"After this," continued Victoire, "came the great floods in the marshes near Pisa. When Madame de Trafford heard of the sufferings which they caused, she bade me order a carriage and drive out there with her. We drove as far as we could, and then we left the carriage and walked along a little embankment between the waters to where there were some cottages quite flooded, from which some poor women crept out along some planks to the bank on which we were. Before we left the hotel, Madame de Trafford had said, 'Mettez vos grandes poches' (because she had made me have some very large pockets made, very wide and deep, to wear under my dress and hold her valuables when we travelled), and then she had said that I was to fill them up to the brim with large piastres, without counting what I took. I had shovelled piastres into my pockets by handfuls till I was quite weighed down. I did not like doing it, but I was obliged to do as she bade me. Then she said, 'Have you taken as much as your pockets will hold? I wish them to be filled to the brim.' When we arrived and saw the poor women, she said, 'Donnez-leur des piastres, mais donnez-les par poignets, et surtout ne comptez pas, ne comptez jamais.' So I took a large heap of piastres, and put them into the hands of Madame de Trafford that she might give them to the women. Then she began to be angry—'Je vous ai dit de les donner, je ne les veux pas.' So I began to give a handful of piastres to one woman and another, all without counting; even to the children Madame de Trafford desired me to give also. At first they were all quite mute with amazement, then the women began to call aloud to me, 'E chi é questa principessa benedetta, caduta dal cielo? dite chi é che possiamo ringraziarla.'—'Qu'est-ce qu'ils disent donc,' said Madame de Trafford. 'Mais, Madame, ils demandent quelle princesse vous êtes qu'ils puissent vous remercier.'—'Dites les que je ne suis pas princesse,' said Madame de Trafford, 'que je ne suis qu'une pauvre femme faite en chair et os comme eux.'
"Then Madame de Trafford asked them if there were no more poor people there, and they went and fetched other poor women and children, till there was quite a crowd. To them also she ordered me to give piastres—'toujours sans compter'—till at last, through much giving, my pockets were empty. Then Madame de Trafford was really angry—'Je vous ai dit, Madame Victoire, de porter autant que vous pouviez, et vous ne l'avez pas fait.'—'Mais, Madame, vous ne m'avez pas dit de mettre quatre poches, vous m'avez dit de mettre deux poches: ces deux poches étaient remplis, à present les voilà vides.'
"When we were turning to go away, all the people, who had not till that moment believed in their good fortune, fell on their knees, and cried, 'Oh, Signore, noi ti ringraziamo d'avere mandato questa anima benedetta, e preghiamo per ella.'—'Mais retournez bien vite à la voiture, mais montez donc bien vite, Madame Victoire,' said Madame de Trafford, and we hurried back to the carriage; and the coachman, concerning whom she had taken care that he should not see what had happened, was amazed to see us coming with all this crowd of poor women and children following us. When we were driving away, Madame de Trafford said, 'Quel jour heureux pour nous, Madame Victoire, d'avoir soulagé tant de misère; quel bonheur de pouvoir faire tant de félicité avec un peu d'argent.'"
After remaining many weeks at Pisa with Victoire, Madame de Trafford had accompanied her to Rome, whither she went in December 1859 to arrange the affairs of Italima at the Palazzo Parisani, and thence, having fulfilled her mission, and seen Victoire comfortably established in her Pisan home, Madame de Trafford had returned to Paris.
In 1865 the journey from Pisa to Rome was still tiresome and difficult. We went by rail to Nunziatella, and there a cavalcade was formed (for mutual protection from the brigands), of six diligences with five horses apiece, with patrols on each carriage, and mounted guards riding by the side. The cholera had been raging, so at Montalto, one of the highest points of the dreary Maremma, we were stopped, and those who were "unclean"—i.e., had omitted to provide themselves with clean bills of health at Leghorn—were detained for eight days' quarantine. We had obtained "clean" bills, from the Spanish Consul, grounded upon the hotel bills of the different places we had slept at since crossing the Alps, and, with others of our kind, were taken into a small white-washed room filled with fumes of lime and camphor, where we were shut up for ten minutes, without other hurt than that any purple articles of dress worn by the ladies came out yellow. Most dreary was the long after-journey through a deserted region, without a house or tree or sign of habitation, till at 10 p.m. we came in sight of the revolving light of Civita Vecchia, beautifully reflected in the sea. Then I had to watch all the luggage being fumigated for three midnight hours. However, November 18 found us established in Rome, in the high apartment of the Tempietto (Claude Lorraine's house), at the junction of the Via Sistina and Via Gregoriana, with the most glorious view from its windows over all the Eternal City, and a pleasant Englishwoman, Madame de Monaca, as our landlady. Hurried travellers to Rome now can hardly imagine the intense comfort and repose which we felt in old days in unpacking and establishing ourselves in our Roman apartment, which it was worth while to make really pretty and comfortable, as we were sure to be settled there for at least four or five months, with usually far more freedom from interruptions, and power of following our own occupations, than would have attended us in our own home, even had health not been in question. Most delightful was it, after the fatigues and (on my mother's account) the intense anxieties of the journey, to wake upon the splendid view, with its succession of aërial distances, and to know how many glorious sunsets we had to enjoy behind the mighty dome which rose on the other side of the brown-grey city. And then came the slow walk to church along the sunny Pincio terrace, with the deepest of unimaginable blue skies seen through branches of ilex and bay, and garden beds, beneath the terraced wall, always showing some flowers, but in spring quite ablaze with pansies and marigolds.
The first time we went out to draw was to the gardens of S. Onofrio, where, when we were last here, we used to be very much troubled by a furious dog. We rang the bell, and the woman answered; she recognised us, and, without any preliminary greetings, by an association of ideas, exclaimed at once, "Il cane e morto." It was very Italian.
So many people beset me during this winter with notes or verbal petitions that I would go out drawing with them, that at last I wrote on a sheet of paper a list of the days (three times a week) on which I should go out sketching, and a list of the places I should go to, and desiring that any one who wished to go with me would find themselves on the steps of the Trinità de' Monti at 10 A.M., and sent it round to my artistic acquaintance. To my astonishment, on the first day mentioned, when I expected to meet one or two persons at most, I found the steps covered by forty ladies, in many cases attended by footmen, carrying their luncheon-baskets, camp-stools, &c. I introduced four ladies to each other that they might drive out together to the Campagna, and I generally tried to persuade those who had carriages of their own to offer seats to their poorer companions. For a time all went radiantly, but, in a few weeks, two-thirds of the ladies were "en delicatesse" and, at the end of two months, they were all "en froid," so that the parties had to be given up. Of the male sex there was scarcely ever any one on these sketching excursions, except myself and my cousin Frederick Fisher,[308] who was staying at Rome as tutor to the young Russian Prince, Nicole Dolgorouki. He was constantly with us during the winter, and was a great pleasure from his real affection for my mother, who was very fond of him.
In the spring Esmeralda came to Rome, and I used often to go to see her in the rooms at Palazzo Parisani. She was very fragile then, and used to lie almost all day upon an old velvet sofa, looking, except for the heavy masses of raven hair which were still uncovered, almost like an uncloistered nun, with her pale face and long black dress, unrelieved at the throat, and with a heavy rosary of large black beads and cross at her waist.
From my JOURNAL.