THE SON.
Ma il bacio della madre, oh! non ha pari,
E vivon mille affetti in quello affetto.
Oh! figli, figli lagrimati, e cari,
Chi più vi muoverà la bianca cuna?
Chi più vi guiderà nei vostri lari?
Ci apre il labbro la madre, e ad una ad una
Ci scioglie le parole, e il primo accento
È: madre.
_Ispirazioni di_ BISAZZA _da Messina_.
A mother's kiss! What can with that compare?
In that one word a thousand loves reside.
O children, objects of deep love and care,
Who will rock your cradle? Who will guide
Your tottering footsteps to your home on high?
It is the mother who our lip unseals,
Loosens the lisping accents patiently,
And still the earliest word our tongue reveals
Is "mother!"----
Catherine of France!--wife of a king, mother of a king,--and
nevertheless, would the most wretched woman that ever did or ever
will live, accept the Empire of France with the sorrows of her
life, or her fame after death! Daughter of an abhorred prince, a
child, forsaken and alone, she fell into the power of the infuriated
republicans, who wished to avenge in her the crimes of her race, and
to expose her upon the walls to the artillery of her relations,
who certainly would not on that account have abstained from firing!
Notwithstanding, bright and cheerful, careless of present danger,
she conspired for the grandeur of her house. The heavens bestowed
upon her the instinct and capacity for government. The youthful wife
of Henry II., she saw herself neglected for Diane de Poitiers, the
now elderly mistress of the king her husband; and she was silent,
and shut deep in her heart the offence to woman, wife, and queen,
and remained like a fire, hidden in order to flash out unexpectedly,
to dazzle or to terrify the world. The mother of Francis II.,
she saw preferred to her experience and gravity, the frivolities
of Marie Stuart, the almost infant wife of a child king; and she
was silent, and with a smile upon her lips flattered the follies
of the royal children, while she saw gathering over their heads
the whirlwind fatal to the lilies of France. At last behold her
the true Queen,--she rules. Like Niobe, she protects with her own
mantle the head of a royal child; doubt not, she will defend it more
successfully against the fury of factions than the ancient Niobe
could hers, against the arrows of Latona's children. What did the
kingdom appear? What the King? Charles IX. was a bird--a bird of
ill-omen if you will--for whom a falcon and a vulture both stretched
forth their talons. The Guises declared themselves his protectors;
but can you imagine a king who needs the protection of his subjects?
The Huguenots also wished to protect him--as a master the slave;
and each of these parties was more powerful than Catherine. The
former called themselves the friends of religion and the throne,
and committed acts, to avoid the sight of which religion would
have wished herself blind; friends of the throne, they composed
a genealogy, which made them the descendants of Charlemagne, to
expel the Capetians from the kingdom, as Capet had expelled the
Carlovingians; finally they became demagogues and were extinguished.
The latter, hostile to the Catholic rites, consented that Henry IV.
should win Paris by a mass;[38] hostile to the throne, they ended by
giving a king to France. It was not then for the king, but for the
kingdom that they fought. Catherine had to fear, not only for her
crown but for her life; laying aside the royal robes, she and her
sons expected the mantle of sod that is assigned to the dead. Cruel
inheritance prepared by the snares of Louis XI., the misfortunes
of Louis XII., the follies of Francis I., and made more perilous
by the doctrines of Luther and the other sectarians who followed
him. The equilibrium could not then, as now, be maintained by gold
freely spent, and votes thrown into an urn;--there a river of blood
was required; there, instead of votes, heads, to be cast into the
urn of destiny;--and Catherine accepted that inheritance with all
its consequences--all! Truly, these are not such virtues as belong
to women, nor yet to men; but the beings appointed by Providence to
govern nations in such emergencies hardly belong to human nature;
souls of bronze, created where the thunderbolt, the hurricane, and
the other scourges of God arise. Catherine saved the kingdom of
France from being rent to atoms in the sternest strife that she has
ever suffered before or since. Louis XI. is praised, because, by
cutting off the heads of the hydra of the feudal system, he laid the
foundation for the greatness of the kingdom; and applauding the end,
the means are disregarded. The Cardinal Richelieu is praised because
he reduced the barons finally to gilded slaves of the Court. The
Conventionalists are also praised, because they wrote in the blood
of the Girondists that the Republic was one and indivisible. But
leaving out these last, were the first as wise as the world considers
them? Carried away by the ardor of the undertaking, they strained
every nerve to throw down a wall, ignorant of what it concealed;
behind that wall, when broken down, they found a wild beast with
sharp teeth, fiery eyes, eager to rend in pieces, greedy of spoil,
famished with want, thirsting for blood--in short, the goaded people.
