Voyage on the _Pereire_--General Washburne--I am offered a command in
another French Revolution--Paris--J. Meredith Read and Prevost Paradol--My
health--Spa--J. C. Hotten--Octave Delepierre--Heidelberg--Dresden--Julian
Hawthorne and G. Lathrop--Verona--Venice--Rome--W. W.
Story--Florence--Lorimer Graham--"Breitmann" in the Royal Family--Tuscany.
We sailed on the famed _Pereire_ from New York to Brest in May, 1869. We
had not left port before a droll incident occurred. On the table in the
smoking-room lay a copy of the "Ballads of Hans Breitmann." A fellow-
passenger asked me, "Is that your book?" I innocently replied, "Yes."
"Excuse me, sir," cried another, "it is _mine_." "I beg your pardon," I
replied, "but it is really mine." "Sir, I _bought_ it." "I don't care
if you did," I replied; "it is mine--for I wrote it." There was a roar
of laughter, and we all became acquainted at once.
General Washburne was among the passengers. He had been appointed
Minister to France and was going to Paris, where he subsequently
distinguished himself during the siege by literally taking the place of
seven foreign Ministers who had left, and kindly caring for all their
_proteges_. It never occurred to the old frontiersman to leave a place
or his duties because fighting was going on. I had a fine twelve-feet
blue Indian blanket, which I had bought somewhere beyond Leavenworth of a
trader. When sitting on deck wrapped in it, the General would finger a
fold lovingly, and say, "Ah! the Indians always have good blankets!"
We arrived in Brest, and Mrs. Leland, who had never before been in
Europe, was much pleased at her first sight, early in the morning, of a
French city; the nuns, soldiers, peasants, and all, as seen from our
window, were indeed very picturesque. We left that day by railway for
Paris, and on the road a rather remarkable incident occurred. There was
seated opposite to us a not very amiable-looking man of thirty, who might
be of the superior class of mechanics, and who evidently regarded us with
an evil eye, either because we were suspected _Anglais_ or aristocrats. I
resolved that he should become amicable. Ill-tempered though he might
be, he was still polite, for at every stopping-place he got out to smoke,
and extinguished his cigar ere he re-entered. I said to him, "Madame
begs that you will not inconvenience yourself so much--pray continue to
smoke in here." This melted him, as it would any Frenchman. Seeing that
he was reading the _Rappel_, I conversed "liberally." I told him that I
had been captain of barricades in Forty-eight, and described in full the
taking of the Tuileries. His blood was fired, and he confided to me all
the details of a grand plot for a Revolution which he was going up to
Paris to attend to, and offered me a prominent place among the
conspirators, assuring me that I should have a glorious opportunity to
fight again at the barricades! I was appalled at his want of discretion,
but said nothing. Sure enough, there came the _emeute_ of the
plebiscite, as he had predicted, but it was suppressed. George Boker
wrote to me: "When I heard of a revolution in Paris, I knew at once that
you must have arrived and had got to work." And when I told him that I
knew of it in advance, and had had a situation offered me as leader, he
dryly replied, "Oh, I suppose so--as a matter of course." It was
certainly a strange coincidence that I left Paris in Forty-eight as a
Revolutionary _suspect_, and re-entered it in 1870 in very nearly the
same capacity.
We found agreeable lodgings at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysees. The
day after our arrival I determined to arrange the terms of living with
our landlord. He and his wife had the reputation of being fearful screws
in their "items." So he, thinking I was a newly arrived and perfectly
ignorant American, began to draw the toils, and enumerate so much for the
rooms, so much for every towel, so much, I believe, for salt and every
spoon and fork. I asked him how much he would charge for everything in
the lump. He replied, "_Mais_, _Monsieur_, _nous ne faisons pas jamais
comme cela a Paris_." Out of all patience, I burst out into vernacular:
"_Sacre nom de Dieu et mille tonnerres_, _vieux galopin_! you dare to
tell _me_, a _vieux carabin du Quartier Latin_, that you cannot make
arrangements! _Et depuisse-quand_, _s'il vous plait_?" {372} He stared
at me in blank amazement, and then said with a smile: "_Tiens_! _Monsieur
est donc de nous_!" "That I am," I replied, and we at once made a
satisfactory compromise.
