Amid this general uproar, Archbishop Landriani alone shewed himself
loyal to the cause of his young friend; he made bold to repeat, even at
the Princess's court, the legal maxim according to which, in every case,
one ought to keep an ear free from all prejudice to hear the plea of an
absent party.
The day after Fabrizio's escape a number of people had received a sonnet
of no great merit which celebrated this flight as one of the fine
actions of the age, and compared Fabrizio to an angel arriving on the
earth with outspread wings. On the evening of the following day, the
whole of Parma was repeating a sublime sonnet. It was Fabrizio's
monologue as he let himself slide down the cord, and passed judgment on
the different incidents of his life. This sonnet gave him a place in
literature by two magnificent lines; all the experts recognised the
style of Ferrante Palla.
But here I must seek the epic style: where can I find colours in which
to paint the torrents of indignation that suddenly flooded every
orthodox heart, when they learned of the frightful insolence of this
illumination of the house at Sacca? There was but one outcry against the
Duchessa; even the true Liberals decided that such an action compromised
in a barbarous fashion the poor suspects detained in the various
prisons, and needlessly exasperated the heart of the sovereign. Conte
Mosca declared that there was but one thing left for the Duchessa's
former friends--to forget her. The concert of execration was therefore
unanimous: a stranger passing through the town would have been struck by
the energy of public opinion. But in the country, where they know how to
appreciate the pleasure of revenge, the illumination and the admirable
feast given in the park to more than six thousand _contadini_ had an
immense success. Everyone in Parma repeated that the Duchessa had
distributed a thousand sequins among her _contadini_; thus they
explained the somewhat harsh reception given to a party of thirty
constables whom the police had been so foolish as to send to that small
village, thirty-six hours after the sublime evening and the general
intoxication that had followed it. The constables, greeted with showers
of stones, had turned and fled, and two of their number, who fell from
their horses, were flung into the Po.
As for the bursting of the great reservoir of the _palazzo_ Sanseverina,
it had passed almost unnoticed: it was during the night that several
streets had been more or less flooded, next morning one would have said
that it had _rained_. Lodovico had taken care to break the panes of a
window in the _palazzo_, so as to account for the entry of robbers.
They had even found a little ladder. Only Conte Mosca recognised his
friend's inventive genius.
Fabrizio was fully determined to return to Parma as soon as he could; he
sent Lodovico with a long letter to the Archbishop, and this faithful
servant came back to post at the first village in Piedmont, San Nazzaro,
to the west of Pavia, a Latin epistle which the worthy prelate addressed
to his young client. We may add here a detail which, like many others no
doubt, will seem otiose in countries where there is no longer any need
of precaution. The name of Fabrizio del Dongo was never written; all the
letters that were intended for him were addressed to Lodovico San
Micheli, at Locarno in Switzerland, or at Belgirate in Piedmont. The
envelope was made of a coarse paper, the seal carelessly applied, the
address barely legible and sometimes adorned with recommendations worthy
of a cook; all the letters were dated from Naples six days before their
actual date.
_REVENGE_
From the Piedmontese village of San Nazzaro, near Pavia, Lodovico
returned in hot haste to Parma; he was charged with a mission to which
Fabrizio attached the greatest importance; this was nothing less than to
convey to Clelia Conti a handkerchief on which was printed a sonnet of
Petrarch. It is true that a word was altered in this sonnet: Clelia
found it on the table two days after she had received the thanks of the
Marchese Crescenzi, who professed himself the happiest of men; and there
is no need to say what impression this token of a still constant
remembrance produced on her heart.
Lodovico was to try to procure all possible details as to what was
happening at the citadel. He it was who told Fabrizio the sad news that
the Marchese Crescenzi's marriage seemed now to be definitely settled;
scarcely a day passed without his giving a _festa_ for Clelia, inside
the citadel. A decisive proof of the marriage was that the Marchese,
immensely rich and in consequence very avaricious, as is the custom
among the opulent people of Northern Italy, was making immense
preparations, and yet he was marrying a girl without a _portion_. It was
true that General Fabio Conti, his vanity greatly shocked by this
observation, the first to spring to the minds of all his compatriots,
had just bought a property worth more than 300,000 francs, and for this
property he, who had nothing, had paid in ready money, evidently with
the Marchese's gold. Moreover, the General had said that he was giving
this property to his daughter on her marriage. But the charges for the
documents and other matters, which amounted to more than 12,000 francs,
seemed a most ridiculous waste of money to the Marchese, a man of
eminently logical mind. For his part he was having woven at Lyons a set
of magnificent tapestries of admirably blended colours, calculated to
charm the eye, by the famous Pallagi, the Bolognese painter. These
tapestries, each of which embodied some deed of arms by the Crescenzi
family, which, as the whole world knows, is descended from the famous
Crescentius, Roman Consul in the year 985, were to furnish the seventeen
saloons which composed the ground floor of the Marchese's _palazzo_. The
tapestries, clocks and lustres sent to Parma cost more than 350,000
francs; the price of the new mirrors, in addition to those which the
house already possessed, came to 200,000 francs. With the exception of
two rooms, famous works of the Parmigianino, the greatest of local
painters after the divine Correggio, all those of the first and second
floors were now occupied by the leading painters of Florence, Rome and
Milan, who were decorating them with paintings in fresco. Fokelberg, the
great Swedish sculptor, Tenerani of Rome and Marchesi of Milan had been
at work for the last year on ten bas-reliefs representing as many brave
deeds of Crescentius, that truly great man. The majority of the
ceilings, painted in fresco, also offered some allusion to his life. The
ceiling most generally admired was that on which Hayez of Milan had
represented Crescentius being received in the Elysian Fields by
Francesco Sforza, Lorenzo the Magnificent, King Robert, the Tribune Cola
di Rienzi, Machiavelli, Dante and the other great men of the middle
ages. Admiration for these chosen spirits is supposed to be an epigram
at the expense of the men in power.
