soon
as the Italians had made themselves masters of Rome.
It was curious to note how ingeniously the new streets
twisted and turned or widened into squares where there
was a possibility of their being made to include property
which belonged to supporters of the Holy Father. The
Cardinal spent very little of his' time at the Villa An-
tonelli, only going there now and then for a short holi-
day, and our visit to him was made at his apartment
at the Vatican. I was rather shy at the prospect of meet-
ing the great man, but from the moment he entered the
room he made me feel welcome and at ease. In ap-
pearance he was a typical south Italian, small in build,
dark skinned, with piercing, narrow black eyes that
seemed to see everything and tell nothing of what was
passing in the busy brain behind them. His face was
meant to be mobile but usually wore a fixed smile which
had become a part of his armour. He was a rapidly
fluent talker, and at once took all the burden of conver-
sation upon himself, evidently pleased with our naive
admiration of the many beautiful things gathered round
him in the room where he received us. It was a large,
lofty apartment looking towards the West, hung from
ceiling to floor in old crimson damask and filled, but
not crowded, with good paintings, small, fine antiques,
cinquecento cabinets, books in rich bindings, and all the
other charming objects that a true connoisseur so dearly
cherishes. Many were presents from famous people,
others offerings from grateful proteges. He led us

333

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

round and told us the history of each, while the sun
poured in through the great windows lighting up his fine
head, his dark eyes, and the close fitting scarlet robe and
cape, which, being in attendance at the Vatican, he was
wearing instead of the black one merely piped with red
in which he would otherwise have appeared on an un-
official occasion. He had small delicate hands, the hands
of a virtuoso, and they seemed to caress the marble and
the carvings very lovingly.

At last he said we must be tired and in need of re-
freshment, so he made us sit down and take breath while
his major domo served us with coffee. A Cardinal's
major domo is a special product only to be found in
Italy. He is always an elderly man, formed from his
earliest youth to the service of ecclesiastics, from whom
he has caught a suave urbanity of manner together with
a dignity and a habit of silence quite unattainable in any
other career. He always has to. appear, like his con-
freres in the world, in full evening dress, but this is
accentuated in his case by a much more voluminous white
tie, longer tails to his coat, and, when he follows his
master abroad, by a taller top hat than has been in fashion
in mundane circles for many a year. At processions and
ceremonies he has a right to stand or walk immediately
behind his prelate, always carrying a green bag to receive
the long crimson train the moment the proceedings are
over and it can be unhooked from the wearer's shoulders.
Cardinal Antonelli's familiar was the finest possible
example of the finished product. The air of mourn-
ful condescension with which he attended to our wants,

334

TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

piling my plates with marvellous sweetmeats (of which

I am sure the recipes had been handed down from the
famous feasts of the Borgias) said as clearly as possible,

II Since my revered master chooses to receive a pack of
chattering girls — heretics at that — I must humour him
so far as to wait upon you, but you have no business
inside these sacred walls, and you know it as well as

I do!"

When the little feast was over and the Prime Minis-
ter's Prime Minister had withdrawn, the Cardinal said:

II Ladies like gems, I believe. Now I will show you my
greatest treasure." Leaving the room for a moment he
returned, carrying a small, black leather box some six
inches square, with a handle on the top. This he opened
with a tiny key, and the room seemed suddenly full of
light, for the sun caught and focussed on ten rings each
set with a glorious jewel. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies,
emeralds — the little box contained the Cardinal's for-
tune in portable form ; and every gem was mounted after
a design of his own, so rich and artistic that the settings
attracted me really more than the jewels themselves. He
raised the top tray and ten more rings showed them-
selves in the second, among these some perfect intaglios;
and below again was a third tray with another ten —
thirty rings in all, the collection of a lifetime. " Why
does your Eminence keep them in that tiny box?" I
asked curiously, when he had closed it again.

He lifted it by the strap and looked at me with a
twinkle in his eyes. " One might have to take an un-
expected journey," he replied. " Such things do happen

335

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

sometimes, you know." Then I remembered 1848 and
Gaeta.

