“Kingdoms have passed away since last we met:See from their thrones of pride monarchs like spectres glide,Love’s law doth still abide, Love reigneth yet!”
“Kingdoms have passed away since last we met:See from their thrones of pride monarchs like spectres glide,Love’s law doth still abide, Love reigneth yet!”
“Kingdoms have passed away since last we met:See from their thrones of pride monarchs like spectres glide,Love’s law doth still abide, Love reigneth yet!”
I was in Rome when this dead King’s father, Victor Emanuel, died; I strewed roses before his sumptuous funeral car with its eight black horses; I saw King Umberto receive the oath of allegiance from his troops, take the vow to support the constitution. Again I am in Rome; if I live so long I shall see his funeral pageant, and yet I feel as young as ever I did in my life, and my feelings are hurt when people treat me as if Iwere not so. Read me this riddle if you can: mystery of mysteries!
This morning Patsy, sent back to Rome as a special correspondent of the “Daily——” surprised us at breakfast. You may imagine if we were glad to see him. People here are so tense, so overstrained and excited, that his presence is like a fresh north wind after days of sirocco. He brought us the latest bulletins from the Press Club.
“Yesterday,” he said, “the young King and Queen landed from their yacht somewhere on the coast of Calabria and went directly to Monza by way of Naples, where Crispi, old, broken, and nearly blind, met them at the station. The son of the murdered King hurrying to his father’s body stops to embrace the old Minister. Can’t you imagine it? Though Crispi is out of office and out of public favor, the young man remembers the time when he was a child and Crispi was his father’s right hand. That was a meeting worth seeing. I wish I had been there.”
History will judge both King and Minister more fairly than contemporaries have done; it will find the King worthy of the great name hebore. I gather from Patsy’s talk that the reaction is beginning already.
“The Italians are finding out,” he said, “that the King inherited more than his name from Humbert of the White Hand; he had the same colossal loyalty, courage, and honesty. It sounds brutal to say it, but I believe his tragic death has done more to secure the throne to the dynasty than any act of his life could have done. Sympathy is already wiping out the memory of his mistakes. There could not be a more propitious opening for the new reign.”
August 8.
Rome is crowded. It is strange to see the hotels open, the Corso alive with people, the Pincio and Villa Borghese filled with carriages at this usually dead season. The Court, the people of the embassies, special envoys from all the countries of Europe, and I should think nearly every distinguished personage in Italy, are here for the King’s funeral to-morrow. All these people augment rather than lessen the universal gloom; after six months of jubilation Rome is a mourning city. This afternoon we drove to the Quirinal Palace to inscribe our names in theQueen’s book. A dozen large folios lie on as many tables in the entrance hall; here all who wish to express their sympathy may write their names. I recognized among those waiting to sign, the French Ambassador, Beppino (Prince Nero’s grandson), and our Ignazio. One table was surrounded by poorly dressed lads,—they looked like newsboys, messengers, and the like. They are the best witnesses of the progress made in the last twenty years; when King Umberto came to the throne, the street boys of Rome did not write their names. To-night the walls are covered with manifestoes from the various trades, guilds, and associations, expressing horror at the crime, sympathy for the royal family, grief for the murdered King, loyalty to his house.
August 9.
The King’s funeral was to-day. The weather was fair and very cool for the season. We left home at half-past five in the morning and drove to the Corso, where we were obliged to leave our carriage. We had a pass which took us through the lines of cavalry stretched across the Piazza Venezia. We reached the balcony we had secured (thanks to kind Mr. Iddings, of ourembassy) in the Via Nazionale, half an hour before the funeral procession started. We kept a place for Patsy, who soon joined us, looking, for him, rather jaded. He had been up all night, having come down from Monza on the special train which brought the King’s body.
“It was a wonderful journey,” Patsy said. “The bells were tolled in every town we passed through; all the stations were hung with crape; everywhere, even at the poorest villages, we were met by citizens bringing flowers. When we arrived, the train was half buried in laurel and roses.”
“Were you late in reaching Rome?”
“That was the best of it: there was no confusion, no delay, we were exactly on time. It was half-past six when the Duke of Aosta stepped from the train,—he was in command of the guard which escorted the body from Monza—and saluted King Victor, who was waiting on the platform. The cousins—they are about of an age, I fancy—looked hard at each other, shook hands, then embraced.”