We had pleasant friends, and saw the sights and shopped; but I began to
feel in Paris for the first time that the dreaded break-down or collapse
which I had long apprehended was coming over me. There was a very clever
surgeon and physician named Laborde, who was called Nelaton's right-hand
man. I met him several times, and he observed to a mutual friend that I
was evidently suffering seriously from threatening nervous symptoms, and
that he would like to attend me. He did so, and gave me daily a
teaspoonful of bromide of potassium. This gave me sleep and appetite;
but, after some weeks or months, the result was a settled, mild
melancholy and tendency to rest. In fact, it was nearly eighteen months
before I recovered so that I could write or work, and _live_ as of old.
I had inherited from both parents, and suffered all my life fearfully at
intervals, from brachycephalic or dorsal neuralgia. Dr. Laborde made
short work of this by giving me appallingly strong doses of _tincture of
aconite and sulphate of quinine_. Chemists have often been amazed at the
prescription. But in due time the trouble quite disappeared, and I now,
_laus Deo_! very rarely ever have a touch of it. As many persons suffer
terribly from this disorder, which is an _aching_ in the back of the head
and neck accompanied by "sick headache," I give the ingredients of the
cure; the proper quantity must be determined by the physician. {373}
We dined once with Mr. Washburne, who during dinner showed his extreme
goodness of heart in a very characteristic manner. Some foolish American
had during the _emeute_--in which I was to have been a leader, had I so
willed--got himself into trouble, not by fighting, but through mere
prying Yankee "curiosity" and mingling with the crowd. Such people
really deserve to be shot more than any others, for they get in the way
and spoil good fighting. He was deservedly arrested, and sent for his
Minister, who, learning it, at once arose, drove to the _prefecture_, and
delivered his inquisitive compatriot. On another occasion we were the
guests of J. Meredith Read, then our Minister to Athens, where we met
Prevost Paradol. But at this time there suddenly came over me a distaste
for operas, theatres, dinners, society--in short, of crowds, gaslight,
and gaiety in any form, from which I have never since quite recovered. I
had for years been fearfully overdoing it all in America, and now I was
in the reaction, and longed for rest. I was in that state when one could
truly say that life would be tolerable but for its amusements. It is
usual for most people to insist in such cases that what the sufferer
needs is "excitement" and "distraction of the mind," change of scene or
gaiety, when in reality the patient should be most carefully trained to
repose, which is not always easily done, for so very little attention has
been paid to this great truth, that even medical science as yet can do
very little towards calming nervous disorders. In most cases the trouble
lies in the presence, or unthinking heedless influence, of other people;
and, secondly, in the absence of interesting minor occupations or arts,
such as keep the mind busy, yet not over-excited or too deeply absorbed.
An important element in such cases is to interest deeply the patient in
himself as a vicious subject to be subdued by his own exertions. No one
who has _never_ had the gout severely can form any conception of the
terribly arrogant irritability which accompanies it. I say _arrogant_,
because it is independent of any voluntary action of the mind. I have
often felt it raging in me, and laughed at it, as if it were a chained
wild beast, and conversed with perfect serenity. Unfortunately, even our
dearest friends, generally women, cannot, to save their very lives and
souls, refrain from having frequent piquant scenes with such tempting
subjects; while, on the other hand, the subjects are often led by mere
vanity into exhibiting themselves as something peculiar. Altogether, I
believe that where there is no deeply seated hereditary or congenital
defect, or no displacement or injury from violence or disease, there is
always a cure to be hoped for, or at least possible; but this cure
depends in many cases so very much upon the wisdom and patience of
friends and physicians, that it is only remarkable that we find so many
recoveries as we do. Where the patient and friends are all really
persons of superior intelligence, almost miraculous cures may be
effected. But unfortunately, if it be not born in us, it requires a
great deal of genius to acquire properly the real _dolce far niente_.