All these sumptuous details occupied the exclusive attention of the
nobility and burgesses of Parma, and pierced our hero's heart when he
read of them, related with an artless admiration, in a long letter of
more than twenty pages which Lodovico had dictated to a _doganiere_ of
Casalmaggiore.
_THE PALAZZO_
"And I, who am so poor!" said Fabrizio, "an income of four thousand lire
in all and for all! It is truly an impertinence in me to dare to be in
love with Clelia Conti for whom all these miracles are being performed."
A single paragraph in Lodovico's long letter, but written, this, in his
own villainous hand, announced to his master that he had met, at night
and apparently in hiding, the unfortunate Grillo, his former gaoler, who
had been put in prison and then released. The man had asked him for a
sequin in charity, and Lodovico had given him four in the Duchessa's
name. The old gaolers recently set at liberty, twelve in number, were
preparing an entertainment with their knives (_un trattamento di
cortellate_) for the new gaolers their successors, should they ever
succeed in meeting them outside the citadel. Grillo had said that almost
every day there was a serenade at the fortress, that Signorina Clelia
was extremely pale, often ill, and _other things of the sort_. This
absurd expression caused Lodovico to receive, by courier after courier,
the order to return to Locarno. He returned, and the details which he
supplied by word of mouth were even more depressing for Fabrizio.
One may judge what consideration he was shewing for the poor Duchessa;
he would have suffered a thousand deaths rather than utter in her
hearing the name of Clelia Conti. The Duchessa abhorred Parma; whereas,
for Fabrizio, everything which recalled that city was at once sublime
and touching.
Less than ever had the Duchessa forgotten her revenge; she had been so
happy before the incident of Giletti's death and now, what a fate was
hers! She was living in expectation of a dire event of which she was
careful not to say a word to Fabrizio, she who before, at the time of
her arrangement with Ferrante, thought she would so delight Fabrizio by
telling him that one day he would be avenged.
One can now form some idea of the pleasantness of Fabrizio's
conversations with the Duchessa: a gloomy silence reigned almost
invariably between them. To enhance the pleasantness of their relations,
the Duchessa had yielded to the temptation to play a trick on this too
dear nephew. The Conte wrote to her almost every day; evidently he was
sending couriers as in the days of their infatuation, for his letters
always bore the postmark of some little town in Switzerland. The poor
man was torturing his mind so as not to speak too openly of his
affection, and to construct amusing letters; barely did a distracted eye
glance over them. What avails, alas, the fidelity of a respected lover
when one's heart is pierced by the coldness of the other whom one sets
above him?
In the space of two months the Duchessa answered him only once, and that
was to engage him to explore how the land lay round the Princess, and to
see whether, despite the impertinence of the fireworks, a letter from
her, the Duchessa, would be received with pleasure. The letter which he
was to present, if he thought fit, requested the post of _Cavaliere
d'onore_ to the Princess, which had recently fallen vacant, for the
Marchese Crescenzi, and desired that it should be conferred upon him in
consideration of his marriage. The Duchessa's letter was a masterpiece;
it was a message of the most tender respect, expressed in the best
possible terms; the writer had not admitted to this courtly style a
single word the consequences, even the remotest consequences of which
could be other than agreeable to the Princess. The reply also breathed a
tender friendship, which was being tortured by the absence of its
recipient.