The two hostile principles, without any intermediate one, which
disjoined or moderated them, rushed upon each other one day and the
second devoured the first; but no sooner was it swallowed than it
revived in its own bosom, and from that moment the devourer has lain
sick, and will lie--how long?[39] The destinies of the world are
held hidden in the hand of God. But it seems to me a strange thing
to think that Louis XI. and Richelieu, the most despotic of rulers,
should have been the fathers of popular revolutions. Catherine dei
Medici, a woman with baby kings in her arms, with power weaker than
theirs, indeed without power, did much more for France than they;
events did not allow her to be milder, nor was she more cruel than
the manners of her times, and I should like to be told if Louis XI.,
if Richelieu, if Francis, if Henry, if Guise, if Coligny himself
were any better than she. And, nevertheless, the memory of Catherine
dei Medici is held in perpetual infamy in France; not a generation
but curses her in passing, and imprecates heavily upon her head the
marble of the tomb and the vengeance of God! It would seem almost
incredible if it were not true, that she, a queen, buried in a
royal tomb, with the crown and vesture of royalty, had not a single
mouth--a mouth however bribed--to pronounce a venal eulogy over her
coffin. Three days after her death the preacher, Lincestre, thus
spoke of her from the pulpit to his hearers: "The Queen-mother is
dead, who, living, did much good and much evil, and, as I believe,
more evil than good. And now a difficulty presents itself, which is
to know whether the Catholic church ought to pray for one whose life
was so wicked, and who so often upheld heresy, although they say that
latterly she was on our side, and did not consent to the death of our
princes. Therefore, I tell you, that if you would wish to recite a
_pater_ or an _ave_ for her, do it; let it go for what it is worth; I
leave it to your own option."
[38] When reproached for so easily changing his religion, Henry
IV. is said to have replied: "Paris vaut bien une messe."
[39] This figure needs a word of explanation for foreign readers.
The two opposing principles are monarchy and democracy; the
intervening wall represents the nobility, which was virtually
destroyed when the power of the barons was taken away, thus
bringing the monarch and the people, as it were, face to face.
The devouring of the first of these principles by the second
alludes to the decapitation of Louis XVI., but monarchy, though
destroyed, revived again in the person of Napoleon, a man of the
people, and may thus be said to have caused sickness and weakness
in that principle from which it sprang.--_Translator._
It is enough: she appeals from the judgment of men to that of Him
who cannot err. Meanwhile, as for this earthly judgment, it is well
to think that it is borne by those whose powers of judging may well
be doubted, and that Catherine, as an Italian, ought not to expect
justice from a presumptuous people, once only great, when a lofty
Italian soul[40] shed over them the influences of his genius.
[40] Napoleon.
Catherine dei Medici, Queen of France, desirous of saving from
shame the family from which she rose, had answered Donna Isabella's
letter, appearing very willing to give her shelter, but advising and
entreating her, with all speed, to put her design into execution; she
wrote, that she had ordered persons to meet her at Genoa, accompany
her to Marseilles, and then conduct her with a strong escort to
Paris, where she would take care to place her in safety from
assassins and daggers. The Knight Lionardo Salviati, immediately upon
the receipt of the letter, to avoid suspicion and fatal accidents,
sent it as carefully and secretly as possible to Isabella by Don
Silvano Razzi, a monk of Camaldole, and a very intimate friend of
his. But Isabella had of late lost her natural firmness, and becoming
discouraged and feeling a presentiment of her fate, allowed herself
to be entirely overcome by dejection. The manuscripts which remain
to us concerning those wretched events, speak as follows: "But the
scheme did not succeed, for it was not the will of the good God,
her affairs being too well known, so that now she could no longer
disguise her intentions, and all knew her thoughts." In short,
whether she could not or would not, the fact is that some time before
the reply of Catherine Queen of France reached her, she had dismissed
from her mind all idea of flight.