Some of my greatest friends were his nephews and
their charming mother. They were all devoted to him,
and after his brother's death, while the boys were still
young, he managed most of their affairs for them. Coun-
tess Antonelli was exceedingly good to me and I very
nearly became the Cardinal's niece and her daughter-in-
law. I liked her son immensely but I found it impossible
to get up any romance about him, and, at that epoch, I
thought romance a necessary factor to at least begin
happiness upon. At the critical moment, too, I forgot
about the box of rings. I am sure it would have decided
my fate had I remembered it in time !

Cardinal Antonelli never had to fly from Rome in
haste, though it must have required all the loyalty, and
all the courage of the brave man he was, to remain
through 1867 when the city seethed with imported revo-
lution, and 1870 when imported revolution triumphed.
The real Romans, who were devoted to Pio Nono, never
forgave Antonelli for his severity after 1849, anc^ tne
plotters of the Garibaldi and Mazzini gang regarded
him as their greatest enemy, the one man who had nailed
his colours to the mast and would see to it that the Holy
Father never yielded one hairbreadth of his sacred rights.
For Antonelli himself there was no such thing as lasting
failure. Forsaken and betrayed by all Europe, Rome
itself given over to the foe, he still hoped, still believed,
that the Pontiff would come into his own again. Oppor-
tunism did not enter into his councils; the great cause

336

TWO POPES AND A GREAT CARDINAL

of the Church's rights, the Church's liberty, claimed his
entire allegiance, and no power on earth would have in-
duced him to compromise with the Church's spoilers. He
died in 1876 without seeing the amazing resurrection of
Pontifical power, spiritual and political, which took place
in the reign of Leo XIII, and, God willing, paved the
way to some restitution which shall make the Church
independent of the Freemasons, desecrators, and atheists
who have robbed and hampered and insulted her for
forty years. Neither Fate nor history have done jus-
tice to Giacomo Antonelli; the first set her face against
him, so that all but the bravest of hearts would have been
broken in the long unequal contest; the second has been
written — with what wilful misrepresentations — by his
and the Church's enemies, with what blatant ignorance
by self constituted historians steeped in the darkness of
Protestant superstition! Wherever the gallant Cardinal
is now, I do hope he can see the buildings rising up every-
where in Rome to shelter the Religious Orders proscribed
and robbed of their property after the invasion of 1870;
see the people kneeling down humbly as the Blessed Sac-
rament is once more carried publicly through the streets
to the sick and dying; see the millions of pilgrims from
every quarter of the globe crowding to pay their homage
to the Vicar of Christ, and the Italian government —
that undeserving gate keeper of the House of the Lord
— receiving them thankfully for the sake of the money
they spend.

In the terrible September of 1870, while Bixio's shells
were bursting in our house, I was in Florence, and could

337

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

not get home because the trains were all needed to trans-
port the conquering troops to the beleaguered city. In
May, 1900, I was in Florence and could not get home
because the troops had asserted their right to assist at
the Jubilee and the trains were crowded with Italian
soldiers going to Rome to ask the Holy Father's blessing.
There is an old Roman proverb which says, " God
does not pay every day, but His accounts are all squared
on Saturdays."

338

THE CASE OF THE DUC D'ENGHIEN

THE account given by Count Real of his own part in
this mysterious business is as little explanatory of
the true causes of the death of the Due d'Enghien as are
those of the other principal agents concerned in it — upon
every one of whom the responsibility has been thrown in
turn by each and all of his indignant colleagues. The
guilt lies, apparently, upon one or more of the following:
the First Consul, Talleyrand, Savary, General Hulin (the
president of the military commission which tried and con-
demned the Duke), and Murat, the Governor of Paris,
through whose hands the whole business was made to go
by the First Consul, and who must have been in some wise
cognisant of the latter's intentions regarding the illustri-
ous victim. We will take the accounts of Real, Savary,
and Hulin in their order.

Real was the presiding magistrate of the Court of
Assize at Paris in the early spring of 1804, his functions
seeming to have varied between those of a modern High
Court Judge and those of an ordinary " Commissaire de
Police." On the night of March 19-20, 1804, he retired
to rest in his private rooms, contiguous to that in which
the common night-charges " were investigated by his
orderly or deputy, a subaltern police official. Twice, be-
fore two in the morning, Real was called out of bed by his
orderly to attend to cases that proved to be of no im-
portance, — in view of the plot-scare prevalent at the time
in Paris, the presiding magistrate was expected to be on
hand at any time of the day or night, — and, finally, to
his subsequent profound regret, he lost his temper, rated
his orderly, and gave him instructions that he was not to
be disturbed again before morning.