Patsy had evidently been a good deal moved by the scene, which is not surprising. You know Aosta is the heir presumptive and has a son, while the young King is still childless.
“How did King Victor look?”
“Soldierly; as the coffin touched the soil of Rome, his lip trembled; it seemed for a moment as if he would give way; but he controlled himself,—that was the only sign of weakness.”
The procession opened with a troop of lancers, dashing fellows, well mounted and well set up. Then followed artillery, infantry, engineers, sailors, marines, and in the place of honor nearest to the cortege, the trim, smartbersaglieri, a crack regiment of riflemen. Their dress is very picturesque: dark blue uniforms, crimson facings, and large round hats with cocks’ feathers worn on one side. The crowd in the streets was extraordinarily quiet; the only sounds were the tramp, tramp of the soldiers’ feet, the muffled drums of the dead march. Many of the people had waited all night to secure their places. The civic officers of Rome marched in fine mediæval costumes, the dresses of thegonfalonieri, red and yellow cloth, were among the best.
“Have you ever seen such a well-drilled procession, or such a well-behaved crowd?” said Patsy.
I confessed that I had never seen better. Just as we were commenting on the fine gravity and self-control of those who marched, and of thosewho waited and watched, the silence—which till then really had been remarkable—was broken by a sound like the buzzing of thousands of insects.
“Who can these be?” I asked.
“The lawyers are coming,” said Patsy.
The members of the court of cassation, and other legal lights, dressed in crimson and black velvet robes, with large square velvet hats to match, and thick gold chains about their necks, went chattering by; they could not be silent! Siena sent a dozen pretty pages in fifteenth-century dress: puffed satin doublets and jerkins, long silk hose, and golden lovelocks on their shoulders. The gondoliers of Venice (famous loyalists) were a fine group; two of the tallest carried between them an enormous wreath of laurel, the gift of their guild.
There was a sudden stir in the crowd; then a deep sigh, as a gun carriage drawn by two lean artillery horses came in sight, driven by a grizzled gunner, the coffin strapped behind in the place of the gun. An officer carrying King Umberto’s sword walked before, another followed, bearing on a cushion the iron crown of Savoy; an orderly led his favorite horse, the saddle draped in crape,the empty boots turned backwards in the stirrups. King Victor followed close behind the coffin on foot, with the Princes of Savoy, the Russian Grand Duke Alexis, the Duke of Argyle, and other special envoys and guests of honor; among them were Lord Currie, Mr. Iddings, and Colonel Needham, looking like a pale-brown ghost.
Just as the gun carriage had passed, at a sudden unexplained noise—I believe it was merely the knocking over of a chair—the panic-stricken crowd surged into the street, broke up the procession, and nearly swept King Victor off his feet.
There was a moment of sickening suspense; the gun carriage halted; the King drew his sword, his kinsmen pressed close about him as if to protect him. Then in the opposite balcony a tall handsome woman dressed in mourning rose to her feet, and leaning well over the balcony waved her handkerchief with a majestic gesture that quelled the panic. The crowd understood the signal to mean “No danger!” The women in the neighboring windows began to clap their hands. Meanwhile the gun carriage waited, the young King stood at bay, startled, but ready for whatever might happen. At the clapping ofhands, the groans, the cries of “Anarchists!” “A bomb!” “Traitors!” ceased, the insensate pushing and jostling stopped, and before one could believe it possible order was restored, and the procession took up its line of march. I never saw a finer example of one individual of nerve and presence of mind controlling the blind panic of a crowd.
Late, late in the procession marched a small band of old Garibaldians. We recognized our friend from Nemi hobbling among them.
“They should not have been put off at the end of the procession, along with the tailors and shoemakers of Rome. If it had not been for them there would be no United Kingdom of Italy to-day,” J. said.
“Policy, my friend, policy!” said Patsy, his eyes a little dim at the sight of the faded red shirts and the broken men who wore them.
“Nobody,” Patsy confessed, “feels the charm of gold lace more than I, but did you notice how well the plain black coat of the American Chargé d’Affaires looked among all those glittering liveries of kings? The sight of it made me feel rather proud of being an American citizen!”
