"Saturday evening, March 7.—What a quiet day of respite we have had after all the long tension and anxiety. My darling's face has resumed a natural expression, and she now lies quite quiet, sleeping, and only rousing herself to take nourishment."
I have copied these fragments from my journal of two terrible weeks, written upon my knees by my mother's side, when we felt every hour must be the last, and that her words, so difficult to recall afterwards, would be almost our only consolation when the great desolation had really fallen. But no description can give an idea of the illness—of the strange luminousness of the sunken features, such as one reads of in lives of Catholic saints—of the marvellous beauty of her expression—of the thrilling accents in which many words were spoken, from which her sensitive retiring nature would have shrunk in health. Had there been physically any reason for hopefulness, which there was not—had the doctors given any hope of recovery, which they did not, her appearance, her words, her almost transfiguration would have assured us that she was on the threshold of another world. I feel that those who read must—like those who saw—almost experience a sort of shock at her being given back to us again. Yet I believe that God heard my prayer in St. Peter's for the two years more. During that time, and that time only, she was spared to bless us, and to prepare me better for the final separation when it really came. She was also spared to be my support in another great trial of my life, to which we then never looked forward. But I will return to my journal, with which ordinary events now again entwine themselves.
"March 10, 1868.—My darling is gradually but slowly regaining strength, the doctor saying he can give no medicine, but that he can only stand still in awe before the marvels of nature, whilst we, the watchers, are gradually rallying from the great strain and tension of the last week.
"Yesterday was Santa Francesca Romana's day. I went to her house, the old Ponziani Palace, now the Ezercizii Pii, hung outside for the day with battered tapestry and strewn within with box. The rooms inside are the same as when the Saint lived in them, with raftered ceilings, and many of them turned into chapels. Downstairs is the large room which she turned into a hospital, and there is a bright open courtyard planted with orange-trees, though certainly nothing of the 'magnificent Ponziani Palace' described by Lady Georgiana Fullerton in her book.
"Thence to the Tor de' Specchi, where a cardinal, a number of Roman ladies, and a crowd of others were passing through the bright old rooms covered with frescoes and tapestry, and looking into the pleasant courtyards of the convent with their fountains and orange-trees. Upstairs is a fine chapel, where the skeleton of the Saint lies under the altar, dressed as an Oblate (with the face exposed), but in a white veil and white gloves! The living Oblates flitting about were very interesting picturesque-looking women, mostly rather old. Several relics of Santa Francesca are preserved. On a table near the entrance was the large flat vase in which she made ointment for the poor, filled with flowers.
"On Sunday, when many ladies went to the Pope, he made them a little sermon about their guardian angels and Sta. Francesca Romana."
"March 15.—My sweet Mother is in almost exactly the same state—a sort of dormouse existence, and so weak that she can scarcely hold up her head; yet she has been twice wheeled into the sitting-room.
"I have been with the Fitzmaurices to the Castle of S. Angelo, very curious, and the prisons of Beatrice Cenci and her stepmother, most ghastly and horrid. There are between seven and eight hundred men there now, and many prisoners. Over the prison doors passers-by had made notes in chalk: one was 'O voi che entrate qui, lasciate ogni speranza;' another, 'On sait quand on entre, on ne sait pas quand on sort;' another, 'Hôtel des Martyrs.'
"On Friday evening I rushed with all the world to the receptions of the new cardinals—first to the Spanish Embassy, then to the Colonna to see Cardinal Bonaparte,[371] who has a most humble manner and a beautiful refined face like Manning at his best; and then to the Inquisition, where Cardinal de Monaco was waiting to receive in rooms which were almost empty."