"When the French ambassador sent to the Pope to desire that he would send away the Court of Naples, the Pope said he must decline to give up the parental prerogative which had always belonged to the Popes, of giving shelter to unfortunate princes of other nations, of whatever degree or nation they might be, and 'of this,' he added pointedly, 'the Bonapartes are a striking example.' The French ambassador had the bad taste to go on to the Palazzo Farnese, and, after condoling with the King of Naples[314] upon what he had heard of his great poverty, said, 'If your Majesty would engage at once to leave Rome, I on my part would promise to do my best endeavours with my Government to obtain the restoration of at least a part of your Majesty's fortune.' The King coldly replied, 'Sir, I have heard that in all ages great and good men have ended their days in obscurity and poverty, and it can be no source of dread to me that I may be numbered amongst them.'
"The Queen-mother of Naples[315] is still very rich, but is now a mere nurse to her large family, with some of whom she is to be seen—'gran' bel' pezzo di donna'—driving every day. When the King returned from Caieta, she was still at the Quirinal, and went down to the Piazza Monte Cavallo to receive him; but with him and the Queen came her own eldest son, and, before noticing her sovereign, she rushed to embrace her child, saying, 'Adesso, son pagato a tutto.'
"One sees the Queen of Naples[316] daily walking with her sister Countess Trani[317] near the Porta Angelica, or threading the carriages in the Piazza di Spagna, where the coachmen never take off their hats, and even crack their whips as she passes. She wears a straw hat, a plain violet linsey-woolsey dress, and generally leads a large deerhound by a string. She is perfectly lovely.
"The great Mother, Maria de Matthias,[318] has lately come down from her mountains of Acuto to visit my sister, who has arrived in Rome, and the confessor of the Venerable Anna Maria Taigi has also visited her. I have read the life of this saint, and have never found out any possible excuse for her being canonised, unless that she married her husband because he was a good man, though he was 'ruvido di maniere e grossolano.'
"At dinner at Mr. Brooke's, I met the quaint and clever Mrs. Payne, Madame d'Arblay's niece. She said that England had an honest bad climate and Rome a dishonest good one.
"Count Bolognetti Cenci is marvellously handsome, face and figure alike perfect. Some people maintain that Don Onorato Caiëtani is equally handsome. He has the extraordinary plume of white hair which is hereditary in the Caiëtani family. His father, the Duke of Sermoneta, said the other day, with some pardonable pride, 'Our ancestors were reigning sovereigns (in Tuscany) long before the Pope had any temporal power.'
"We have been to the Villa Doria to pick 'Widowed Iris,' which the Italians call 'I tre Chiodi del Nostro Signore,'—the three nails of our Saviour's cross.
"My sister declares that when Madame Barrère, late superior of the Order of the Sacré Cœur, was in her great old age, a Catholic lady who was married to a Protestant came to her and implored her to promise that, as soon as she entered heaven, her first petition should be for her husband that he might be a Catholic. Soon after this the Protestant husband was taken alarmingly ill, but gave his wife no hope that he would change his religion; yet, to her great surprise, when he was dying he bade her send for a priest. She considered this at first as a result of delirium, but he insisted upon the priest coming, and, rallying soon after, was received into the Roman Catholic Church. In a few days came the news of the death of Madame Barrère, and on inquiry it was found that the moment of her death and that of the Protestant sending for the priest exactly coincided."
"March 13.—The Roman princes are generally enormously rich. Tortonia is said to have an income which gives him 7000 scudi (£1200) a day. He is very charitable, and gives a great many pensions of a scudo a day to poor individuals of the mezzoceto class. The Chigis used to be immensely rich, but were ruined by old Princess Chigi, who gambled away everything she could get hold of. When one of her sons was to be made a Monsignore, a collection was arranged amongst the friends of the family to pay the expenses, but they imprudently left the rouleaux of money on the chimney-piece, where the old Princess spied them, and snapping them up, gioccolare-d them all away. The Massimi are rich, but the old Prince[319] is very miserly. The other day he told his cook that he was going to give a supper, but that it must not cost more than fifteen baiocchi a head, and that he must give minestra. The cook said it was utterly impossible, but the Prince declared he did not care in the least about 'possible,' only it must be done. The supper came off, and the guests had minestra. The next day the Prince said to his cook, 'Well, now, you see you could do it perfectly well; what was the use of making such a fuss about it?' The cook said 'Yes, I did it, but would you like to know where I got the bones from that made the soup?' The Prince shrugged his shoulders and said, 'Oh no, I don't want in the least to know about that; so long as you do your suppers for my price, you may get your bones wherever you like.' The cook told his friends afterwards that he got them at the Immondezzajo!"
"March 25.—Last January my sister wanted to engage a new maid. The mistress of a famous flower shop at Paris recommended her present maid, 'Madame Victorine,' who came to the hotel to see Esmeralda, who was delighted with her, only thinking her too good for the place. The new maid only made two stipulations: one was that she should always be called Madame Victorine; the other, that she should not be expected to have her meals with the other servants. My sister said that as to the first stipulation, there would be no difficulty at all; that she had always called her mother's maid 'Madame Victoire,' and that she could have no objection to calling her Madame Victorine; but that as to the second stipulation, though she insisted upon nothing, and though Madame Victorine would be perfectly free to take her food away and eat it wherever she pleased, yet she did not advise her to make any difficulty of this kind, as they were going to Italy, where the servants have jealous natures, and would be peculiarly liable to resent anything of the sort. Upon this Madame Victorine waived her second stipulation.