We waited in our balcony to see the return tothe palace. Patsy, who went to the Pantheon, where the funeral services were held, reported them as admirably short and impressive.
“Throughout the ceremony,” he said, “Queen Margaret was given the place of honor. At the end, just as they were about to leave the church, she made a deep courtesy to her son, and stood back while the young King and his wife went out before her. Think what that means! Queen Margaret, from her fifteenth year the first lady in the land, entered the church Queen of Italy and left it Queen Dowager. With that courtesy she stepped from the first to the second place in the kingdom.”
“As long as she lives she will be first in every true Italian heart!”
“There’s the rub! She should not be.”
“That may be true; she will be all the same!”
There was a sudden sound of bugles, the clatter of horses’ feet. The King’s guard, picked men, every one of them over six feet tall, came dashing up the street to the crisp music of the royal march. In their midst we caught a glimpse of King Victor, in a closed carriage, on his way to take possession of the Quirinal Palace.
The King is dead. Long live the King!
August 14.
It is written that our last days in Rome shall not hang heavy on our hands; emotion follows emotion! Last evening J. went to the station to see Patsy off on the special train provided for Queen Elena’s sister (married to the Russian Grand Duke) and the other royal and distinguished personages who came to the funeral. They had all stayed on to hear King Victor’s maiden speech to his Parliament—which, by the way, was capital; he spoke of his mother in a manner that went to the hearts of all good sons and daughters. Patsy told us, with the young newspaper man’s air of supreme knowledge, that he had it on the best authority that the King wrote his own speech. I believe this, more from internal than external evidence; it rings true, not like an address prepared by a minister for a monarch to deliver.
Patsy being gone, we thought to set about closing up our affairs in earnest, when this morning arrives a note written on the back of an old envelope in his hand.
“Send me some soup! I can’t stand this hospital diet. I am a bit shaken up by the collision at Castel Giubileo last night. Nothing serious in my condition, except the appetite.”
The scrawl was dated from the hospital of San Giacomo, where Filomena’s brother has been a patient for a month past. I packed a basket with provisions and drove directly to the hospital, taking Filomena with me. We stopped on our way to see Dr. Massimo, who gave us a letter of introduction to the house surgeon. The porter of the hospital took in my card and note of introduction while we waited in the lodge. As we got out of the cab Filomena behaved rather strangely; she asked thegobbo, our cabman, to bring in the basket, and when he set it down on the not too clean pavement, she let it remain where he put it.
“Please to take the basket off the pavement,” I said.
“Excuse me, Signora, it will be better to wait till the porter returns and ask him either to carry the basket himself or to send another with it. These people are very suspicious; they might think thatIwas trying to smuggle something into the hospital. The idea is, of course, ridiculous, but these hospital employés are strangely suspicious people.”
At that moment an enormous red-haired woman wearing a checked apron came towardsus; she spoke pleasantly to Filomena. “Well, my girl, I hear that your brother is getting better fast. Ah! he has a good sister.” As she spoke the giantess enveloped Filomena in a capacious embrace. Beginning at the girl’s slender throat she passed her great arms and hands down her body to the very feet, feeling her all over, pressing the light cotton skirts so close about her that she looked like a Tanagra figurine. Though Filomena endured the searching embrace with composure, I saw her glance at me, and there is no denying that she turned scarlet.
“Nothing contraband this morning, eh?” said the good-natured giantess.
“This is my mistress,” Filomena interposed, anxious to shield herself under my ægis. “She has brought some refreshments to a gentleman who was hurt in the railroad accident last night. She has a letter from Dr. Massimo.”
The giantess bowed to me politely. “There will be no difficulty, that will arrange itself,” she said. “Won’t you be seated, Madam, till the doctor comes? It is against the rule to allow any provisions to pass without a special permission from the house physician. This pretty one does not see the use of that rule, do you, my dear?”
If looks could kill, the giantess would have died, slain by the rage in Filomena’s beautiful eyes.
I found Patsy, smelling horribly of carbolic acid, in a small iron bed, a chart of his injuries—slight but numerous—fixed at the head of the cot. His powers of speech had not been impaired.
