There was nothing else that pleased me as well in the palace, or in
the grounds about it. These are all laid out in pleasant successions
of grove, tangled wilderness, and pasture-land, and were thronged,
the Saturday afternoon of our visit, with all ranks of people, who
strolled through the beautiful walks and enjoyed themselves in the
peculiarly peaceful Italian way. Valery says that the Villa Reale in
the Bourbon time was closed, except for a single day in the year,
to all but the nobles; and that on this occasion it was filled with
pretty peasant women, who made it a condition of their marriage
bargains that their husbands should bring them to the Villa Reale on
St. Mary's Day. It is now free to all on every day of the year, and
the grounds of the Palace Capo di Monte are opened every Saturday. I
liked the pleasant way in which sylvan Nature and Art had made friends
in these beautiful grounds, in which Nature had consented to overlook
even the foolish vanity of the long aisles of lime, cut and trimmed in
formal and fantastic shapes, according to the taste of the silly times
of bagwigs and patches. On every side wild birds fluttered through
these absurd trees, and in the thickets lurked innumerable pheasants,
which occasionally issued forth and stalked in stately, fearless
groups over the sunset-crimsoned lawns. There was a brown gamekeeper
for nearly every head of game, wearing a pheasant's wing in his hat
and carrying a short, heavy sword; and our driver told us, with an
awful solemnity in his bated breath, that no one might kill this game
but the king, under penalty of the galleys.