Augustus John Cuthbert Hare

“ All around were huge and stately palaces, and in the centre the statue of a hero, with the world lying captive at his feet. But what the Fanti remarked most was that in the most magnificent chambers of every palace, and even upon the statue of the great Columbus himself, sat the semblance of their despised sister the white Fante, as if enshrined and honoured. ”

“ Let us see one more city nearer home, and from that let us form our judgment, for the inhabitants of these northern cities are not worthy to be ranked with mankind.’
“So the Fanti came to Milan, and beneath the wings of the great guardian spirit, rejoicing in their approaching triumph, they entered its vast square. And behold the spirit drew back his wings, and they beheld a mighty and an awful vision! Before them stood their sister, the Fante of the milk-white rocks, but no longer humble, no longer to be restrained even within the bounds of the greatest palace upon earth. ”

“ Madame Mohl was a most extraordinary-looking person, like a poodle, with frizzled hair hanging down over her face and very short skirts. Her salon, at 120 Rue de Bac, especially on Friday evenings, was at that time quite one of the social features of Paris. One savant used to drop in after the other and sit round her talking in a circle, and with a finesse d’esprit all her own, she would address each in turn in her quick sharp voice, always saying something pungent or clever. ”

“ While Lady Anne was with Madame Boggi, she heard that her Italian lover had returned to Italy to join his friends, but that he had been stopped by illness at some place in the north of Italy, and was lying in a very critical condition. I cannot say how Lady Anne persuaded Madame Boggi, but she did persuade her to consent to her going off to nurse her lover, and, unmarried girl as she was, she nursed him through all his illness. He died, but his brother, who came to him when he was dying, was so touched by Lady Anne’s devotion, that he afterwards proposed to her, and she married him. ”

“ When the Emperor Nicholas came to Rome, he went to pay his respects to the Pope, who received him very coldly. “You are a great king,” said Pius IX. “You are one of the mightiest monarchs in the world, and I am a feeble old man, the servant of servants; but I cite you to meet me again, to meet me before the throne of the Judge of the world, and to answer there for your treatment of the nuns at Minsk.” ”

“ He said, “I have done nothing for you hitherto, and I can do nothing for you after my death, for my affairs are arranged and they cannot be altered; but whatever you ask me to do now shall be granted.” “Then,” said Lady Anne, “you have always looked down upon me and despised me, because my husband was a simple ‘cavaliere.’ You are going to Rome: get me created a Countess in my own right, and then you will despise me no more. ”

“ Madame Davidoff (“Madame” only “in religion,” as “a spouse of Christ”) was daughter of the Maréchale Sebastiani, the stepmother of the murdered Duchesse de Praslin, and was grand-daughter of the Duchesse de Grammont, who founded the Sacré Cœur. Her own life had been very romantic. One winter there was a very handsome young Count Schouvaloff in Rome, whom my sister knew very well. She had been one day in the convent, and Madame Davidoff had accompanied her to the outer door, and was standing engrossed with last words, leaning against the green baize door leading into the church. ”

“ Nothing can be grander than the situation of Loreto, and the views from it over the surrounding country—the walls overlooking a wide sea-view as well. A building like a huge castle, with massive semicircular towers, dominates the town, and is the fortress which guards the holy of holies—the Santa Casa. ”

“ I have always found that the interests of Rome have a more adhesive power than those of any other place, and that it is more difficult to detach oneself from them; and even in this first winter, which was the least pleasant I have spent there—the conflicting requirements of my two mothers causing no small difficulty—I was greatly distressed when my mother, in her terror of Madame Davidoff and Co., decided that we must leave for Naples on the twenty-third of February. ”

“ Making acquaintance with my sister at this time was to me like the perpetual reading of an engrossing romance, for nobody ever was more amusing, no one ever had more power of throwing an interest into the commonest things of life. ”

“ The scenery is magnificent—jagged mountains melting into beautiful chestnut woods which reach to the water’s edge, and at the end of the lake the little town, with its picturesque wooden houses and beautiful gothic chapel. The population consists of nine hundred Roman Catholics and nine hundred Protestants, who live together most amicably. No vehicle can enter the town, for the streets are narrow gullies, with staircases from one house to another. ”

“ While there, Lady Anne wished to marry her music-master, but her family would not hear of it, and by the harshness of their opposition made her life miserable. Having striven vainly for some years to win the consent of her family, Lady Anne wrote to Madame Boggi, the mother of her late betrothed, with whom she had always kept up a communication, to say that she was in wretched health and spirits, that she required change terribly, and that she was very unhappy because her family violently opposed her marriage with a very excellent young Italian—but she did not say who he was. ”

“ In the only one I entered the old landlady came out in her nightgown, and seizing my straw hat from my head, placed it on the top of her own top-knot, exclaiming, ‘Schöne Strohhut.’ Not till midday did we arrive here, and then found the inn full and the hills shrouded in mist—the ‘Mountains of the Dead,’ as the surroundings of this lonely lake are called, appalling in their white winding-sheets. ”

“ Lucca, August 3, 1858.—Once upon a time there was a lady advanced in years, who had an only child. They were sick and sorrowful, and the tempests of the world beat upon them. Driven from home, they wandered hither and thither, seeking rest and finding none, till at length one day they arrived, wearied and wayworn, at the entrance of a mountain valley. ”