“I knew you would come. Have you brought the soup, and some decent wine? There’s the jolliest sister who takes care of me—that tall one with the red cheeks—isn’t she a corker? She will heat the broth and cool the wine.”
I asked the sister how long she would be obliged to keep her troublesome patient. She said, “Only a few days; he might possibly be moved to-morrow.” That was a hint for us to take him home, which I offered to do. Patsy would not hear of this.
“Think of the copy I am getting,” he said. “I know more about the Italian medical profession, nurses, and hospitals than I could have learned in a year’s study outside. I have notes for three articles already.”
“What are your views?”
“The doctors are clever fellows, the nursesangels, the hospital one hundred years behind the times.”
When he had finished his soup Patsy told me about the accident.
“At Castel Giubileo, about eight miles out from Rome, another train ran into ours and the two telescoped. Fortunately I was in the last of the wrecked carriages—that was bad enough. I can’t talk about the other people yet, the newspapers will give you all the dreadful details. In our carriage there was only a fat deputy, the Honorable Somebody, and myself. After the crash I found that I was pinned to the floor by a beam and could not stir hand or foot. Presently a guard came along; he said we were in no danger, and that we must lie still till they could dig us out. I fancy I fainted or went to sleep then, for quite suddenly it was dawn, and the deputy was crying out that he was dying and should never see his Amelia again. Then I saw a man come clambering over the wrecked smoking ruins of the cars towards us. Somehow he managed to reach down through the débris and get the deputy by the hand.
“‘Courage, courage,Onorevole, thou art saved!’ he said in the jolliest voice. A littlelater we heard his voice again, giving orders to the men he had brought to dig us out; we were buried deep under the splintered car ahead of us. As soon as I found myself in the blessed cool air, I looked to see what sort of man had saved me from that pit of hell; it was the King.”
“The King? are you sure?”
“Oh, you will find it all in the papers if you don’t believe me. The Grand Duchess sent one of her suite directly to the palace to tell her sister, Queen Elena, that she was not hurt, before she should hear of the accident from any other source.
“The messenger waked the King and Queen—it was one o’clock in the morning, they were asleep—told them what had happened and that a relief train was being made up. Those young people dressed, and ran all the way from the Quirinal to the railroad station—it must be close on a mile—hoping to catch the relief train; they were too late; it had already gone when they arrived. Outside the station they took the first cab they met, and started to drive the eight miles to Castel Giubileo. At the Porta Salaria the cab was overtaken by one of the royal carriages from the Quirinal stables, which broughtthem the rest of the way. As the Deputy and I were in the last of the wrecked carriages, we were less hurt than anybody else, I fancy; we certainly were the last attended to; and I saw the dreadful business through. The Queen worked over the wounded women, trotting from one to the other, doing everything she could to make them comfortable. At nine o’clock in the morning the Mayor of Rome and some other old fogies came lumbering up in a landeau. They met the King, black with smoke and grime, just starting to drive back to town.”
“A man of action, like his father and grandfather before him,” I said.
“A chip of the old block,” cried Patsy. “She is admirable; if ever I saw a pair of lovers, it is those two—that must be the best of it all.”
The tall sister evidently thought that Patsy was talking too much, so I took my leave. If I had stayed ten minutes I too should have seen the young King and Queen as Filomena saw them. At three o’clock they visited the wounded at San Giacomo’s.
Filomena told me about it with flashing eyes.
“Ah, Signora, it is a pity you were in such a hurry. While I was talking with my brother,who should come into the ward but the King and Queen! They spoke to all the people who had been hurt in the accident. The Queen is tall—oh, very tall! with great dark eyes and such hair, twice as much as I have. I wish you had seen her dress, Signora, it was of white silk and lace, and her hat! It was in the last fashion, and quite the prettiest hat I ever saw. When the sick people saw who had come to visit them, what do you think they did? In spite of the doctors and the sisters, those patients sat up in their beds and cheered and clapped their hands. I think they were perfectly right to do so; even the very sick must have been made better by the sight of those royal spouses, and the sound of theevvivas!”
August 31.