_THE PRINCESS_
"My son and I," the Princess told her, "have not spent one evening that
could be called tolerable since your sudden departure. Does my dear
Duchessa no longer remember that it was she who caused me to be
consulted in the nomination of the officers of my household? Does she
then think herself obliged to give me reasons for the Marchese's
appointment, as if the expression of her desire was not for me the chief
of reasons? The Marchese shall have the post, if I can do anything; and
there will always be one in my heart, and that the first, for my dear
Duchessa. My son employs absolutely the same expressions, a little
strong perhaps on the lips of a great boy of one-and-twenty, and asks
you for specimens of the minerals of the Val d'Orta, near Belgirate. You
may address your letters, which will, I hope, be frequent, to the Conte,
who still adores you and who is especially dear to me on account of
these sentiments. The Archbishop also has remained faithful to you. We
all hope to see you again one day: remember that it is your duty. The
Marchesa Ghisleri, my Grand Mistress, is preparing to leave this world
for a better: the poor woman has done me much harm; she displeases me
still further by departing so inopportunely; her illness makes me think
of the name which I should once have set with so much pleasure in the
place of hers, if, that is, I could have obtained that sacrifice of her
independence from that matchless woman who, in fleeing from us, has
taken with her all the joy of my little court," and so forth.
It was therefore with the consciousness of having sought to hasten, so
far as it lay in her power, the marriage which was filling Fabrizio with
despair, that the Duchessa saw him every day. And so they spent
sometimes four or five hours in drifting together over the lake, without
exchanging a single word. The good feeling was entire and perfect on
Fabrizio's part; but he was thinking of other things, and his innocent
and simple nature furnished him with nothing to say. The Duchessa saw
this, and it was her punishment.
We have forgotten to mention in the proper place that the Duchessa had
taken a house at Belgirate, a charming village and one that contains
everything which its name promises (to wit a beautiful bend in the
lake). From the window-sill of her drawing-room, the Duchessa could set
foot in her boat. She had taken a quite simple one for which four rowers
would have sufficed; she engaged twelve, and arranged things so as to
have a man from each of the villages situated in the neighbourhood of
Belgirate. The third or fourth time that she found herself in the middle
of the lake with all of these well chosen men, she stopped the movement
of their oars.
"I regard you all as friends," she said to them, "and I wish to confide
a secret in you. My nephew Fabrizio has escaped from prison; and
possibly by treachery they will seek to recapture him, although he is on
your lake, in a place of freedom. Keep your ears open, and inform me of
all that you may hear. I authorise you to enter my room by day or
night."
The rowers replied with enthusiasm; she knew how to make herself loved.
But she did not think that there was any question of recapturing
Fabrizio: it was for herself that all these precautions were taken, and,
before the fatal order to open the reservoir of the _palazzo_
Sanseverina, she would not have dreamed of them.
Her prudence had led her also to take an apartment at the port of
Locarno for Fabrizio; every day he came to see her, or she herself
crossed into Switzerland. One may judge of the pleasantness of their
perpetual companionship by the following detail. The Marchesa and her
daughter came twice to see them, and the presence of these strangers
gave them pleasure; for, in spite of the ties of blood, we may call
"stranger" a person who knows nothing of our dearest interests and whom
we see but once in a year.
_LAKE MAGGIORE_
The Duchessa happened to be one evening at Locarno, in Fabrizio's rooms,
with the Marchesa and her two daughters. The Archpriest of the place and
the curate had come to pay their respects to these ladies: the
Archpriest, who had an interest in a business house, and kept closely in
touch with the news, was inspired to announce:
"The Prince of Parma is dead!"
The Duchessa turned extremely pale; she had barely the strength to say:
"Do they give any details?"
"No," replied the Archpriest; "the report is confined to the
announcement of his death, which is certain."
The Duchessa looked at Fabrizio. "I have done this for him," she said to
herself; "I would have done things a thousand times worse, and there he
is standing before me indifferent, and dreaming of another!" It was
beyond the Duchessa's strength to endure this frightful thought; she
fell in a dead faint. Everyone hastened to her assistance; but, on
coming to herself, she observed that Fabrizio was less active than the
Archpriest and curate; he was dreaming as usual.
"He is thinking of returning to Parma," the Duchessa told herself, "and
perhaps of breaking off Clelia's marriage to the Marchese; but I shall
manage to prevent him." Then, remembering the presence of the two
priests, she made haste to add:
"He was a good Prince, and has been greatly maligned! It is an immense
loss for us!"
The priests took their leave, and the Duchessa, to be alone, announced
that she was going to bed.
"No doubt," she said to herself, "prudence ordains that I should wait a
month or two before returning to Parma; but I feel that I shall never
have the patience; I am suffering too keenly here. Fabrizio's continual
dreaming, his silence, are an intolerable spectacle for my heart. Who
would ever have said that I should find it tedious to float on this
charming lake, alone with him, and at the moment when I have done, to
avenge him, more than I can tell him! After such a spectacle, death is
nothing. It is now that I am paying for the transports of happiness and
childish joy which I found in my _palazzo_ at Parma when I welcomed
Fabrizio there on his return from Naples. If I had said a word, all was
at an end, and it may be that, tied to me, he would not have given a
thought to that little Clelia; but that word filled me with a horrible
repugnance. Now she has prevailed over me. What more simple? She is
twenty; and I, altered by my anxieties, sick, I am twice her age! . . .