From Paris we went to Spa in the Ardennes. In this very beautiful place,
in a picturesque land of legends, I felt calmer and more relieved. I
think it was there that for the first time I got an inkling that my name
was becoming known in Europe. There was a beautiful young English lady
whom I occasionally met in an artist's studio, who one day asked me with
some interest whom the Leland could be of whom one heard sometimes--"he
writes books, I think." I told her that I had a brother who had written
two or three clever works, and she agreed with me that he must be the
man; still she inclined to think that the name was not Henry, but
Charles.
Mr. Nicolas Trubner, whom I had not seen since 1856, came with his wife
and daughter to Spa, and this was the beginning of a great intimacy which
lasted to his death. Which meeting reminds me of something amusing. I
had written the first third of "Breitmann as a Politician," which J.
"Camden" Hotten had republished, promising the public to give them the
rest before long. This I prevented by copyrighting the two remaining
thirds in England! Being very angry at this, Hotten accused me in print
of having written this conclusion expressly to disappoint and injure
_him_! In fact, he really seemed to think that Mr. Trubner and I were
only a pair of foreign rogues, bound together to wrong Mr. J. C. Hotten
out of his higher rights in "Breitmann." I wrote a pamphlet in which I
said this and some other things very plainly. Mr. Trubner showed this to
his lawyer, who was of the opinion that it could not be published because
it bore on libel, though there was nothing in it worse than what I have
here said. However, Mr. Trubner had it privately printed, and took great
joy, solace, and comfort for a very long time in reading it to his
friends after dinner, or on other occasions, and as he had many, it got
pretty well about London. I may here very truly remark that Mr. Hotten,
in the public controversy which he had with Mr. Trubner on the subject of
my "Ballads," displayed an effrontery absolutely without parallel in
modern times, apropos of which _Punch_ remarked--
"The name of Curll will never be forgotten,
And neither will be thine, John Camden Hotten."
From Spa we went to Brussels, where I remember to have seen many times at
work in the gallery the famous artist without arms who painted with his
toes. What was quite a remarkable was the excellence of his copies from
Rembrandt. Nature succeeded in his case in "heaping voonders oopen
voonders," as Tom Hood says in his "Rhine." I became well acquainted
with Tom Hood the younger in after years, and to this day I contribute
something every year to _Tom Hood's Annual_. At Brussels we stayed at a
charming old hotel which had galleries one above the other round the
courtyard, exactly like those of the White Hart Inn immortalised in
"Pickwick." There was in Philadelphia a perfect specimen of such an inn,
which has of late years been rebuilt as the Bingham House. While in Spa
I studied Walloon.
From Brussels to Ghent, which I found much modernised from what it had
been in 1847, when it was still exactly as in the Middle Age, but
fearfully decayed, and, like Ferrara, literary with grass-grown streets.
_Und noch weiter_--to Ostend, where for three weeks I took lessons in
Flemish or Dutch from a young professor, reading "Vondel" and
"Bilderdijk," who, if not in the world of letters known, deserves to be.
I had no dictionary all this time, and the teacher marvelled that I
always knew the meaning of the words, which will not seem marvellous to
any one who understands German and has studied Anglo-Saxon and read
"Middle or Early English." Then back to Spa to meet Mr. and Mrs. Trubner
and her father Octave Delepierre, who was a great scholar in _rariora_,
_curiosa_, and old French, and _facile princeps_ the greatest expert in
Macaronic poetry who ever wrote. May I here venture to mention that he
always declared that my later poem of "Breitmann and the Pope" was the
best Macaronic poem which he had ever read? His reason for this was that
it was the most reckless and heedless or extravagant combination of Latin
and modern languages known to him. I had, however, been much indebted to
Mr. Oscar Browning for revising it. And so the truth, which long in
darkness lay, now comes full clearly to the light of day.
Thence to Liege, Amsterdam, the Hague, Haarlem, and Leyden, visiting all
the great galleries and many private collections. At Amsterdam we saw
the last grand kermess or annual fair ever held there. It was a Dutch
carnival, so wild and extravagant that few can comprehend now to what
extremes "spreeing" can be carried. The Dutch, like the Swedes, have or
had the strange habit of bottling up their hilarity and letting it out on
stated occasions in uproarious frolics. I saw _carmagnoles_ in which men
and women, seized by a wild impulse, whirled along the street in a
frantic dance to any chance music, compelling every bystander to join. I
heard of a Prince from Capua, who, having been thus _carmagnoled_,
returned home in rags.