Our last day in Rome! The trunks were sent to the station this morning; they have been forwarded direct to Genoa, where we take ship for home on the 10th of September. We intend making a slight detour, going by way of Oberammergau (where our seats and lodgings are engaged) to see the Passion Play. The few pieces of furniture that remain—our beds, some chairs, the dinner table and service—will betaken away to-morrow morning. We consider it quite a feat to break up housekeeping after nearly seven years in the Palazzo Rusticucci, and to sleep the last night in Rome under our own roof. Very busy all day saying good-by. In the morning Ignazio carried away the last load of our beloved plants. Before he came I gathered all the flowers, and took an armful of roses, oleanders, and jessamine to the cemetery in memory of the dear one who made this Eternal City a second home to me—who shall say to how many others?
Sora Giulia came in just after the trunks had gone, with some ravishing old lace and embroidery. She is genuinely sorry we are going; we have been good customers. As to Nena, tough old Spartan, she is nearer weeping than she likes.
Patsy, discharged from the hospital this morning, came in to report himself. He had talked so much with nurses, doctors, and patients, been so busy getting his notes together, that a fever set in which kept him at San Giacomo’s ten days after his bruises were healed. He confesses that it was his own fault! Patsy stayed on to dine, so we had a little feast, and, thanksto him, were able to make merry to the last—just what I wished!
“Do you know,” Patsy said, “that you made a great mistake in the name of your palace? It has always been known to the initiated as the Palazzo Accoramboni. Whoever told you the name was Rusticucci was no better than a fool.”
“He was a very wise man. To-morrow, when we shall have gone, the palace will return to its old name; consequently we shall be the only people who have ever lived in the Palazzo Rusticucci!” Don’t you think my argument a good one?
After Patsy left we took our last look at the terrace. It was full moon, as on that first night; the piazza, the fountains, the colonnade, the obelisk were all there, just as we found them. The terrace, which J. made as fragrant and lovely for me as the hanging gardens of Babylon, is again as bare as my hand. Even the red rose of the monsignore which we found here has been sent with other favorite flowers to a friend. I do not think that black-a-vised French priest, the head of the fraternity, would have cared forit, and it was the beginning of all our joy! In the farthest corner of the terrace I saw a small dark object moving slowly across the floor.
“It is Jeremy Bentham!” said J. We had almost forgotten our poor tortoise, the least demonstrative of all our pets. We shall leave him and the nightingale at the Spanish Academy to-morrow before going to the station. The bells of St. Peter’s rang twelve before we came down. We looked at all the familiar points, Soracte, Monte Cavo, the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, and last and longest at St. Peter’s before we said “Addio, Roma Beata!”
This is my last letter from Rome. There are many more things I want to say to you, but I must leave you and say good-night. Pan the nightingale wants to go to sleep, and is piping piteous appeals to me to go away and leave him at peace in the pleasant darkness. Another little pipe. Good-night!
FOOTNOTES:[1]In the stillness of the morning at dawn, in the distance, and then nearer to the residence—this has a very characteristic effect.[2]In the crowd of the day, in the tumult of carriages and carts, this minor air is very noticeable.[3]Cardinal Hohenlohe, since dead, left what remained of his fortune to the son of the man who in this way was the means of saving his life. At the sale of the cardinal’s effects Monsignor O’Connell, of the American College, bought the grand piano on which Liszt has so often played.
FOOTNOTES:
[1]In the stillness of the morning at dawn, in the distance, and then nearer to the residence—this has a very characteristic effect.
[1]In the stillness of the morning at dawn, in the distance, and then nearer to the residence—this has a very characteristic effect.
[2]In the crowd of the day, in the tumult of carriages and carts, this minor air is very noticeable.
[2]In the crowd of the day, in the tumult of carriages and carts, this minor air is very noticeable.
[3]Cardinal Hohenlohe, since dead, left what remained of his fortune to the son of the man who in this way was the means of saving his life. At the sale of the cardinal’s effects Monsignor O’Connell, of the American College, bought the grand piano on which Liszt has so often played.
[3]Cardinal Hohenlohe, since dead, left what remained of his fortune to the son of the man who in this way was the means of saving his life. At the sale of the cardinal’s effects Monsignor O’Connell, of the American College, bought the grand piano on which Liszt has so often played.