On the Croat text of the _Nagodba_, which had received the Emperor's
sanction on November 8, a piece of paper, the famous "Krpitsa," was
glued; and on this paper were the words Rieka knew of old--_Corpus
separatum sacrae coronae Hungaricae_. They had been put forward by the
Hungarian delegates and approved by the Emperor on November 17. This
rather melodramatic affair would have been thought worthy of at any
rate a few lines by most of us if we had written a whole book, nay two
books, about Rieka. But our friend Mr. Edoardo Susmel glides, as
gracefully as possible, over it. In his _Fiume Italiana_ he is as _peu
communicatif_ as a carp. His other book,[51] written in French,
simply and beautifully says of this law of 1868 that it is "a precious
heritage transmitted from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in
which period there was condensed"--or shall we say made
palpable?--"the spirit which is jealous of the municipal liberties."
"Down to this day," says he, "Rieka is in complete possession of her
charter. Rieka has to-day still got her great charter. This
constitutional charter ..." and so on and so on. But these modern
coryphees of Rieka and Dalmatia are so forgetful.