It was not until he had risen and dressed that he hap-
pened to stroll into his study, where, on the mantel-piece,
he saw awaiting his notice a letter addressed to him;

339

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

opening it, he found that it was an order from the First
Consul to go at once to Vincennes, there to examine, in
his quality of magistrate, a prisoner who had been brought
there a few hours before, Louis Antoine Henri de Bour-
bon-Conde, Due d'Enghien, and to report without delay
upon the matter to the First Consul.

Summoning his orderly, he demanded, agitatedly:

" When did this come for me? "

" About three o'clock," answered that functionary.
" The citoyen-magistrat gave orders that he was not to
be disturbed again and so I put it on the mantel-piece."

It was of no avail for Real to storm at his subordinate;
it only remained for him to make what haste he could to
repair matters by setting off immediately for Vincennes.
Having donned his official robes, he sent for a cab and
had himself driven swiftly across the town to the eastward
and Vincennes. This was towards eight o'clock in the
morning.

At the " Barriere " or-gate of the city leading on to the
Vincennes road, there passed him an acquaintance coming
from the opposite direction, General Savary, looking very
grave and preoccupied. On seeing Real, Savary greeted
him mechanically, and then, noticing that he was wearing
his robes of office, asked with an uneasiness unaccountable
to the other, where he might be going in those clothes at
that hour of the day.

" I am going to Vincennes," replied Real. " I have re-
ceived instructions to proceed there in order to examine
a prisoner, the Due d'Enghien."

"The Due d'Enghien?" exclaimed Savary. "Do
you not know that — but there must be some horrible
mistake — "

" What do you mean, — a mistake? Why do you look
like that, Savary? "

" The Due d'Enghien is no longer alive," said Savary.
" He was tried in the night and was shot early this morn-
ing. What does it all mean? When did you get your
orders? "

340

THE CASE OF THE DUC D'ENGHIEN

Real told him the whole story of the previous night:
his own fatal order to the police-sergeant, the belated
receipt of the letter that same morning.

When he had told his tale, Savary suggested that they
had better both go at once and report to the First Consul,
a course which Real, with terrible misgivings as to the
reception in store for him at the hands of Bonaparte,
agreed was the only one open to them ; and together they
repaired to the Chateau of La Malmaison, on the western
side of Paris, where the First Consul had his residence.

The scene that ensued was appalling; the great man's
fury knew no bounds of threat or language. It ended,
however, in no worse for Real than the loss of his post,
and the fact that Bonaparte was able to point to his lazi-
ness as the cause of the tragedy.

Some weeks after, during the trial of Generals Pichegru
and Moreau, which had been dragging on for months, a
curious thing came to light. Two of the witnesses pro-
duced by Fouche, the new Minister of Police, in order to
prove the fact of an extensive conspiracy against the First
Consul's life, had sworn, at their first examination, early
in March, to having seen, at the house of the brothers
Polignac, a man unknown to them, but in whose presence
the rest of the company remained standing, who was ad-
dressed with extremest deference, and generally acco; ded
the respect paid only to a prince of the blood.

He had put in a regular appearance at the royalist
meetings, once every fortnight, and they, the two wit-
nesses, were convinced he must have been a member of
the royal family.

This statement Talleyrand laid before Bonaparte, in-
sisting that it pointed to the fact of there being one of the
French royal family engaged as the head of an active in-
trigue against the Republic and the First Consul. The
whole series of trials was the outcome of the arrest of
Georges Cadoudal, a Breton, and a hundred and thirty
others, in February of that year, for their complicity in
a plot against the First Consul's life.

34i

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

The question now arose, to which of the exiled royal-
ties could the description given by the informers — two
companions of Cadoudal — possibly attach? Was the
stranger Louis XVIII himself, or his brother the Comte
d'Artois? Of these one was old and fat, the other old
and thin, and both were known to be at Mittau in Cour-
land. Obviously, argued Talleyrand, it must be some one
living nearer Paris than that; also the unknown was de-
scribed as young or youngish and good-looking. After
long cudgelling their brains as to his identity, they had an
inspiration. Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Conde, the
Due d'Enghien, was known to be living just across the
German frontier at Ettenheim in Baden, on an allowance
made to him by the English Government !