I must die, I must make an end of things! A woman of forty is no longer
anything save to the men who have loved her in her youth! Now I shall
find nothing more but the pleasures of vanity; and are they worth the
trouble of living? All the more reason for going to Parma, and amusing
myself. If things took a certain turn, I should lose my life. Well,
where is the harm? I shall make a magnificent death, and, before the
end, but then only, I shall say to Fabrizio: 'Wretch! It is for you!'
Yes, I can find no occupation for what little life remains to me save at
Parma. I shall play the great lady there. What a blessing if I could be
sensible now of all those distinctions which used to make the Raversi so
unhappy! Then, in order to see my happiness, I had to look into the eyes
of envy. . . . My vanity has one satisfaction; with the exception of the
Conte perhaps, no one can have guessed what the event was that put an
end to the life of my heart. . . . I shall love Fabrizio, I shall be
devoted to his interests; but he must not be allowed to break off
Clelia's marriage, and end by taking her himself. . . . No, that shall
not be!"
The Duchessa had reached this point in her melancholy monologue, when
she heard a great noise in the house.
"Good!" she said to herself, "they are coming to arrest me; Ferrante has
let himself be caught, he must have spoken. Well, all the better! I am
going to have an occupation, I am going to fight them for my head. But
in the first place, I must not let myself be taken."
The Duchessa, half clad, fled to the bottom of her garden: she was
already thinking of climbing a low wall and escaping across country; but
she saw someone enter her room. She recognised Bruno, the Conte's
confidential man; he was alone with her maid. She went up to the window.
The man was telling her maid of the injuries he had received. The
Duchessa entered the house. Bruno almost flung himself at her feet,
imploring her not to tell the Conte of the preposterous hour at which he
had arrived.
"Immediately after the Prince's death," he went on, "the Signor Conte
gave the order to all the posts not to supply horses to subjects of the
States of Parma. So that I had to go as far as the Po with the horses of
the house, but on leaving the boat my carriage was overturned, broken,
smashed, and I had such bad bruises that I could not get on a horse, as
was my duty."
"Very well," said the Duchessa, "it is three o'clock in the morning: I
shall say that you arrived at noon; but you must not go and give me
away."
"I am very grateful for the Signora's kindness."
Politics in a work of literature are like a pistol-shot in the middle of
a concert, something loud and vulgar and yet a thing to which it is not
possible to refuse one's attention.
We are about to speak of very ugly matters, as to which, for more than
one reason, we should like to keep silence; but we are forced to do so
in order to come to happenings which are in our province, since they
have for their theatre the hearts of our characters.
"But, great God, how did that great Prince die?" said the Duchessa to
Bruno.
"He was out shooting the birds of passage, in the marshes, along by the
Po, two leagues from Sacca. He fell into a hole hidden by a tuft of
grass; he was all in a sweat, and caught cold; they carried him to a
lonely house where he died in a few hours. Some say that Signor Catena
and Signor Borone are dead as well, and that the whole accident arose
from the copper pans in the _contadino's_ house they went to, which were
full of verdigris. They took their luncheon there. In fact, the swelled
heads, the Jacobins, who say what they would like to be true, speak of
poison. I know that my friend Toto, who is a groom at court, would have
died but for the kind attention of a rustic who appeared to have a great
knowledge of medicine, and gave him some very singular remedies. But
they've ceased to talk of the Prince's death already; after all, he was
a cruel man. When I left, the people were gathering to kill the Fiscal
General Rassi: they were also proposing to set fire to the gates of the
citadel, to enable the prisoners to escape. But it was said that Fabio
Conti would fire his guns. Others were positive that the gunners at the
citadel had poured water on their powder, and refused to massacre their
fellow-citizens. But I can tell you something far more interesting:
while the surgeon of Sandolaro was mending my poor arm, a man arrived
from Parma who said that the mob had caught Barbone, the famous clerk
from the citadel, in the street, and had beaten him, and were then going
to hang him from the tree on the avenue nearest to the citadel. The mob
were marching to break that fine statue of the Prince in the gardens of
the court; but the Signor Conte took a battalion of the Guard, paraded
them in front of the statue, and sent word to the people that no one who
entered the gardens would go out of them alive, and the people took
fright. But, what is a very curious thing, which the man who had come
from Parma, who is an old constable, repeated several times, is that the
Signor Conte kicked General P----, the commander of the Prince's Guard,
and had him led out of the garden by two fusiliers, after tearing off
his epaulettes."