In Leyden I visited the Archaeological Museum, where I by chance became
acquainted with the chief or director, who was then engaged in
rearranging his collections, and who, without knowing my name, kindly
expressed the wish that I would remain a week to aid him in preparing the
catalogue. As there are few works on prehistoric relics which I do not
know, and as I had for many years studied with zeal innumerable
collections of the kind, I venture to believe that his faith in my
knowledge was not quite misplaced. Even as I write I have just received
the _Catalogue of Prehistoric Works in Eastern America_, by Cyrus
Thomas--a work of very great importance.
Thence we went to Cologne, where it was marvellous to find the Cathedral
completed, in spite of the ancient legend which asserts that though the
devil had furnished its design he had laid a curse upon it, declaring
that it should never be finished. Thence up the Rhine by castles grey
and smiling towns, recalling my old foot-journey along its banks; and so
on to Heidelberg, where I stayed a month at the Black Eagle. Herr Lehr
was still there. He had grown older. His son was taking dancing lessons
of Herr Zimmer, who had taught me to waltz twenty years before. One day
I took my watch to a shop to be repaired, when the proprietor declared
that he had mended it once before in 1847, and showed me the private mark
which he put on it at the time.
There were several American students, who received me very kindly. I
remember among them Wright, Manly, and Overton. When I sat among them
smoking and drinking beer, and mingling German student words with
English, it seemed as if the past twenty years were all a dream, and that
I was a _Bursch_ again. Overton had the reputation of being _par
eminence_ the man of men in all Heidelberg, who could take off a full
quart at one pull without stopping to take breath--a feat which I had far
outdone at Munich, in my youth, with the _horn_, and which I again
accomplished at Heidelberg "without the foam," Overton himself, who was a
very noble young fellow, applauding the feat most loudly. But I have
since then often done it with Bass or Alsopp, which is much harder. I
need not say that the "Breitmann Ballads," which had recently got among
the Anglo-American students, and were by them greatly admired, did much
to render me popular.
I found or made many friends in Heidelberg. One night we were invited to
a supper, and learned afterwards that the two children of our host,
having heard that we were Americans, had peeped at us through the keyhole
and expressed great disappointment at not finding us _black_.
In November we went to Dresden. We were so fortunate as to obtain
excellent rooms and board with a Herr and Madame Rohn, a well-to-do
couple, who, I am sure, took boarders far more for the sake of company
than for gain. Herr Rohn had graduated at Leipzig, but having spent most
of his life in Vienna, was a man of exuberant jollity--a man of gold and
a gentleman, even as his wife was a truly gentle lady. As I am very
tall, and detest German small beds, I complained of mine, and Herr Rohn
said he had another, of which I could not complain. And I certainly
could not, for when it came I found it was at least eight feet in length.
It seems that they had once had for a boarder a German baron who was
_more than seven feet_ high, and had had this curiosity constructed; and
Herr Rohn roared with laughter as I gazed on it, and asked if I would
have it lengthened.
We remained in Dresden till February, and found many friends, among whom
there was much pleasant homelike hospitality. Among others were Julian
Hawthorne and sisters, and George Parsons Lathrop. They were young
fellows then, and not so well known as they have since become, but it was
evident enough that they had good work in them. They often came to see
me, and were very kind in many ways. I took lessons in
porcelain-painting, which art I kept up for many years, and was, of
course, assiduous in visiting the galleries, Green Vault, and all works
of art. I became well acquainted with Passavant, the director. I was
getting better, but was still far from being as mentally vigorous as I
had been. I now attribute this to the enormous daily dose of bromide
which I continued to take, probably mistaking its _influence_ for the
original nervous exhaustion itself. It was not indeed till I got to
England, and substituted _lupulin_ in the form of hops--that is to say,
pale ale or "bitter"--in generous doses, that I quite recovered.
