They were wrong who supposed that her beauty was enhanced by dress; on the contrary it was limited by the clothing which it adorned. The sculptor Canova proved this in his portrait statue of her as Venus Victorious, and then her detractors, affecting to be greatly scandalised, changed their tune and declared that it was false that the Princess was too fond of dress, that on the contrary a greater regard for it would have been more decent.
The young secretary was not a little troubled by the caprice of his patroness to thus display her beauty to the world. "But why not, my Celio?" she had argued. "The Prince, my husband, has bestowed upon me a great title for which I feel my obligation to his noble family, and I shall pay it with interest, for I shall leave the Borgheses this incomparable statue, and the glory of having possessed one Princess whose beauty cannot be denied or equalled."
Why Prince Borghese should have deputed this dragon service to another instead of undertaking it himself, is a question which I cannot answer. Some misunderstanding doubtless there was, or two people who loved each other would never have agreed that it was better to live apart, but the Prince carried a sore and longing heart with him to Florence, and it may be that the Princess was no happier, though she had more bravado.
"I will come when you send for me and not before," her husband said to her, "and I trust you understand the motives which underlie my self-banishment."
"I am grateful to them at least," was her equivocal retort. "Has your Highness any preference as to my residence during your absence?"
"None," he replied sadly, "but I shall be happier if you do not make choice of your Neapolitan villa."
She flashed at him indignantly, "You wish to estrange me from my family, from my sister Caroline."
"I have only the highest respect for her Majesty, the Queen of Naples," he replied; "her devotion to her husband is undoubted. I could wish—" and here the Prince paused.
"That I were more like her," the Princess finished his sentence.
"I never said so, Pauline," he said impulsively, "or wished that you were like any other than yourself."