As we have seen, he was at once kidnapped, and met his
death at Vincennes on the 20th of March.

A few days after the Duke's death, the two companions
of Georges Cadoudal were confronted, amongst others,
with General Pichegru, and asked if they had ever seen
him by any chance at any of the royalist meetings in the
house of the Polignacs.

" Why, yes, indeed," they instantly made answer.
" Certainly we recognise him. He is that same unknown,
to whose presence we gave testimony, you remember, the
man who, we had reason to believe, was one of the royal
family, at least, from the respect that was accorded
him."

When the news of Pichegru's identification was brought
to the First Consul, he said nothing at first: he seemed
plunged in sombre thought that found expression at length
in a single sentence.

" Oh, wretched Talleyrand," he exclaimed, " what have
you made me do? "

The story of General Savary, relative to the dark do-
ings of that night of March 20, 1804, is still stranger than
that of Real, and is peculiarly interesting.

Prior to that date he had been sent on a tour of inspec-

342

THE CASE OF THE DUC D'ENGHIEN

tion through La Vendee and the west, to report upon polit-
ical conditions in those parts. He had carried out his
mission as expeditiously as possible, a fact which he la-
ments, as his own prompt return to Malmaison and the
First Consul were the means of involving him in the most
terrible affair of his life. " Would that I had delayed it,
if only for a few hours! " were his sentiments in after
years.

He reached Malmaison on the afternoon of March the
19th; the First Consul had been accessible to none, since
the morning, and Savary was obliged to await his pleas-
ure in the ante-rooms and corridors, where an atmosphere
of profoundest gloom, and even of a nameless uneasiness,
seemed to him to have fallen upon the few acquaintances
he met with. There was much whispering in corners and
a general air of secrecy; the place was full of rumours
that the Due d'Enghien had been brought to Paris, but
no one knew anything for certain. The whole atmosphere
was electric with a vague disquiet.

Not until after five o'clock was Savary summoned to
the cabinet of the First Consul, who received his report
in silence and then informed him that he must go at once
to Paris with a letter for the military governor of the
capital, Murat, to whom he was to give the missive
personally.

Mounting his horse, Savary set out and got to Paris
towards seven; on reaching the governor's dwelling, he
was about to dismount and hand over his horse to his
orderly when the door was opened, and there issued from
it the figure of a man with a club-foot, who hobbled off
swiftly through the growing twilight to where a carriage
was waiting for him at the end of the street. Savary rec-
ognised the figure as that of Talleyrand, but thought no
more of it at the time, his attention being taken up with
other things.

He found Murat sitting in his bed-room; the governor
of Paris had been unwell for some days, and, to Savary,
he looked both ill and careworn. Taking the First Con-

343

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

sul's letter, he broke the seal and read it, with an appear-
ance of acute anxiety.

" I have a job for you, General," he said, at length.
" You will go to the barracks of your regiment, the horse-
grenadiers, and take from it a quarter squadron, which
you will lead to the castle of Vincennes. Your further
orders will be made known to you on your arrival there.
You had better have some dinner if you have not dined
yet. You need not be at Vincennes until eleven o'clock, so
you have plenty of time. But do not be later than that,
whatever you do."

It was not for Savary to ask explanations of his supe-
rior, and he could only bow to the decree which condemned
him to further fatigues after his journey.

He reached the fortress of Vincennes punctually at
eleven o'clock, where he found, assembled in the hall of
the castle, a group of officers, the colonels of each of the
half dozen or so of the infantry-regiments stationed in
Paris, headed by the senior among them, Hulin. No one
knew for what purpose they had been thus surreptitiously
summoned, the majority having come there under the im-
pression that they themselves were under arrest for some
unknown misdemeanour. " We have asked Harel " (the
commandant of the fortress), they said, "what it is all
about, and he seems in a very bad temper. Says it is no
business of his, that he does not count for anything, and
that we must look for our instructions to some one else
now."