So we passed on to Prague, which city, like everything Czech, always had
a strange fascination for me. There I met a certain Mr. Vojtech
Napristek (or Adalbert Thimble), who had once edited in the United States
a Bohemian newspaper with which I had exchanged, and with whom I had
corresponded, but whom I had never before seen. He had established in
Prague, on American lines, a Ladies' Club of two hundred, which we
visited, and was, I believe, owing to an inheritance, now a prosperous
man. Though I am not a Thimble, it also befell me, in later years, to
found and preside over a Ladies' Art Club of two hundred souls. At that
time the famous legendary bridge, with the ancient statue of St. John
Nepomuk, still existed as of yore. No one imagined that a time would
come when they would be washed away through sheer neglect.
So on to Munich, where, during a whole week, I saw but one _Riegelhaube_,
a curious head-dress or chignon-cover of silver thread, once very common.
Even the old Bavarian dialect seemed to have almost vanished, and I was
glad to hear it from our porter. Many old landmarks still existed, but
King Louis no longer ran about the streets--I nearly ran against him
once; people no longer were obliged by law to remove cigars or pipes from
their mouths when passing a sentry-box. Lola Montez had vanished. _Mais
ou sont les neiges d'antan_?
So we went over the Brenner Pass, stopped at Innspruck, and saw the
church described by Heine in his _Reisebilder_, and came to Verona, the
Bern of the _Heldenbuch_. "_Ich will gen Bern ausreiten_, _sprach
Meister Hildebrand_."
It was a happy thought of the Italians to put picturesque Verona down as
the first stopping-place for Northern travellers, and I rather like
Ruskin's idea of buying the town and keeping it intact as a piece of
_bric-a-brac_. He might have proposed Rome while he was about it;
"anything there can be had for money," says Juvenal.
When we arrived at the station I alone was left to encounter the fierce
douaniers. One of them, inquisitive as to tobacco, when I told him I had
none, laid his finger impressively on the mouthpiece of my pipe,
remarking that where the tail of the fox was seen the fox could not be
far off. To which I replied that I indeed had no tobacco, but wanted
some very badly, and that I would be much obliged to him if he would give
me a little to fill my pipe. So all laughed. My wife entering at this
instant, cried in amazement, "Why, Charles! where did you ever learn to
talk Italian?" Which shows that there can be secrets even between
married people; though indeed my Italian has always been of such inferior
quality that it is no wonder that I never boasted of it even in
confidence. It is, in fact, the Hand-organo dialect flavoured with
Florentine.
There was an old lady who stood at the door of a curiosity-shop in
Verona, and she had five pieces of bone-carvings from some old _scatola_
or marriage-casket. She asked a fabulous price for them, and I offered
five francs. She scorned the paltry sum with all the vehemence of a
susceptible soul whose tenderest feelings have been outraged. So I went
my way, but as I passed the place returning, the old lady came forth,
and, graciously courtesying and smiling, held forth to me the earrings
neatly wrapped in paper, and thanked me for the five francs! Which
indicated to me that the good small folk of Italy had not materially
changed since I had left the country.
We came to Venice, and went to a hotel, where we had a room given to us
which, had we wished to give a ball, would have left nothing to be
desired. I counted in it twenty-seven chairs and seven tables, all at
such a distance from one another that they seemed not to be on speaking
terms. I do not think I ever got quite so far as the upper end of that
room while I inhabited it--it was probably somewhere in Austria. I have
spoken of having met Mr. Wright at Heidelberg. He was from Wilkesbarre,
Pennsylvania. The next day after my arrival I found among the names of
the departed, "Signore Wright-_Kilkes_, from Barre, Pennsylvania,
America." This reminded me of the Anglo-American who was astonished at
Rome at receiving invitations and circulars addressed to him as
"Illustrissimo Varanti Solezer." It turned out that an assistant,
reading aloud to the clerk the names from the trunks, had mistaken a very
large "WARRANTED SOLE LEATHER" for the name of the owner.