“ Cardinal Antonelli obtained an order for my sister and me to visit the Madre Makrina, the sole survivor of the Polish nuns who were martyred for their faith in the terrible persecution at Minsk. The nuns were starved, flogged to death, buried alive, subjected to the most horrible cruelties. Three escaped and reached Vienna, where two of them disappeared and never were heard of again. After a series of unparalleled adventures and escapes, the Abbess, the Madre Makrina, arrived in Rome. ”

“ But we had a perilous passage of the swollen Po, on which our carriage was embarked in a large boat, towed with ropes by numbers of men in smaller boats. In our long journey in our roomy excellent carriage—our home for about three weeks—we were provided with a perfect library of books, for my mother was quite of the opinion of Montaigne when he said, “Je ne voyage sans livres, n’y en paix, n’y en guerre. C’est la meilleure munition j’aye trouvé à cet humain voyage.” ”

“ Wolfgang Lake we engaged a boat and crossed to the curious old gothic church which contains the shrine of St. Wolfgang, and his rocky bed projecting through the pavement of a chapel, upon which the peasants throw kreutzers through a grating. We did not arrive at Salzburg till dark. What a fine old town it is!—but what most interested me was seeing here an old lady in black walking to church with a lady behind her. It was the Kaiserin Caroline, widow of the Emperor Francis I., grand-daughter-in-law of Maria Theresa, niece of Marie Antoinette, sister-in-law of Marie Louise! ”

“ She had set her heart upon converting the Duke of Parma to Protestantism, and he often condescended to controversy with her. One day she thought she had really succeeded, but driving into Lucca town next day, to her horror she met him walking bare-headed in a procession with a lighted candle in his hand. Then and there she stopped her carriage and began to upbraid him. When he returned to the Bagni, he went to see her and to reprove her. “There cannot,” he said, “be two sovereigns at Lucca; either I must be Duke or you must be Queen,” and ever after she was called the Queen of the Bagni. ”

“ But when some years had passed, the great guardian spirit came to the mountains, and, stretching forth his wings, he gathered all the Fanti beneath them, and said, ‘Now, my children, you shall go forth to see the world, and, when you return, you shall each say what is most highly esteemed by the lovers of art, and what it is that the children of men consider most beautiful and best.’
“Thus the Fanti of Carrara flew forth to see the world! ”

“ And indeed, as a rule, I always spent all my time with my mother, except about two evenings in the week, when I went to Italima and the Palazzo Parisani. On rare occasions, also, I went out “into the world” with Italima and my sister, to balls at the Palazzo Borghese, and at the Palazzo di Spagna, where old Queen Christina of Spain was then living, an interesting historic figure to me as the sister of the Duchesse de Bern and great-niece of Marie Antoinette. ”

“ They were dreadfully poor, and lived at a little farm somewhere in the hills above Spezia where two boys and a girl were born. But Lady Anne did not mind poverty; she fattened her chickens and pigs for market, she studied botany and all the ologies by herself, and she taught her children. After she became a widow, she heard one day that her father, Lord Oxford, from whom she had been separated from childhood, was passing through Italy, and she threw herself in his way upon the staircase in the inn at Sarzana. ”

“ In many ways Ancona has always seemed to me more beautiful than Naples. I have seen much of all these towns since, but there is nothing now like the halcyon days of vetturino travelling, with the abundant time for seeing and digesting everything, and the quiet regular progression, without fuss or fatigue, or anything to mar mental impressions.
From Ancona we went to Loreto, a lovely drive then, through ranges of hills, sweeping one behind another like files of an advancing army, and crested sometimes by the picturesque roofs, domes, and towers of an old town ”

“ But no notice of our familiar society at Rome can be complete which does not speak of “Auntie”—Miss Paul—the sister of “Italima,” who lived her own life apart in two rooms in a corner of the Parisani Palace, where she saw and observed everything, and was very ready to make her quaint original remarks upon what she had observed when she joined the rest of the family, which was only in the evenings. ”

“ One day a carriage passed and re-passed with a solitary gentleman in it, who at last, as if he could no longer restrain himsell, jumped out and rushed towards the group exclaiming, “C’est elle! c’est elle!” Then he became embarrassed, retired, and eventually sent his servant to beg that the mother would bring some of her cord to his house the next morning. She obeyed, and on entering his apartment was struck at once by a portrait on the wall. “That is the picture of my daughter,” she said. “No,” he replied, “that is the portrait of my dead wife.” ”

“ One of the Romans whom I saw most frequently was the Princess Santa Croce, living in the old historical palace which has the reputation of being the only haunted house in Rome, where two statues of cardinals come down from their pedestals and rattle their marble trains up and down the long galleries. The Princess was one of the daughters of Mr. Scully in Ireland. He had three, of whom two were beautiful, clever, and brilliant, but the third was uninteresting. The two elder Miss Scullys went out into the world, and were greatly admired and much made of ”

“ The goats were just getting up and coming out of their sheds, ringing their little bells as they skipped about amongst the rocks, and the flowers were all glistening with dew—no human being moving, except the goatherds directing their flocks up the mountain paths. ”

“ Lady Oxford lived at Genoa with her daughters, leaving Lord Oxford in England, and during her Italian life had many strange adventures, and one of a most terrible kind, the story of which was related to me by Dr. Wellesley, who was present at the time, but I will omit it. Of the weird stories of the other sisters I will say nothing, but Lady Anne in her youth was engaged to a young Italian, who, with the ugly name of Boggi, was yet of a very good family. However, before they could be married, Boggi died, and the Harleys returned to England. ”