III
My Return to Faenza—First Visit of the Count Borghi—His Story—Public Rumours—Evidence of Messieurs Valla, Guerzani, Tondini, Ludovichetti, della Valle, Perelli and Maresta—My Letter to the Count—His Second Visit—Legal Formalities—Judgment in my Favour—Decree of Rectification.
Before leaving France, I made several discoveries which more and more strongly confirmed my suspicions as to the personality of the Comte Joinville. But my first object being to find proof of the exchange itself, I went again to the place where it had been effected.
As I passed through Turin, Alessandria, Reggio, etc., I employed several people to make inquiries for me. At Modena I made the acquaintance of the lawyer, Massa, who had a great reputation, and who clearly marked out for me the course I ought to take. At Bologna I engaged an advocate whom this gentleman had recommended to me; but I was soon obliged to give him up on account of his dilatoriness, and replaced him by the Signore Bucci, of Faenza.
When I arrived at that town, I went to stay with the Marchesa di Spada, to whom I had an introduction.
As she was very intimate with Count Borghi, I had conceived the hope of obtaining through her useful information, and especially the return of certain papers that gentleman, it was said, boasted of having in his possession.
She wrote to him, but there was no answer. I then called upon the Bishop of the diocese, claiming from him a perfectly impartial investigation of my case, assuring him that I asked for nothing but justice, and entreating him to persuade the Count to accept my invitation.
The prelate strongly backed my request, and Count Borghi, not daring to refuse him, at last came to see me, bringing with him an enormous packet of letters which he declared he had received from me. They bore the fictitious name of my so-called man-of-business, and were evidently written with the intention of incensing against me a man who might prove so helpful to me.[4]
My astonishment was beyond words, and I made such eager protestations of my innocence in the matter that he was quite convinced of the truth, and spoke to me as follows—
“I have often had occasion to look over old papers belonging to the Borghi family, of whom I became the representative; and one day when I was doing so at Modigliana I saw a letter addressed to the late Count Pompeo, dated from Turin and signed Louis, Comte de Joinville, the contents of which, so far as I can remember, were as follows—
“‘Since we left that place, my wife, always prolific of girls, has at last presented me with a boy. As to the one of whom you know, there is left only the grief of having lost him, and I feel no further scruples on his account. My compliments to your ladies, and believe me, etc.’
“This letter greatly struck me, and I examined it more than once; but then I considered it of no importance, and I ended by tearing it up, without attempting to remember the date.”
“In the account-books of an old steward, which I looked over likewise, the name of the jailer, Lorenzo Chiappini, was often written; and I noticed that before 1773 this person bought his necessary provisions of the Borghis, by relinquishing a part of his future salary; while, after that time, he always paid in ready money for corn and wine of the best quality. These account-books could not now be discovered, because when I had looked through them I gave them back to the aforesaid steward, who is no longer living.”
Who could believe that, with no motive, this gentleman could have parted with papers relating to an inheritance just fallen to him, and which he had looked into minutely? Still less, who could believe that he could have destroyed a paper that had so greatly interested him, that he had read several times, and whose tenor was so deeply graven on his mind?
Nevertheless, in order to prove to me that he now bore me no ill-will, he bestirred himself to make others speak.
Very soon the voice of the public was quite on my side; every one knew of Chiappini’s sudden accession of wealth; every one remembered hearing something about the Signore Joinville and his excessive familiarity.
It was generally assumed that the jailer’s wife, going to her Easter confession a few days after the exchange, had been ordered by her director to denounce its principal perpetrator to the Holy Office. It was said that this Tribunal, having ordered his arrest, the Count had been warned, and fearing the probably unpleasant results of this order, had asked and obtained permission to take refuge in a convent at Brisighella until the storm had blown over.
It was affirmed also that, having ventured to go out for a walk, he was seized and taken to the Town Hall, where one of his footmen went to spend three or four days with him, and where he spent money profusely and recklessly. In conclusion it was added that the Legate of Ravenna, having sent for him, as he got into his carriage, he was holding in his hand a paper that he pointed to with a laugh, as if to say—
“I’ve only got to make myself known!”
But I was not satisfied by these vague, general reports; I wanted witnesses who had seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears; and I succeeded in discovering them.