And this on soles reminds me that there was a _femme sole_ or lone
acrimonious British female at our hotel, who declared to me one evening
that she had _never_ in all her life been so _insulted_ as she was that
day at a banker's; and the insult consisted in this, that she, although
quite unknown to him, had asked him to cash a cheque on London, which he
had declined to do. I remarked that no banker who did business properly
ever ought to cash a cheque from a total stranger.
"Sir," said the lady, "do _I look_ like an impostor?"
"Madame," I replied, "I have seen thieves and wretches of the vilest type
who could not have been distinguished from either of us as regards
respectability of appearance. You do not appear to know much about such
people."
"I am happy to say, sir," replied the lady with intense acidity, "that
_I_ do _not_." But she added triumphantly, "What do you say when I tell
you that I had my _cheque-book_? How could I have possessed it if I had
not a right to draw?"
"Any scamp," I replied, "can deposit a few pounds in a bank, buy a cheque-
book, and then draw his money."
But the next day she came to me in radiant sneering triumph. She had
found another banker, who was a gentleman, with a marked emphasis, who
had cashed her cheque. How many people there are in this world whose
definition of a gentleman is "one who does whatever pleases _us_!"
In Florence we went directly to the Hotel d'Europe in the Via
Tuornabuoni, where my Indian blanket vanished even while entering the
hotel, and surrounded only by the servants to whom the luggage had been
confided. As the landlord manifested great disgust for me whenever I
mentioned such a trifle, and as the porter and the rest declared that
they would answer soul and body for one another's honesty, I had to grin
and bear it. I really wonder sometimes that there are not more boarders,
who, like Benvenuto Cellini, set fire to hotels or cut up the bedclothes
before leaving them. That worthy, having been treated not so badly as I
was at the Hotel d'Europe and at another in Florence, cut to pieces the
sheets of his bed, galloped away hastily, and from the summit of a
distant hill had the pleasure of seeing the landlord in a rage. Now
people write to the _Times_, and "cut up" the whole concern. It all
comes to the same thing.
In Florence I saw much of an old New York friend, the now late Lorimer
Graham. When he died, Swinburne wrote a poem on him. He was a man of
great culture and refined manner. There was something sympathetic in him
which drew every one irresistibly into liking. It was his instinct to be
kind and thoughtful to every one. He gave me letters to Swinburne, Lord
Houghton, and others.
I made an acquaintance by chance in Florence whom I can never forget: for
he was a character. One day while in the Uffizi Gallery engaged in
studying the great Etruscan vase, now in the Etruscan Museum, a stranger
standing by me said, "Does not this seem to you like a mysterious book
written in forgotten characters? Is not a collection of such vases like
a library?"
"On that hint I spake." "I see," I replied, "you refer to the so-called
Etruscan Library which an Englishman has made, and which contains only
vases and inscriptions in that now unknown tongue of Etruria. And
indeed, when we turn over the pages of Inghirami, Gherard, and Gori,
Gray, or Dennis, it does indeed really seem--But what do you really think
the old Etruscan language truly was?"
"Look here, my friend," cried the stranger in broad Yankee, "I guess I'm
barkin' up the wrong tree. I calculated to tell _you_ something, but
you're ahead of me."
We both laughed and became very good friends. He lived at our hotel, and
had been twenty-five years in Italy, and knew every custode in every
gallery, and could have every secret treasure unlocked. He was perfectly
at home about town--would stop and ask a direction of a cab-driver, and
was capable of going into an umbrella-shop when it rained.
We went on to Rome, and I can only say that as regards what we saw there,
my memory is confused literally with an _embarras de richesses_. The
Ecumenical Council was being held, at which an elderly Italian gentleman,
who possibly did not know oxygen from hydrogen, or sin from sugar, was
declared to be infallible in his judgment of all earthly things.
While in Rome we saw a great deal of W. W. Story, the sculptor, and his
wife and daughter, Edith, for whom Thackeray wrote his most beautiful
tale, and I at my humble distance the ballad of "Breitmann in Rome,"
which contained a remarkable prophecy, of the Franco-German war. At
their house we met Odo Russell and Oscar Browning, and many more whose
names are known to all. It was there also that a lady of the Royal
English household amused us very much one evening by narrating how the
"Breitmann Ballads," owing to their odd mixture of German and English,
were favourite subjects for mutual reading and recitation among the then
youthful members of the Royal family, and what haste and alarm there was
to put the forbidden book out of the way when Her Majesty the Queen was
announced as coming. I also met in Rome the American poet and painter T.