The Duchess had a foster sister; she had received the same
nourishment as a daughter of the people, and happy would she have
been, if, with the milk, she had imbibed the domestic virtues of
her good nurse! Gifted with an excellent disposition, Isabella
always wished to retain near her, her foster sister, whose name was
Maria, and loved her passionately. It seemed as if she could not
live without her; to her she confided the most hidden secrets of
her heart, so long as they were such as she could reveal without
shame; but when they ceased to be such, she began to shroud herself
in silence and circumlocution; much more, since having once tried to
inform Maria of her feelings, which, although not exactly guilty,
had begun to deviate from the right path, she was met with such an
admonition as took from her all wish to continue. Maria, although an
excellent woman, was not very quick at observing, yet she perceived
only too well that her lady's heart was withdrawn from her, and also
that she could not regain it except by complying with her foolish
wishes, and thus, as it were, becoming her accomplice. This, neither
her own religion would permit, nor the faith she had always had
in her mistress; and since she could devise no means of reuniting
herself to her as she had been, she resolved to leave her as she
was. The poor girl, in order not to separate from Isabella, had
refused advantageous offers of marriage, and to her praise it must
be added, had even subdued an affection that she had felt arising
in her heart. The first roses of her youth had somewhat faded, but
living modestly and "avoiding even the appearance of evil," she still
looked young and handsome. While she was in this state of mind,
fortune threw in her way a young man named Cecchino del Bandieraio,
whose person pleased her, and even more the devoted filial affection
which he manifested for his aged mother. Maria, the sole survivor of
her family, had to ask leave of no one except her mistress, who was
then so much under the influence of her passion, that she permitted
without sorrow the departure of Maria, who might be considered the
last anchor of her salvation; she even saw her go with pleasure, as
her presence had become a kind of restraint upon her. But as her
truly royal disposition prompted, she was liberal in her gifts;
bestowing upon her in abundance clothes, furniture, jewels, money,
and kind words, and entreaties that in case of any need, she would
come to her. When the moment of parting arrived, however, the old
tenderness revived, and she embraced her so closely, that it seemed
as if she could not let her go, and wept bitterly; but an ardent kiss
of love quickly dried her tears, and Maria was soon forgotten.
But Maria, on her part, could not forget Isabella, and never failed
to go daily to the palace; but she did not see her more than once in
a hundred times, for she was told at one time that the Duchess could
not be seen, at another that she was absent, and poor Maria would
turn away sorrowful, her heart swelling, and her eyes filling with
tears, but before she had gone half-way down the street, she would
find excuses for Isabella, believe the reason for her dismissal,
reproach herself for having doubted her, and comfort herself in the
hope that she should be more fortunate the following day. But the
following day it was the same thing over again, and her grief was
sharpened by her constantly receiving applications from persons who
wished her to obtain for them some favor from Isabella. In vain she
assured them that she no longer possessed any influence over the
Duchess; they did not believe her, but thought that she wished to
avoid obliging them, and said to her: "We know perfectly well that
Isabella and you are one person; one soul in two bodies; whatever
pleases you, she does; whatever you wish, you can have; do not reject
the prayer of the widow and orphan, intercede for us, and you will
obtain; perform this act of charity, remember that you are one of the
people; do not grow proud; a day may come when the Lord will visit
you too, and then how sweet will it be to think of the good you have
done; and you can demand the assistance of the people, who will give
it gladly, that you may know that they can feel gratitude."
Think what a sharp stab this must have been to the heart of the poor
girl; but she tried to do her best, and secretly comforted herself
with the thought that even if the Duchess had withdrawn her favor
from her, she had not forfeited it by her own fault.
Meanwhile Cecchino had become a man-at-arms of the Duke, who had
taken him to Rome. He was doubtful whether Maria could go with him or
not, but considering that it would be shameful for him to leave his
aged mother entirely alone, he decided that she had better remain,
the more easily as he hoped to be able often to visit his home. But
fate frustrated his intentions, till, hoping vainly from month to
month, three years had passed; and in this interval of time, to the
sincerest grief of himself and his wife, his mother had departed to a
better world. Then Maria wrote to him, that as there was nothing now
remaining to keep her at Florence, and as she had grown tired of it,
she wished to join him at Rome immediately; but Cecchino, in reply,
begged her to remain, as the Duke could not delay many days longer
his return to Florence, and that they should all return with him; and
it did not appear safe to him that she, a woman, should venture alone
upon the journey, while the roads were so beset with large bands of
banditti, and even in Rome itself it was insecure. The good Maria,
bearing her disappointment patiently, expected her husband every day.