_THE ACCIDENT_
"I can see the Conte doing that," cried the Duchessa with a transport of
joy which she would not have believed possible a minute earlier: "he
will never allow anyone to insult our Princess; and as for General
P----, in his devotion to his rightful masters, he would never consent
to serve the usurper, while the Conte, with less delicacy, fought
through all the Spanish campaigns, and has often been reproached for it
at court."
The Duchessa had opened the Conte's letter, but kept stopping as she
read it to put a hundred questions to Bruno.
The letter was very pleasant; the Conte employed the most lugubrious
terms, and yet the keenest joy broke out in every word; he avoided any
detail of the Prince's death, and ended with the words:
"You will doubtless return, my dear angel, but I advise you to wait a
day or two for the courier whom the Princess will send you, as I hope,
to-day or to-morrow; your return must be as triumphant as your departure
was bold. As for the great criminal who is with you, I count upon being
able to have him tried by twelve judges selected from all parties in
this State. But, to have the monster punished as he deserves, I must
first be able to make spills of the other sentence, if it exists."
The Conte had opened his letter to add:
"Now for a very different matter: I have just issued ammunition to the
two battalions of the Guard; I am going to fight, and shall do my best
to deserve the title of Cruel with which the Liberals have so long
honoured me. That old mummy General P---- has dared to speak in the
barracks of making a parley with the populace, who are more or less in
revolt. I write to you from the street; I am going to the Palace, which
they shall not enter save over my dead body. Good-bye! If I die, it will
be worshipping you _all the same_, as I have lived. Do not forget to
draw three hundred thousand francs which are deposited in my name with
D---- of Lyons.
"Here is that poor devil Rassi, pale as death, and without his wig; you
have no idea what he looks like. The people are absolutely determined to
hang him; it would be doing him a great injustice, he deserves to be
quartered. He took refuge in my _palazzo_ and has run after me into the
street; I hardly know what to do with him. . . . I do not wish to take
him to the Prince's Palace, that would make the revolt break out there.
F---- shall see whether I love him; my first word to Rassi was: I must
have the sentence passed on Signor del Dongo, and all the copies that
you may have of it; and say to all those unjust judges, who are the
cause of this revolt, that I will have them all hanged, and you as well,
my dear friend, if they breathe a word of that sentence, which never
existed. In Fabrizio's name, I am sending a company of grenadiers to the
Archbishop. Good-bye, dear angel! My _palazzo_ is going to be burned, and
I shall lose the charming portraits I have of you. I must run to the
Palace to degrade that wretched General P----, who is at his tricks; he
is basely flattering the people, as he used to flatter the late Prince.
All these Generals are in the devil of a fright; I am going, I think, to
have myself made Commander in Chief."
The Duchessa was unkind enough not to send to waken Fabrizio; she felt
for the Conte a burst of admiration which was closely akin to love.
"When all is said and done," she decided, "I shall have to marry him."
She wrote to him at once and sent off one of her men. That night the
Duchessa had no time to be unhappy.
_THE RISING_
Next day, about noon, she saw a boat manned by ten rowers which was
swiftly cleaving the waters of the lake; Fabrizio and she soon
recognised a man wearing the livery of the Prince of Parma: it was, in
fact, one of his couriers who, before landing, cried to the Duchessa:
"The revolt is suppressed!" This courier gave her several letters from
the Conte, an admirable letter from the Princess, and an order from
Prince Ranuccio-Ernesto V, on parchment, creating her Duchessa di San
Giovanni and Grand Mistress to the Princess Dowager. The young Prince,
an expert in mineralogy, whom she regarded as an imbecile, had had the
intelligence to write her a little note; but there was love at the end
of it. The note began thus:
"The Conte says, Signora Duchessa, that he is pleased with me; the fact
is that I stood under fire by his side, and that my horse was hit:
seeing the stir that is made about so small a matter, I am keen to take
part in a real battle, but not against my subjects. I owe everything to
the Conte; all my Generals, who have never been to war, ran like hares;
I believe two or three have fled as far as Bologna. Since a great and
deplorable event set me in power, I have signed no order which has given
me so much pleasure as this which appoints you Grand Mistress to my
mother. My mother and I both remembered a day when you admired the fine
view one has from the _palazzetto_ of San Giovanni, which once belonged
to Petrarch, or so they say at least; my mother wished to give you that
little property: and I, not knowing what to give you, and not venturing
to offer you all that is rightly yours, have made you Duchessa in my
country; I do not know whether you are learned enough in these matters
to be aware that Sanseverina is a Roman title. I have just given the
Grand Cordon of my Order to our worthy Archbishop, who has shown a
firmness very rare in men of seventy. You will not be angry with me for
having recalled all the ladies from exile. I am told that I must now
sign only after writing the words _your affectionate_; it annoys me that
I should be made to scatter broadcast what is completely true only when
I write to you.