Not to speak of the sisters Bandini, who related what happened in the bosom of the families into which they were admitted as confidential servants, or of Count Borghi, who quoted in support of his theory his careful perusal of certain papers immensely in my favour, this is how the Signore Giovanni-Maria Valla, of Brisighella, spoke on the subject—
“It is more than fifty years since I was enrolled in the Country Militia. Shortly afterwards, when I had already risen to the rank of Corporal, I was put in charge of a stranger called by the title of Comte, whom the constables had taken up in the neighbourhood of the Convent of St. Bernard. I did not know the man, who was well-made and rather stout, with a reddish-brown complexion.
“It was said that the order for his arrest came from Ravenna; but I know nothing about the reason for it nor anything else about him, except that a few days later we gave him up again to the Cardinal’s Swiss guards, who took him away in his carriage. As for Lorenzo Chiappini, I knew him very well, having seen him several times at Brisighella, where he used to come to play football, and I remember having heard it said that he had given up his post because he had got a great lot of money for exchanging his boy for the girl of a rich nobleman.”
And again, this is what the Signore Giuseppe Guezzani, of the same town, said—
“My business has always been that of a barber, and I always served the Fathers of St. Bernard until they were suppressed. It is about fifty years since I used occasionally to shave a stranger living with them, who passed for a great French nobleman. I was left in ignorance as to who he was or why he was there. Afterwards I heard that he had been arrested, but I was never told the reason. He was rather stout, of good height, and had a brownish complexion with a red and pimply nose. I remember, too, that he had very fine legs.”
And this is the account of the Signore Giuseppe Tondini, another inhabitant of the town—
“About fifty years ago a foreign nobleman was living for some days in the convent of St. Bernard then existing in this town of Brisighella. I don’t know to what nation he belonged, and I don’t remember him well enough to describe him; but I think he was about the average height and rather stout. It was reported afterwards that he had been arrested.”
Then there is the story of the Signore Ludovichetti, a lawyer living at Ravenna—
“Some length of time before the changes in this province—I can’t tell the exact date, but it was certainly during the time I was practising in the Criminal Court of that Legation, which was from 1768 to 1793—being about one o’clock one day in the said Court, I heard that a foreign nobleman of exalted rank had been arrested, and was being brought to our prison under an escort of soldiers. His Eminence, being told of his arrival, had him at once brought before him. Moved by curiosity, I left my office and went into the Cardinal-Legate’s room, and there I saw that when this nobleman appeared, his Eminence went forward to meet him, embraced him, and led him into his own apartments. A good half-hour later, having gone back to my work, I heard the carriage; and looking out of the window, I saw the said nobleman get into it, and it crossed the square in the direction of the Adrian Gate by which it had entered. I don’t know who he was or where he came from, nor do I know where or why he was arrested. But he was said to be a great French personage.”
Having heard these eye-witnesses, let us listen to others whose reputations make them worthy of full belief.
Let us listen to the Signore Domenico della Valle, Secretary to the parish of Brisighella—
“Though very intimate with one of the Fathers of St. Bernard, I never heard him say a word about the exchange in question. But I can vouch for the fact that before 1790 I had heard the fact much talked about by several persons, and especially by the late Maestro don Giovanni-Batista Tondini, who seemed to know all about it. He told me that the thing had taken place about fifty years ago in the little town of Modigliana between a great French nobleman living in the Pretorial Palace, who had exchanged his daughter for the son of a certain Chiappini, then a constable, and whom I knew very well later on when he used to come to Brisighella to play football as an amateur. About twenty-five years ago I again saw, in the piazza of the Grand Duke, the said Chiappini, who talked for a long time with the late Cesare Bandini of Veriolo, who was with me. When that gentleman came back to me, I said to him: ‘You have been talking to a man I know to have exchanged his boy for the daughter of a great French nobleman.’ And Bandini replied, ‘Yes, that’s the man, and we were talking privately about that business.’
“I can say for certain that Chiappini was well dressed then, and I was told he was in easy circumstances, and had no need to follow his original occupation.
“After the suppression of the monastery of St. Bernard, I was employed in helping to make an inventory of papers and effects belonging to it. As I could speak French, they made me read two letters written in that language. They were addressed to the Father Abbot, signed L. C. Joinville, and bore the date of 1773; but I can’t remember what day or what month.
