I also asked Prince Scipione Borghese to come to The Hague, as I had just been informed that he had come out in favor of the peace cause. He wrote back:
Felice Scovolo, Lago di Garda, April 20, 1899
My dear Madam:
Your pleasant letter, which I am very late in answering, has excited our desires more than you would believe possible. To spend some time with you and un groupe du high-life pacifique, closely following the work of this Conference, which is without contradiction one of the culminating facts of the history of our century, seems to us a delicious dream.
Unhappily your interesting invitation will preserve all the beauty of a dream, which is always somewhat melancholy because of its unreality. The marriage of my youngest sister to Count Hoyos, which is to be celebrated toward the end of May in the depths of Hungary, calls us in that direction, and up to that time I am kept here by the carrying out of a social and agrarian transformation in which I am enormously interested and which keeps me at its beck and call.
As for the Conference, the idea of which is in itself so beautiful and its convocation such a great victory, I hope that the good will of certain governments may compensate for the ill will of so many others, and that the whole thing will not remain in the realm of ideas but will give us some practical fruits....
You will find in our two Italian delegates, Count Nigra and Count Zanini, two charming men who are personally very well disposed.
Sincerely yours
Scipione Borghese
I received from Paris the subjoined letter, from one who was quite unknown to me. It was the first step of an animated intercourse both epistolary and personal,—I may say of a faithful friendship and collaboration which has not yet ceased to ally me with the author, the most successful peace worker in France.