"_Your affectionate_
"RANUCCIO-ERNESTO."
Who would not have said, from such language, that the Duchessa was about
to enjoy the highest favour? And yet she found something very strange in
other letters from the Conte, which she received an hour or two later.
He offered no special reason, but advised her to postpone for some days
her return to Parma, and to write to the Princess that she was seriously
unwell. The Duchessa and Fabrizio set off, nevertheless, for Parma
immediately after dinner. The Duchessa's object, which however she did
not admit to herself, was to hasten the Marchese Crescenzi's marriage;
Fabrizio, for his part, spent the journey in wild transports of joy,
which seemed to his aunt absurd. He was in hopes of seeing Clelia again
soon; he fully counted upon carrying her off, against her will, if there
should be no other way of preventing her marriage.
_ERNESTO V_
The Duchessa and her nephew made a very gay journey. At a post before
Parma, Fabrizio stopped for a minute to change into the ecclesiastical
habit; ordinarily he dressed as a layman in mourning. When he returned
to the Duchessa's room:
"I find something suspicious and inexplicable," she said to him, "in the
Conte's letters. If you would take my advice you would spend a few hours
here; I shall send you a courier after I have spoken to that great
Minister."
It was with great reluctance that Fabrizio consented to accept this
sensible warning. Transports of joy worthy of a boy of fifteen were the
note of the reception which the Conte gave to the Duchessa, whom he
called his wife. It was long before he would speak of politics, and when
at last they came down to cold reason:
"You did very well to prevent Fabrizio from arriving officially; we are
in the full swing of reaction here. Just guess the colleague that the
Prince has given me as Minister of Justice! Rassi, my dear, Rassi, whom
I treated like the ruffian that he is, on the day of our great
adventure. By the way, I must warn you that we have suppressed
everything that has happened here. If you read our _Gazette_ you will
see that a clerk at the citadel, named Barbone, has died as the result
of falling from a carriage. As for the sixty odd rascals whom I
dispatched with powder and shot, when they were attacking the Prince's
statue in the gardens, they are in the best of health, only they are
travelling abroad. Conte Zurla, the Minister of the Interior, has gone
in person to the house of each of these unfortunate heroes, and has
handed fifteen sequins to his family or his friends, with the order to
say that the deceased is abroad, and a very definite threat of
imprisonment should they let it be understood that he is dead. A man
from my own Ministry, the Foreign Office, has been sent on a mission to
the journalists of Milan and Turin, so that they shall not speak of the
_unfortunate event_--that is the recognised expression; he is to go on
to Paris and London, to insert a correction in all the newspapers,
semi-officially, of anything that they may say about our troubles.
Another agent has posted off to Bologna and Florence. I have shrugged my
shoulders.
"But the delightful thing, at my age, is that I felt a moment of
enthusiasm when I was speaking to the soldiers of the Guard, and when I
tore the epaulettes off that contemptible General P----. At that moment,
I would have given my life, without hesitating, for the Prince: I admit
now that it would have been a very stupid way of ending it. To-day the
Prince, excellent young fellow as he is, would give a hundred scudi to
see me die in my bed; he has not yet dared to ask for my resignation,
but we speak to each other as seldom as possible, and I send him a
number of little reports in writing, as I used to do with the late
Prince, after Fabrizio's imprisonment. By the way, I have not yet made
spills out of the sentence they passed on Fabrizio, for the simple
reason that scoundrel Rassi has not let me have it. So you are very
wise to prevent Fabrizio from arriving here officially. The sentence
still holds good; at the same time I do not think that Rassi would dare
to have our nephew arrested now, but it is possible that he will in
another fortnight. If Fabrizio absolutely insists on returning to town,
let him come and stay with me."
_REACTION_
"But the reason for all this?" cried the Duchessa in astonishment.
"They have persuaded the Prince that I am giving myself the airs of a
dictator and a saviour of the country, and that I wish to lead him about
like a boy; what is more, in speaking of him, I seem to have uttered the
fatal words: _that boy_. It may be so, I was excited that day; for
instance, I looked on him as a great man, because he was not unduly
frightened by the first shots he had ever heard fired in his life. He is
not lacking in spirit, indeed he has a better tone than his father; in
fact, I cannot repeat it too often, in his heart of hearts he is honest
and good; but that sincere and youthful heart shudders when they tell
him of any dastardly trick, and he thinks he must have a very dark soul
himself to notice such things: think of the upbringing he has had!"
"Your Excellency ought to have remembered that one day he would be
master, and to have placed an intelligent man with him."