“In the first, written from Modigliana, there were thanks to that Father for having allowed him to take refuge in his convent; and in the second, written from Ravenna, he informed him that he had been set at liberty after having been arrested and taken to that town, and thanked him for all the attention he had shown him. These letters were written in a running and uneven hand; if I could see another written by the same person I should probably recognize it.
“The brothers of St. Bernard had themselves told me that the Count was taken up one morning when he had gone out for a walk with a book; and they added that their Abbot, looking upon this arrest as a violation of a sacred sanctuary, had been to Ravenna to lodge a complaint, and had obtained satisfaction.
“There was nothing entered in the inventory but the title-deeds of the capital and interest of the convent; the letters and other papers were left as being of no use; no one looked after them, and I don’t know if they are still in existence.”
Now let us hear Don Gaspare Perelli, Canon at Ravenna—
“I can perfectly well remember, about forty-three years ago, hearing some one say to my father, who was Governor of Brisighella, that some years earlier a prince in disguise, who was stopping in that part of the country, had exchanged his daughter for the son of a constable, and that this had taken place in the neighbourhood of Brisighella, though I can’t remember the name of the place itself. My father often told this story at table, and in the presence of my mother, Angela Forchini; and then they would inveigh against the cruelty of so changing a girl of high rank for a boy of low condition.”
Finally, let us hear the Signore Marco Maresta, chief custom-house officer in that same town of Ravenna—
“It is a long time ago, and I couldn’t swear to the exact date, that several people told me that at Faenza, or, as they said later, at Modigliana, there had taken place an exchange of the daughter of a great nobleman for a boy of low condition whose father had received a large sum, and that this exchange had been arranged beforehand when the two wives were about to be confined. I can’t remember the name of the nobleman nor that of the base man who accepted his offer, nor even that of the people who told me about it; but I did hear that the first was a Frenchman.”
With so many proofs at my command, I thought the time had come to push on my case. To procure greater expedition, I thought of another innocent stratagem.
From Ravenna, whither I had gone so that I could not be suspected of complicity with my judges, I wrote a letter to the Count Borghi, in which I pretended to have been informed that, my friends having discovered my true family in France, not one of my relations was left but a nun living at Bordeaux, who would welcome me with the greatest delight if I could succeed in proving to her the truth of the exchange, etc.
Quite beside himself, that gentleman hastened to announce this piece of good news to the Bishop of Faenza, came to Ravenna to congratulate me, and added to what he had already told me that the Count and Countess Borghi, his informants, though held in the highest esteem, were both of a very giddy and thoughtless disposition; that the last-named used to remit to the former doorkeeper an annual pension sent by the Comte Joinville for my education, and that the Grand Duke Leopold had shown me great favour.
“Do you suppose,” he said, “that except for that, that Prince would have been so deeply interested in you? Do you suppose he would have taken so much trouble or done so much for such a miserable wretch as Chiappini, etc.?”
Having promised me that he would mention all this in his deposition, he started for home, where he set everything going. His great eagerness made me alter my opinion of him; I could not believe that he still wished to conceal from me any helpful letters he might possess, and thenceforth my belief was that he had originally handed them all over to my supposed brother, with whom I knew he had had some communication.
Not to be behindhand with his fervour, I made haste to engage as my lawyer the Signore Jérôme Bellenghi, in order to obtain from the Episcopal Tribunal sitting at Faenza the proper rectification of my baptismal certificate; and this tribunal, on its side, nominated the Count Carlo Bandini to fill the office of proxy as representative of the Comte and Comtesse de Joinville, not present.
My so-called brother, Tomaso Chiappini, was assigned me as my representative, but, though twice summoned, refused to appear.
After the aforesaid witnesses had made their attestations, they were cross-examined, and their answers were in strict accordance with their original accounts.
My counsel having argued his case, his opponent argued his and raised every difficulty possible.
The Tribunal, having, after mature consideration, come to the conclusion that the attestation of the deceased jailer, far from being improbable, had been confirmed and verified by a large number of other evidence, presumptions and conjectures, gave, on the 29th of May, 1824, a verdict entirely in my favour; and when the proper time for appealing against it was over, no objection having been raised, the Registrar, under this warrant, proceeded to carry out the definitive rectification of my birth certificate, and declared me to be the daughter of the husband and wife, M. le Comte Louis, and Madame la Comtesse N. de Joinville. (French.)[5]