At last they were told, by Hulin, I think, that in truth
he had been instructed to proceed thither for the purpose
of convening a court-martial upon the person of a pris-
oner brought there a few hours earlier, the Due d'En-
ghien; that they were to decide upon the evidence of the
Duke himself as to his guilt or otherwise, and to pass sen-
tence in accordance with the laws governing the ordinary
procedure of courts-martial.

Thus informed, they seated themselves about a table in
the great central hall and arranged the method of their

344

THE CASE OP THE DUC D'ENGHIEN

procedure. Hulin was to preside, and to a captain, either
of engineers or infantry, were assigned the duties of clerk
to the court.

At midnight the prisoner was brought down by Harel
— "a young man of five feet, seven inches, pale com-
plexion, pointed chin, chestnut coloured hair, and gray
eyes. ^ Expression melancholy. Wears plain ear-rings of
gold." He was dressed in dove-coloured clothes and wore
a peaked travelling-cap which he removed on entering the
presence of the court-martial.

He admitted that he was the Due d'Enghien, that his
age was thirty-two, that he had fought against the Re-
public in 1794; when asked if he had not been guilty of
conspiring with the English to murder the First Consul
he denied it indignantly, as also the acquaintance of Piche-
gru. " I have never seen him," he said. " As to the Eng-
lish Government, I wrote to it asking for employment
and received an answer to the effect that at present none
could be given to me, but that if I would wait quietly,
something might, perhaps, be found for me. My inten-
tion has never been to conspire, but to win back my rights
by the sword." Also he admitted that he had been living
at Ettenheim on an allowance made him by the English
Government; at this Hulin, who saw how fatal to the
young man were these admissions, and prompted by
genuine pity for his youth, attempted to induce him
to modify the uncompromising hostility of his attitude
towards the Republic, but only to receive an even prouder
reply.

" I know well my situation," said the Duke, " but I de-
cline to buy mercy with a lie. That is the truth and I am
ready to abide by it. My intention has been from the
beginning, I repeat, to win back my rights and those of
my family, should opportunity offer, not as a conspirator,
but as a Conde, with my sword."

After this there was no more to be said: the evidence,
as taken down by the clerk of the court, was signed by the
Duke, and he was conducted back to the room where he

345

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

had had supper upstairs, whilst the court-martial deliber-
ated upon its finding.

The verdict was a foregone conclusion: the prisoner,
by his own admission, had borne arms against the Repub-
lic, and, when taken, had been engaged in preparing to do
so again in the army of a power then at war with France.
That his capture had been a rude violation of international
law made no difference; the Duke was summoned once
more to the hall to hear the sentence pronounced upon
him — that of death.

When it had been read to him, he begged that he
might be allowed to write a letter to the First Consul, ask-
ing for a personal interview, adding that he felt sure he
could persuade the latter of his innocence as far as any
complicity in the plots of Cadoudal and Pichegru was
concerned.

To this request Hulin assented willingly, promising also
to forward the letter at once to Malmaison with another
of his own to support it; having finished his letter, the
Duke was removed once more, and here we must have
recourse to Hulin's statement of his share in those events,
written long after, in 1826.

In that year Hulin, almost stone-blind as a result of the
pistol-wound inflicted on him by Malet at the time of the
latter's attempted " coup d'etat " in October, 18 12, wrote,
after saying that his own life's happiness had been de-
stroyed by the odium he had had to endure for his official
part in the Duke's death:

" I now took up my pen with the intention of indulging
myself in the one happy privilege of the president of a
court-martial, that of recommending the prisoner to
mercy. At this moment, a certain general who had been
standing behind my chair since the beginning of the pro-
ceedings, and had remained silent hitherto, stepped for-
ward and asked me what I was doing. ' I am writing to
the First Consul, to endorse the prisoner's plea for an
interview and to recommend him to mercy,' I replied. At
this the general, taking the pen out of my hand, said

346

THE CASE OF THE DUC D'ENGHIEN

angrily, * You have done your business ; the rest is my
affair.' "

Hulin's protests had no other result than that the " cer-
tain general " ordered the hall to be cleared, and in-
formed the astonished members of the court-martial that
they might return to Paris.

" Presently," continues Hulin, " while we were discuss-
ing the whole affair among ourselves in the outer hall, in
the interval of waiting for our carriages, — the portico
being so narrow that it was only possible for them to come
round one at a time, — there fell upon our horrified ears
the fatal sound of a volley of musketry."