"For one thing, we have the example of the Abbé de Condillac, who, when
appointed by the Marchese di Felino, my predecessor, could make nothing
more of his pupil than a King of fools. He succeeded in due course, and,
in 1796, he had not the sense to treat with General Bonaparte, who would
have tripled the area of his States. In the second place, I never
expected to remain Minister for ten years in succession. Now that I have
lost all interest in the business, as I have for the last month, I
intend to amass a million before leaving this bedlam I have rescued to
its own devices. But for me, Parma would have been a Republic for two
months, with the poet Ferrante Palla as Dictator."
This made the Duchessa blush; the Conte knew nothing of what had
happened.
"We are going to fall back into the ordinary Monarchy of the eighteenth
century; the confessor and the mistress. At heart the Prince cares for
nothing but mineralogy, and perhaps yourself, Signora. Since he began to
reign, his valet, whose brother I have just made a captain, this brother
having nine months' service, his valet, I say, has gone and stuffed into
his head that he ought to be the happiest of men because his profile is
going to appear on the scudi. This bright idea has been followed by
boredom.
"What he now needs is an aide-de-camp, as a remedy for boredom. Well,
even if he were to offer me that famous million which is necessary for
us to live comfortably in Naples or Paris, I would not be his remedy for
boredom, and spend four or five hours every day with His Highness.
Besides, as I have more brains than he, at the end of a month he would
regard me as a monster.
"The late Prince was evil-minded and jealous, but he had been on service
and had commanded army corps, which had given him a bearing; he had the
stuff in him of which Princes are made, and I could be his Minister, for
better or worse. With this honest fellow of a son, who is candid and
really good, I am forced to be an intriguer. You see me now the rival of
the humblest little woman in the Castle, and a very inferior rival, for
I shall scorn all the hundred essential details. For instance, three
days ago, one of those women who put out the clean towels every morning
in the rooms, took it into her head to make the Prince lose the key of
one of his English desks. Whereupon His Highness refused to deal with
any of the business the papers of which happened to be in this desk; as
a matter of fact, for twenty francs, they could have taken off the
wooden bottom, or used skeleton keys; but Ranuccio-Ernesto V told me
that would be teaching the court locksmith bad habits.
_A MORAL PRINCE_
"Up to the present, it has been absolutely impossible for him to adhere
to any decision for three days running. If he had been born Marchese
so-and-so, with an ample fortune, this young Prince would have been one
of the most estimable men at court, a sort of Louis XVI; but how, with
his pious simplicity, is he to resist all the cunningly laid snares that
surround him? And so the drawing-room of your enemy the Marchesa Raversi
is more powerful than ever; they have discovered there that I, who gave
the order to fire on the people, and was determined to kill three
thousand men if necessary, rather than let them outrage the statue of
the Prince who had been my master, am a red-hot Liberal, that I wished
him to sign a Constitution, and a hundred such absurdities. With all
this talk of a Republic, the fools would prevent us from enjoying the
best of Monarchies. In short, Signora, you are the only member of the
present Liberal Party of which my enemies make me the head, at whose
expense the Prince has not expressed himself in offensive terms; the
Archbishop, always perfectly honest, for having spoken in reasonable
language of what I did on the _unhappy day_, is in deep disgrace.
"On the morrow of the day which was not then called _unhappy_, when it
was still true that the revolt had existed, the Prince told the
Archbishop that, so that you should not have to take an inferior title
on marrying me, he would make me a Duca. To-day I fancy that it is
Rassi, ennobled by me when he sold me the late Prince's secrets, who is
going to be made Conte. In the face of such a promotion as that, I shall
cut a sorry figure."
"And the poor Prince will bespatter himself with mud."
"No doubt; but after all he is _master_, a position which, in less than a
fortnight, makes the _ridiculous_ element disappear. So, dear Duchessa, as
at the game of tric-trac, _let us get out_."
"But we shall not be exactly rich."
"After all, neither you nor I have any need of luxury. If you give me,
at Naples, a seat in a box at San Carlo and a horse, I am more than
satisfied; it will never be the amount of luxury with which we live that
will give you and me our position, it is the pleasure which the
intelligent people of the place may perhaps find in coming to take a
dish of tea with you."
"But," the Duchessa went on, "what would have happened, on the _unhappy
day_, if you had held aloof, as I hope you will in future?"
"The troops would have fraternised with the people, there would have
been three days of bloodshed and incendiarism (for it would take a
hundred years in this country for the Republic to be anything more than
an absurdity), then a fortnight of pillage, until two or three regiments
supplied from abroad came to put a stop to it. Ferrante Palla was in the
thick of the crowd, full of courage and raging as usual; he had probably
a dozen friends who were acting in collusion with him, which Rassi will
make into a superb conspiracy. One thing certain is that, wearing an
incredibly dilapidated coat, he was scattering gold with both hands."
The Duchessa, bewildered by all this information, went in haste to thank
the Princess.
As she entered the room the Lady of the Bedchamber handed her a little
gold key, which is worn in the belt, and is the badge of supreme
authority in the part of the Palace which belongs to the Princess.