It was the evening of the fourth of July, 1576, and Maria was
spinning, alone and in silence, after having sung several verses
of the song of Giosafatte and of Barlaam, and the whole episode of
the death of Zerbino and Isabella, the pathetic fancy of Lodovico
Ariosto,[41] when she heard a knock at the door. She started, like
one whose heart has been watching, sprang to her feet, and lifting
the latch of the door, went to the head of the stairs with a light
in her hand, hardly daring to hope that she might see her Cecchino
appear: she beheld, instead, a man dressed in black, who entering
with much caution, closed the door carefully, and then began slowly
to ascend the stairs. Maria felt a little alarmed, but she had too
much spirit to allow herself to be overcome by fear, and looking more
closely at him, she recognised Don Inigo, the taciturn major-domo of
the Duchess.
[41] The writings of Ariosto were at that time as "familiar
as household words" throughout Italy; now, even his name is
hardly known in the rural districts. Montaigne, who travelled
through Italy in the time of the Grand Duke Francesco, writes
in the third volume of his Travels: "I wondered particularly at
three things, first, to see the people here working on Sunday,
threshing, preparing grain, cooking, and spinning. The second,
to see these peasants, _with lutes in their hands, and even
the shepherds singing the verses of Ariosto_. This is common
throughout all Italy. The third, to see how they leave their cut
grain in the fields for ten days or a fortnight, without fear of
their neighbors." It would seem that in those times the French
were greater thieves than the Italians.
"Good evening, Don Inigo, welcome; what strange chance has brought
you here?"
Inigo, in words which, though they retained nothing of his native
Spanish, were yet far from being good Italian, replied:
"God and the holy Virgin _del Pilar_ keep you, Señora Maria," and
continued to ascend the stairs; when he reached the room he stopped a
moment to rest, and then said:
"My lady sent me to tell you to go as cautiously as possible, towards
midnight, to the secret side-door of the palace; knock twice and it
will be opened to you. You will learn the rest from my Lady, who begs
of you to preserve the utmost secresy, as it concerns a matter of
life and death. Good night."
And rising, Don Inigo departed as he had come.
"Don Inigo, hear me, stop a moment; tell me something more. Oh! what
is this? Mother of God! lighten my trouble! If you know anything do
not leave me in this perplexity."
Meanwhile, Don Inigo having reached the bottom of the stairs, lifted
the latch, and in passing the threshold, turned and bowed to Maria,
then, without another word, closed the door and disappeared.
Left alone, Maria began to revolve the matter in her mind; what
it could be, what the Duchess could want, whether it was good or
evil; at any rate, there was some great secret hidden beneath it;
then Isabella was renewing her former confidence in her? She should
recover her beloved sister. If she should confide some pleasant news,
she would rejoice with her; if some distress, she would console her;
it was her guardian angel that had kept her from going to Rome; one
ought never to act from impulse; fortune would at last repair its
wrongs, the city would again honor her, her friends love and respect
her a thousand times more than ever. Gladdened by these pleasant
thoughts she could not stay quiet, but wandered about, setting the
house in order; then she arranged her hair, dressed herself in her
best, and then (I know not whether it is the same with people in
other parts of the world, but in Italy, when a great joy takes full
possession of us, we must break forth into song) Maria began to sing,
no longer Giosafatte, or Barlaam, nor yet the mournful episode of
Zerbino and Isabella, but the song--
Mountain maidens, bright and fair,
Whence your course? Your dwelling where?
Down from Alpine heights we come--
Near a grove our cottage lies;
There our parents have their home,
Nature there our wants supplies;
Eve recalls us from the mead
Where our flocks securely feed, &c.[42]
And she had finished all her preparations so quickly that the
appointed hour seemed to fly before her, like the butterfly
before the child who pursues it so eagerly, while, fluttering
from spray to spray of the hedge, it seems to mock at him.