Now the law required that all sentences of death in
courts-martial of the Paris district should receive the sanc-
tion of the military governor of the capital before they
could be carried into effect. And the military law required,
at the same time, that they should be carried into effect
within twenty-four hours — so that Hulin and the other
members of the court-martial were under the impression
that the sentence of death they had just pronounced upon
the Duke would be immediately submitted for ratification
to Murat.

That Hulin was not guilty of unduly promoting the
Duke's death seems obvious ; but the question now arises
as to the identity of the unnamed " certain general." See-
ing that there were only two general officers at Vincennes
that night, and that Hulin himself was one of them, it is
not easy to exonerate the other, Savary. Nor did the
Parisians make any attempt to do so; it was even ru-
moured among them that Savary had been guilty of ap-
propriating the Duke's watch, and that he had shown it
laughingly to certain ladies of his acquaintance at the
" salon " of one of them. His enemies, of whom he had
many, declared that he had fastened a lantern on the
Duke's chest to enable the firing party to see their mark,
and that, on the Duke's asking for a priest, he had ex-
claimed, " What! Does he want to die like a Capucin? "

These charges, at any rate, were utterly unfounded.

347

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

" I was never near the Duke at all," were Savary's own
words; " nor did I set foot in the hall of the castle while
the trial was in progress, but remained outside with my
soldiers, who were drawn up on the embankment over-
looking the moat. Moreover, I did not even set eyes on
the Duke. The story of the lantern is absurd — that of
the watch needs no refuting. What happened was this:
the lieutenant who had come with me in charge of the
horse-grenadiers came to me as I was pacing the edge of
the moat at a short distance from the soldiers, and said,
' General, I have been asked to furnish a firing party.
What am I to do ? '

" ' Give them one,' I replied.

" * And where shall I place it? '

" ' Anywhere where it will not hit any passers-by,' I
said; it was already drawing on towards daybreak, and
market people might be on the road to Paris. A thin rain
had been falling all night and there was a slight mist rising
from the ground.

" After some time the lieutenant came back to announce
that he had found a safe place in the moat, — a spot
which seemed especially adapted for the purpose, as it was
near by a large hole, freshly dug in the ground, that
would serve for a grave ; as to the lantern, none was nec-
essary, there being ample light to see by; the lieutenant
reported to me after the execution — during which I
stayed on the rampart overlooking the moat — that the
Duke had asked for a priest but had been informed that
none could be procured, and that then he had requested a
pair of scissors with which to cut off a lock of his own
hair; this, together with a portrait that he had on him of
her, he begged might be sent to the Princesse de Rohan."
(This lady the Duke had married secretly, as his family
were opposed to their union, and his frequent visits to
Paris, which exposed him to constant danger, were made
with one object only, that of seeing her.)

That is the conclusion of Savary's tale; that nothing
had been taken from the Duke's body was proved on its

348

THE CASE OF THE DUC D'ENGHIEN

exhumation on March 20, 18 16, when it was found, after
some difficulty, all traces of the grave having been oblit-
erated; with it were brought to light several rouleaux of
gold money in circular cases of red morocco leather, one
of the Duke's ear-rings and a silver seal, much corroded,
bearing the arms of Conde; his cap, perforated by a
bullet, was beside the body (which was lying on its face),
while another bullet had passed through the internal iliac
fossa on the right side. He must have died instantly.

Is Savary's story to be believed? And, also, how much
of the truth, if any, did he omit from it?

After the second Restoration, in 1815, a man called
upon the Keeper of the Archives in Paris with a letter
from the all-powerful minister of Louis XVIII, Talley-
rand, in which the Keeper was requested to allow the
bearer, Talleyrand's secretary, to go through the archives.
This was done, and later it was discovered that all papers
dealing with the case of the Due d'Enghein had been re-
moved, and that of those concerning the trial of Queen
Marie Antoinette, only the page recording the sentence of
her judges had been left behind by the faithful secretary.
Needless to add, the papers were never seen again —
which makes one all the more curious to know what had
passed between Talleyrand and Murat on that evening
of March 20, prior to Savary's arrival from Malmaison !