Clara-Paolina hastened to dismiss all the company; and, once she was
alone with her friend, persisted for some moments in giving only
fragmentary explanations. The Duchessa found it hard to understand what
she meant, and answered only with considerable reserve. At length the
Princess burst into tears, and, flinging herself into the Duchessa's
arms, cried: "The days of my misery are going to begin again; my son
will treat me worse than his father did!"
_THE RISING_
"That is what I shall prevent," the Duchessa replied with emphasis. "But
first of all," she went on, "I must ask Your Serene Highness to deign to
accept this offering of all my gratitude and my profound respect."
"What do you mean?" cried the Princess, full of uneasiness, and fearing
a resignation.
"I ask that whenever Your Serene Highness shall permit me to turn to the
right the head of that nodding mandarin on her chimneypiece, she will
permit me also to call things by their true names."
"Is that all, my dear Duchessa?" cried Clara-Paolina, rising from her
seat and hastening herself to put the mandarin's head in the right
position: "speak then, with the utmost freedom, Signora Maggiordoma,"
she said in a charming tone.
"Ma'am," the Duchessa went on, "Your Highness has grasped the situation
perfectly; you and I are both running the greatest risk; the sentence
passed on Fabrizio has not been quashed; consequently, on the day when
they wish to rid themselves of me and to insult you, they will put him
back in prison. Our position is as bad as ever. As for me personally, I
am marrying the Conte, and we are going to set up house in Naples or
Paris. The final stroke of ingratitude of which the Conte is at this
moment the victim has entirely disgusted him with public life, and but
for the interest Your Serene Highness takes in him, I should advise him
to remain in this mess only on condition of the Prince's giving him an
enormous sum. I shall ask leave of Your Highness, to explain that the
Conte, who had 180,000 francs when he came into office, has to-day an
income of barely 20,000 lire. In vain did I long urge him to think of
his pocket. In my absence, he has picked a quarrel with the Prince's
Farmers-General, who were rascals; he has replaced them with other
rascals, who have given him 800,000 francs."
"What!" cried the Princess in astonishment; "Heavens, I am extremely
annoyed to hear that!"
"Ma'am," replied the Duchessa with the greatest coolness, "must I turn
the mandarin's head back to the left?"
"Good heavens, no," exclaimed the Princess; "but I am annoyed that a man
of the Conte's character should have thought of enriching himself in
such a way."
"But for this peculation he would be despised by all the honest folk."
"Great heavens! Is it possible?"
"Ma'am," went on the Duchessa, "except for my friend, the Marchese
Crescenzi, who has an income of three or four hundred thousand lire,
everyone here steals; and how should they not steal in a country where
the recognition of the greatest services lasts for not quite a month? It
means that there is nothing real, nothing that survives disgrace, save
money. I am going to take the liberty, Ma'am, of saying some terrible
truths."
"You have my permission," said the Princess with a deep sigh, "and yet
they are painfully unpleasant to me."
"Very well, Ma'am, the Prince your son, a perfectly honest man, is
capable of making you far more unhappy than his father ever did; the
late Prince was a man of character more or less like everyone else. Our
present Sovereign is not sure of wishing the same thing for three days
on end, and so, in order that one may make sure of him, one must live
continually with him and not allow him to speak to anyone. As this truth
is not very difficult to guess, the new Ultra Party, ruled by those two
excellent heads, Rassi and the Marchesa Raversi, are going to try to
provide the Prince with a mistress. This mistress will have permission
to make her own fortune and to distribute various minor posts; but she
will have to answer to the Party for the constancy of the master's will.
_NECESSARY PECULATION_
"I, to be properly established at Your Highness's court, require that
Rassi be exiled and degraded; I desire, in addition, that Fabrizio be
tried by the most honest judges that can be found: if these gentlemen
admit, as I hope, that he is innocent, it will be natural to grant the
petition of His Grace the Archbishop that Fabrizio shall be his
Coadjutor with eventual succession. If I fail, the Conte and I retire;
in that case, I leave this parting advice with Your Serene Highness: she
must never pardon Rassi, nor must she ever leave her son's States. While
she is with him, that worthy son will never do her any serious harm."
"I have followed your arguments with the close attention they require,"
the Princess replied, smiling; "ought I, then, to take upon myself the
responsibility of providing my son with a mistress?"
"Not at all, Ma'am, but see first of all that your drawing-room is the
only one which he finds amusing."
The conversation on this topic was endless, the scales fell from the
eyes of the innocent and intelligent Princess.
One of the Duchessa's couriers went to tell Fabrizio that he might enter
the town, but must hide himself. He was barely noticed: he spent his
time disguised as a contadino in the wooden booth of a chestnut-seller,
erected opposite the gate of the citadel, beneath the trees of the
avenue.