Finally the clock struck, and Maria listening intently, with her
finger on her lips, counted the strokes, but becoming confused
she lost the number, and waited more carefully for the repetition
of the sound; but this second time the barking of a dog hindered
her from hearing all the strokes, and she remained as uncertain
of the hour as before; she went to the window to ask any one who
might be passing, but there was no one to be seen; then she tried
knocking on the wall to ask her neighbor, who, probably just
awakened out of sleep, and provoked at being disturbed, answered
crossly: "I don't know." Maria, feeling as if she were enduring
the tortures of San Lorenzo on the burning coals, and excited by
curiosity, determined to set out, and, if too early, to wait in
the open air, walking up and down, for from the intense heat, and
her excessive impatience, staying in the house seemed a martyrdom
that she could not possibly endure.
[42]
Vaghe le montanine pastorelle,
Donde venite sì leggiadre e belle?
Vegnam dall' alpe presso ad un boschetto:
Piccola capannella è il nostra sito,
Col padre e con la madre in piccol letto,
Dove natura ci ha sempre nutrito.
Torniam la sera dal prato fiorito,
Che abbiam pasciute nostre pecorelle, &c.
POLIZIANO.
But Isabella's impatience was no less violent than her own, for
when she reached the secret door it was opened to her first
knock, and she saw the Lady Isabella seated on the lowest step of
the stone staircase, pale as a waxen image, with a light at her
feet, which partially illuminated her person. Seeing Maria she
rose, and clasping her right hand pressed it to her heart in silence;
then taking the lamp she began to ascend the stairs, lighting the way
for her.
Reaching her room, Isabella put down the lamp near the cradle
of an infant. Marvellously beautiful was the workmanship of the
cradle, all inlaid with gold; no less so the velvet counterpane
embroidered with beautiful golden leaves, and the silken and
gold draperies trimmed with lace of priceless value. Whoever
has seen, in the gallery of the Pitti Palace, the portrait of
the child Leopoldo dei Medici, who was afterwards a cardinal,
may easily form an idea of how this child was adorned; but the
most marvellous sight of all was the child itself, which was
incredibly beautiful. Maria's glance fell immediately upon the
little creature, and seeing how lovely it was, she began to
fondle it after the manner of women.
"Why, who are you, my pretty one? _Gesù!_ What a little darling!
Where did you get such splendid eyes? Could you tell your name?
With wings on your shoulders you would seem a little angel of
love.[43] There, there, laugh a little, sweet one, and show your
dear little teeth." And putting her forefinger upon the dimple
in its chin she played with him, and the little fellow began to
laugh merrily, and lifted his tiny hands to Maria's face as if to
return her caresses.
[43] Mettigli l'ale, è un angiolel di amore.--PERTICARI.
Isabella, silent, but partly relieved from the overpowering grief
that had oppressed her, stood looking at the touching scene; but at
last, as if roused by the urgency of the case, she spoke:--"Do you
see? That beautiful head will soon be crushed by a hand of iron,
or dashed against the wall, or else trampled under foot; those eyes
will be torn from their sockets; those soft, white limbs become a
shapeless mass of bleeding flesh----"
"Alas! who would be such a monster as to do so? Who would dare to
commit such a crime in the Orsini Palace?"
"Orsini."
"I do not understand. His Grace the Duke has always seemed to me an
honorable Knight and a Christian----"
"This child is mine, but not my husband's.--Now do you understand?"
"Good Heavens! But why are we Christians, unless we are able to
forgive? Trust in God; trust to the efficacy of repentance, throw
yourself at your husband's feet----"
"He would kill us both."
"Your brother's----"
"He would kill us both."
"Who says so? You are too suspicious; it does not seem right to
believe Christians capable of such enormities."