Buchanan Read, who gave me a dinner, and very often that remarkable
character General Carroll Tevis, who, having fought under most flags, and
been a Turkish bey or pacha, was now a chamberlain of the Pope. In the
following year he fought for the French, behaved with great bravery in
Bourbaki's retreat, and was decorated on the field of battle. Then
again, when I was in Egypt, Tevis was at the head of the military
college. He had fairly won his rank of general in the American Civil
War, but as there was some disinclination or other to give it to him, I
had used my influence in his favour with Forney, who speedily secured it
for him. He was a perfect type of the old _condottiero_, but with Dugald
Dalgetty's scrupulous faith to his military engagements. The American
clergyman in Rome was the Rev. Dr. Nevin, a brother of my friend Captain
Nevin. There was also Mrs. John Grigg, an old Philadelphia friend (now
residing in Florence), to whom we were then, as we have continually been
since, indebted for the most cordial hospitality.
Through the kind aid of General Tevis we were enabled to see all the
principal ceremonies of the Holy Week and Easter. This year, owing to
the Council, everything was on a scale of unusual magnificence. I can
say with Panurge that I have seen three Popes, but will not add with him,
"and little good did it ever do me," for Mrs. Leland at least was much
gratified with a full sight and quasi-interview with His Holiness.
There was a joyous sight for a cynic to be seen in Rome in those days--in
fact, it was only last year (1891) that it was done away with. This was
the drawing of the lottery by a priest. There was on a holy platform a
holy wheel and a holy little boy to draw the holy numbers, and a holy old
priest to oversee and _bless_ the whole precious business. The blessing
of the devil would have been more appropriate, for the lotteries are the
curse of Italy. What the Anglo-American mechanic puts into a savings
bank, the Italian invests in lotteries. In Naples there are now fourteen
tickets sold per annum for the gross amount of the population, and in
Florence twelve.
One day I took a walk out into the country with Briton Riviere and some
other artists. I had a cake or two of colour, and Riviere, with wine for
water, at a _trattoria_ where we lunched, made a picture of the attendant
maid. He pointed out to me on the road a string of peasants carrying
great loaves of coarse bread. They had walked perhaps twenty miles to
buy it, because in those days people were not allowed to bake their own
bread, but must buy it at the public _forno_, which paid a tax for the
privilege. So long as Rome was under Papal control, its every municipal
institution, such as hospitals, prisons, and the police, were in a state
of absolutely incredible inhuman vileness, while under everything ran
corruption and dishonesty. The lower orders were severely disciplined as
to their sexual morals, because it was made a rich source of infamous
taxes, as it now is in other cities of Europe; but cardinals and the
wealthier priests kept mistresses, almost openly, since these women were
pointed out to every one as they flaunted about proudly in their
carriages.
From Rome we passed into Pisa, Genoa, Spezzia, and Nice, over the old
Cornici road, and so again to Paris, where we remained six weeks, and
then left in June, 1870, just before the war broke out. While in the
city we saw at different times in public the Emperor and Empress, also
the Queen of Spain. The face of Louis Napoleon was indeed somewhat
changed since I saw him in London in 1848, but it had not improved so
much as his circumstances, as he was according to external appearances
and popular belief now extremely well off. But appearances are
deceptive, as was soon proved, for he was in reality on the verge of a
worse bankruptcy than even his uncle underwent, for the nephew lost not
only kingdom and life, but also every trace of reputation for wisdom and
honesty, remaining to history only as a brazen royal adventurer and
"copper captain."
In Rome our dear old friend Mrs. John Grigg showed us, as I said, many
kind attentions, which she has, in Florence, continued to this day. This
lady is own aunt to my old school friend General George B. McClellan. At
an advanced age she executes without glasses the most exquisite
embroidery conceivable, and her heart and intellect are in keeping with
her sight.