349

THE "WEISSE FRAU"

THIS celebrated spectre is known as the White Lady,
in Austria and in Germany generally, but in Ba-
varia more usually as the Black Lady. For many cen-
turies past she has made it her care to watch the fortunes
of the Hapsburgs and the Hohenzollerns, as well as those
of almost all the royal and princely families connected
with either of these two great houses, so that the terror
she inspires is sometimes almost tempered by the distinc-
tion her visits confer. She has been known to appear, in
some rare cases, in a beneficent mood, to attend a christen-
ing, but her mission is almost always to foretell death or
disaster.

Her identity is still disputed; some hold her to have
been a certain Countess Agnes von Orlarminde, who, in the
fifteenth century, so passionately loved Albert the Hand-
some, Markgraf of Brandenburg, that, on his becoming
a widower, she murdered her two children in order to
marry him. She was prompted to this atrocious crime by
his declaration that two lives stood between him and her,
making it impossible for him to yield to her entreaties
that, being now free to do so, he would make her his
wife.

Without warning him of her intention, Countess Agnes
promptly poisoned her children, and told Albert that there
no longer existed any impediment to her union with him.
He was so horrified at what she had done that he caused
her to be walled up alive in the old palace in Berlin.
Four hundred years later, in the time of Frederick the
Great, in the course of some investigations in the palace,
the spot where she had met her living death was discov-
ered. She had been immured in a shaft behind a large
porcelain stove in an apartment on the second floor.
From behind this stove Countess Agnes has often made
her appearance, heralded by the sound of harp music.

3S°

THE "WEISSE FRAU"

Also, if any one played a harp in the room she would come
forth, as if in recognition of a civility.

Her connection with the Marquis of Brandenburg and
her violent death in the Berlin palace have led many per-
sons to believe that it is the spirit of this wretched Agnes
von Orlamiinde, which, even now, haunts the descendants,
direct and lateral, of the man who pronounced her doom;
but others hold the apparition to be that of a lady of the
family of Neuhaus in Bohemia, a certain Countess Bertha,
or Perchta, von Rosenberg.

This lady has long been known and revered all over
Germany as the legendary friend and shadowy protector
of little children. She was Chatelaine of the Castle of
Neuhaus and has quite recently, in our own days, been
seen, looking down from an upper window on the town
below. The castle is a mere ruin now, but Perchta,
dressed in white and with her insignia of office, the great
bunch of keys hanging from her girdle, still glides about
its crumbling remains as if attending to all her old
duties.

Poor Perchta was very unhappily married, and was
finally obliged to invoke the protection of her brother to
save her from her husband's cruelty. This she most bit-
terly resented, and even when he died, a few years after
their union, she could not find it in her heart to forgive
him for all she had had to endure at his hands. Years
passed by, but her hatred fed on the memories of her suf-
ferings and never weakened in its fierce intensity. She
carried it with her to her grave, and it is supposed to be
this sin of unforgiveness which she has been condemned
to expiate by wandering for long centuries on earth.

But as an apparition she is, on the whole, more benefi-
cent than her colleague of the northern courts of Ger-
many, and so much more genial and intelligent that one
wonders why she is confounded with the other in the pub-
lic mind. Her love for little children is her best known
characteristic; she has been seen to sit by their cradles,
singing them to sleep, even stilling their hunger from her

351

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

shadowy breast. If on meeting her, as friends of mine
have done in their remote old castles, one greets her
kindly, she always answers the salutation and passes harm-
less on her way. When she brings warning of death she
does so gently, as happened to a young Margravine of
Brandenburg, who, standing alone before her mirror, com-
pleting her toilet for a ball, heard the door of her room
open, and thinking it was the maid, called out without
looking round, " What time is it? "

There was no answer for a minute or two ; then a low
clear voice replied " Ten o'clock, my dear!" and the
mirror showed a veiled face behind the girl's own terri-
fied one. Icy with fear she turned, and the white-robed
figure moved away and disappeared behind the screen
which masked the door. By ten o'clock the next evening
the girl was dead.

No one will ever know whether it was Perchta or Agnes
who appeared to the Queen of Bavaria's Lady-in-waiting
that night of the cholera time, but various undoubted ap-
paritions of Countess Agnes have been recorded in and
about the residences of the Kings of Prussia, prior to some
death in the royal family. These visitations are so in-
controvertible that it has been judged wise to give stand-
ing orders that any manifestation of her presence is to be
at once reported by the sentry to the officer commanding
in the palace, and that he in his turn is to immediately
double the guards in view of any political disturbance
which might ensue on the calamity portended by her
appearance.