"Ah! Maria! Men are wicked and cruel. They wish to love us only so
long as it pleases them, but if we cease to love them, they call it
a crime, and as a crime punish it most severely. Giordano, who, if I
were dying for love of him, would not stir from Rome to say to me:
'Go in peace, O sorrowing one;' would fly like an arrow from the bow
to kill me and this child, because I have shown that I did not care
for him----"
"The Duke may be as you say, but your brothers--"
"My brothers have taken 'the shadow of a shade,' and have called
it honor. They, who would wish to rule universally and absolutely,
have become the slaves of this shadow; they have made a code of it,
which they quote continually; but the pages are blank; every one
reads there what passion dictates; one single thing appears there,
thanks to the characters of blood in which it is written, and that is
death----"
"Well, if there is no longer any pity to be found in the world, fly,
hide yourself in some secluded retreat, where you may ask the Lord to
pardon your fault, and He will certainly grant----"
"I cannot go away, and I will not; I feel that I am guilty, and will
not try to escape the punishment that is destined for me; I no longer
know what to do with a life full of remorse and shame; henceforward I
shall have to cast down my eyes, unable to meet the gaze of others;
and the daughter of a crowned prince must hate life when she is
obliged to bow her face, burning with shame.--But what crime has this
infant committed? It is innocent; its fate must be separated from
mine. This child must be saved----"
"And it shall be."
"O Maria, with those words you have given me the only comfort which
my sorrowing soul can now feel. Take him--he is yours--and as yours
save him."
So saying, she took the child and put him in Maria's arms. The baby,
who had taken a fancy to Maria, raised his little hands towards
her face, and seemed to entreat her as well as he knew how; Maria,
kissing him with the warmest affection, replied:
"Yes, my pretty angel, do not fear, I will save you. Yes, you shall
not die, you must live and be happy; if men are cruel, women are
compassionate, and succeed better than men, because God aids piety
and hates the wicked----"
"Maria, I expected no less from the great love you have always felt
for me, and still feel. God and your own conscience will reward you
for this good action, better than I ever can either by word or deed.
I confess it, in the days of my guilt, I avoided you; you seemed a
troublesome restraint upon me. Do not be angry; would man ever sin,
if he did not first drive his guardian angel from him? My present
wretchedness is sufficient punishment for my sin, and to satisfy you
entirely, as I ought, Maria, I entreat your pardon----"
"O my sweet Lady, what words are these? You will make me weep, and we
have need of all our firmness and resolution. Up now, tell me what is
to be done. Night and silence veil everything in mystery; no one will
know it, and you will live."
"Listen: feeling sure of your goodness, I have prepared everything
that is necessary. In this chest you will find jewels and money
sufficient to establish yourself. If the boy lives, employ it to
educate him properly; if it please God to call him to Himself, keep
it for your own use. Here is a letter which I confide solemnly to
your secresy. When you reach Paris, give it with your own hands to
Catherine, Queen of France----"
"Paris! France! What do you mean? I never dreamed of that!"
"What did you intend to do?"
"Why, to take the child home with me; to move to another street,
and live in some little house on the other side of the Arno, where I
could let it be understood that the child was my own----".
"That would be perfectly useless, for they will seek this little
innocent with the ardor of the bloodhound pursuing the wild beast;
and while you would fail to save him, you yourself would run extreme
danger. This dear head must be defended by very different means;
the space of a thousand miles between him and his persecutors would
hardly insure safety----"
"Ah, my Lady! I cannot leave Florence!"
"What! You cannot? Do you then repent of your kindness? Will you
break your promise to me?"
"Ah, my Lady! You know that I am a wife. My husband is far distant;
now how can I, consistently with my duty, go away without his
consent? How leave a country which he does not wish to leave? If
he were to return, and, finding me gone, his love for me should be
changed to hatred, should he say: 'Since she is gone, I shall take no
more trouble about her;' were I to become a wanderer over the world
without him, should he doubt the great love I feel for him, and the
faith that I have always kept to him, and despise me--Ah, wretched
me!--I should die,--I should certainly die of grief----"
"You love your husband very much, Maria?"
"How could I help loving him? When, forsaken by every one, my
parents dead, without a single relation, banished from your heart, I
implored God to call me to Himself, because I had lost every reason
for wishing to live, and the Lord not granting my prayer, I felt
myself plunged in despair, this beloved youth had pity upon me and
said: 'Come, poor forsaken one; rest upon my arm, and we will make
the journey of life together; if you wish for love, I offer you a
heart capable of loving:'--and I clung to him, as St. Peter did to
the robe of Christ, when he felt himself drowning, and I was saved:
life became pleasant to me, and has always remained so, because I
feel that I give pleasure to him--to my husband--my only comfort on
earth----"
"How happy you are! But reassure yourself, Maria; I shall know the
moment he returns, and then I will contrive either to speak to him
myself, or, failing in that, will send a monk of holy demeanor and
sweet eloquence, who will be able to make him contented, and willing
to appreciate your good and pious action, so that if he love virtue,
as he must, loving you, he not only will bear no ill-will against
you, but will love you a thousand times more than before----"
"You say well: but if you should not be able either to speak or
to send to him; if, in the bitterness of the unexpected calamity,
he should be overcome by passion, and destroy himself or fall
sick--Alas! I tremble at the mere thought that he might be sick, and
not have his Maria by his bedside to care for him----"
"I swear to you by my soul, that he shall know it before he enters
the gates of Florence; do not fear, I bind myself by my word as a
Princess and a Christian----"
"But even if I could trust you in this, Isabella, how could I endure
to banish myself for ever from my country?"
"And what is there now in this country of ours to bind you to it?
The spirit of the republic is irrevocably departed, not like a
flame extinguished by force, but like a candle which has burned to
the socket. Most of her worthiest children wander sadly, either in
voluntary or forced exile, so that it may be said of Florence as it
was of Pisa after the defeat at Meloria, that to see Pisa it was
necessary to go to Genoa. In Lyons and in Paris you will meet the
flower of our citizens. The royal buildings and the churches in
France equal, if they do not surpass, our own. There, as here, the
earth produces pleasant fruits; there, as here, the sun and stars
shed their blessed light; there, as here, people love, hate, are
born, live and die; and God exalts the humble, casts down the proud,
and listens to the prayer of innocent souls like yours----"
"Yes, but there is no shrine before which I love to pray so well as
that of the _Santissima Annunziata_ in the city, and in the country
that of the _Impruneta_; the sound of the organ does not exalt me,
unless its echoes swell beneath the arches of _Santa Maria del
Fiore_; the sweet breeze of evening does not refresh me, unless it
blows upon me from between the _Duomo_ and _San Giovanni_. O my Lady,
when I see the trunk of a tree cut down at the root half buried in
the earth, despoiled henceforward of flowers and fruits, and rendered
offensive to the sight by the millions of ants which have half-eaten
it, I think to myself--'Such it is to be an exile.' And then I love
to look at well known faces, I love to say, when a child is born
here,--'That is the child of Ginevra or of Laudomine;' if any one
dies--'God rest the soul of Giulio, of Lapo, or of Baccio;' but away
from one's country, you hear always around you--'Behold the child of
the foreigner; behold the companion of the foreigner;' and without
really intending it, the people among whom you dwell never cease
making you feel that you are nothing there, that you do not belong to
their land, that you are privileged in being allowed to breathe their
air, to be gladdened by their light and warmed by their sun. Who
would speak to me again in the language in which my darling mother
chid me when idle, or rewarded me when diligent? And if I wanted
nothing else in that foreign land, who could enable me to kneel upon
the stone which covers the bones of my parents, and repeat for them
the _De profundis_? In my afflictions, when it seemed as if I were
utterly abandoned, I went to their grave and grieved with them at
my undeserved fate, praying them to receive me into eternal peace;
suddenly I seemed to hear a voice, I am sure that I really did hear
one, which comforted me, saying: 'Do not despair, continue to walk
in the way of the Lord, for you are already near the end of your
trials.'"
Isabella changed color many times while Maria was speaking; suddenly
she threw herself at her feet, and clasping her knees, thus implored
her:
"Maria, by the bones of your parents, by the welfare of your soul and
mine, I conjure you not to deny me what you have promised. Behold
a mother utterly desolate; see if 'ever sorrow was like unto my
sorrow;' I will not release your knees until you have given me peace;
I will not raise my face from the dust until you have pronounced the
word that gives me life. Some future day you may return to this land
which is so dear to you, and that day cannot be far distant, for
those who wish my death will quickly follow me to the tomb. And you,
my child--unfortunate before you could understand what misfortune
is--lift up your hands and entreat this woman who alone can preserve
your life; I can do nothing for you; to stay by my side would bring
certain death upon you. Maria! Maria! May the Virgin show you mercy
upon your death-bed as you now show it to me! Have pity upon a mother
who must else see her son slaughtered before her eyes--for Christ's
sake----!"