But Perchta it would seem to have been who put in an
appearance in the death-chamber of a certain Archduke
some time since at Vienna. It was while the dying man's
family was gathered about his bedside that he opened his
eyes, looked up, and appeared to be taking stock of those
present. Then, turning to his daughter who was by his

pillow, he whispered, " Tell me, who is the stranger

the lady in black, who is kneeling between and

at the foot of the bed? I do not remember to have seen

352

THE "WEISSE FRAU"

her before, but she appears to be praying very earnestly
for me. Please tell her that I am grateful to her."

No one else in the room could see the figure, but at once
all recognised the fitness of the Black Lady's visit at such
a moment. One of her latest apparitions is said to have
taken place in the old palace in Berlin, in 1878, on the
eve of the death of the infant Prince Waldemar, when the
sentry on duty fled to the guard-room, where he was at
once arrested for desertion.

But, on the whole, Perchta's most historical manifes-
tations of herself were those in the palace of Schonbrunn,
near Vienna, in the years 1805 and 1809. On the earlier
occasion, November 13, 1805, Napoleon's headquarters
were established at Schonbrunn, whence he was directing
the movements preceding the " Drei Kaiser Schlacht," as
the Germans call it, of Austerlitz. In the middle of the
night the Emperor was waked up by a terrific shaking of
his bed to find that a lady, dressed in white, and looking
very angry, had entered the room and was trying to over-
turn the bed on him. Springing out on the further side
from his visitor, he began to defend himself as best he
could, and succeeded in making his escape from the room,
thinking himself to have been the victim of a lunatic. Out-
side his door, however, the mameluke, Rutau, was sleep-
ing soundly as ever, and when the two men returned into
the inner apartment it was empty. Obviously, thought
Napoleon, he must have had a very vivid nightmare.
When he spoke of the affair the next day, however, to
Marshal Berthier, what was his surprise to learn that
Berthier, who had been sleeping in a room at some dis-
tance from that of the Emperor, had undergone the same
experience — with this difference, however, that in Ber-
thier's case the lady had actually succeeded in turning the
bed over on top of him. Napoleon said no more about
it at the time, but when, nearly four years later, in 1809,
he again made Schonbrunn his headquarters, after the
battle of Wagram, he gave orders for Berthier to see
that his own couch was prepared for him in some other

353

A DIPLOMATIST'S WIFE IN MANY LANDS

apartment than that which he had formerly occupied.
" Put me anywhere but in that accursed room," was Na-
poleon's command, and this was accordingly done, the
Emperor having a notion that that particular room was
haunted. This precaution, however, availed him nothing.
Once more he was awakened in the same unceremonious
way; but this time the Weisse Frau's manner was even
more menacing than before. " Who are you? " demanded
Napoleon, " and what do you want of me? " " Who I
am," replied the apparition in French, " that is known to
Heaven, whose messenger I am. I have to tell you that
unless you desist from your efforts against Germany, you
and yours will be utterly destroyed one day." With which
she left him, going out through the door by which she had
entered. For a time he was inclined to pay heed to the
warning, but the tide of continued prosperity and his sub-
sequent marriage to the Archduchess Marie Louise did
away with the impression to a great extent, although it
may be that the Corsican in him thought to placate the
hostile spirit somewhat by his allegiance with the Haps-
burgs, her especial proteges, thus, through his wife, plac-
ing himself under the Weisse Frau's protection. By the
summer of 1812, indeed, the affair had almost escaped
his mind, until a night of May in that year when he was
passing through Dresden on his way to the Russian cam-
paign. Once again he was waked up by a violent commo-
tion— not in his own room but in one adjoining — and,

on causing inquiries to be made learned that General

had been awakened by a mysterious visitor, a lady who
had threatened him with disaster if he continued in his
command. The General had ordered her out of the room,
and had had to put forth all his strength to save his bed
from being turned over on top of him. Finally, she had
taken her departure. The General himself was killed in
one of the earliest engagements of the war, in the follow-
ing autumn.

354

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A diplomatist's wife in
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