And seeing that Maria hesitated, undecided what to do, she rose
wildly and clutching the child, who began to wail piteously, she
advanced with resolute step towards the balcony.
"Since," she muttered convulsively, "since I cannot save you, at
least I will not see you die; let us perish together; they must
collect the mangled remains of both. Maria, farewell! May this
murder, which you might have prevented, not rise up in judgment
against you. Come, my baby, let us leave this world where virtue and
hatred are equally cruel--all wicked and cruel----"
Like one, who, after a long and terrible struggle, has at last
resolved upon what part to take, Maria sprang after Isabella, and
clinging to her dress, exclaimed,
"Well--I will go--to France----"
Isabella, throwing her disengaged arm round her neck, sobbed without
being able to utter a word. When she had somewhat recovered from her
violent excitement, she said,
"We must hasten, for the hour approaches."
She then divested the child of its gay trappings of velvet, and put
them with the laces and counterpane into the gilded cradle, then
kindling the fire she put them all in it.
"Let this finery be destroyed for ever, it would not bring you
honor but disgrace; you must forget your origin. Child of shame,
be satisfied if the fault of your parents be not visited upon you.
Maria, I prophesy that he will be to you a best beloved son, and you
certainly will look upon him as one; for we love our fellow beings
in proportion to the trouble that they cost us, and to the benefits
which we confer upon them; and you are conferring one upon him, which
the heart can understand, but which the lips cannot express. Maria,
he will be the pride of your life, the comfort of your old age; here
I transfer to you all the rights of a mother, which you will exercise
much better than I could have done. You will exert them innocently
and religiously, for that will be piety in you, which in me would
be sin; but whencesoever they arise the rights of a mother are holy
and sacred. You will bring him up in the fear of the Lord, make him
humble and gentle; proud thoughts are not suitable to him. Watch
carefully that cruel feelings do not steal into his heart; do not
disclose to him his birth, nor, alas! who was his mother; he would
despise me, and the scorn of their children weighs more heavily upon
the bones of parents than the marble stone. At some future time, if
you should discover him to be compassionate--as I hope and pray he
will be--if then he wishes at any rate to know who his mother was,
tell him--'an unfortunate one!' Maria, I implore you to impress it
upon him never to remove this little pearl cross which I take from my
neck and put on his. Mark well what I have said, for it is my last
will, and these my last words, that I now say to you. Adieu, my own,
pardon me the life which I have given you; adieu, never to see you
again--but perhaps in heaven hereafter. But how can I hope that God
will pardon my crime? I will weep day and night--I will expiate my
sin with blood, and appeased Justice will not forbid Mercy to join
in Heaven those whom sin has separated on earth. But--the Mother of
Christ pardon me the prayer--if in the life beyond the tomb we may
not be united, may you at least, my son, be admitted into Paradise;
in eternal torments, it will still be some comfort to your mother
to know that you are happy in the abode of the blessed. Maria--take
him--I dare not bless him for fear my benediction should bring evil
upon his head----"
"My poor Lady! Bless him, bless him, for the Lord will listen to your
blessing as to that of a saint----"
"Do you really believe so, Maria?"
"By all my hopes of Heaven, I do believe it----"
"O Lord, cleanse my hands for a moment, that I may bless this
innocent head," exclaimed Isabella, raising her eyes to Heaven and
praying silently. Then a glorious radiance spread over her face.
Reassured, she extended her hands over the child and added:
"Go, my son, I bless you----"
Then, trembling, she took the light and continued:
"Come; before daybreak, they will call for you and will escort you
to Livorno, where a vessel is waiting for you. Come; I feel as if we
could not be quick enough."
Maria took the baby, and wrapped him in a brown cloak. Isabella
preceded her with the light, as she had done on her arrival. Reaching
the bottom of the staircase, she raised her hand several times to
open the door, but seemed unable; at last, a new thought came
suddenly into her mind, restoring her strength and fortitude.
"One kiss--another--another still! Maria--my son--farewell for
ever----"
Maria kissed her, weeping, and went out quickly, slipping hastily
along close to the wall.
Isabella, overwhelmed with anguish, sank down upon the step, and
leaned her forehead against the marble--her forehead was colder than
the stone.