Another remarkable family was that of old Colonel de Courcy. He had some charming daughters, and I met his son John when he was in the Turkish Contingent and I was Chief of the Staff of Irregular Cavalry in the Crimea.
Still Florence was always Florence. The climate, when it was fine, was magnificent. The views were grand, and the most charming excursions lay within a few hours' walk or drive. The English were well treated, perhaps too well, by the local Government, and the opportunities of studying Art were first-rate. Those wonderful Loggie and the Pitti Palace contained more high Art than is to be found in all London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna put together, and we soon managed to become walking catalogues. A heavy storm, however, presently broke the serenity of the domestic atmosphere at Siena.
We boys had been allowed to begin regular shooting with an old single-barrelled Manton, a hard-hitter which had been changed from flint to percussion. We practised gunnery in secret every moment we could, and presently gave our tutor a specimen of our proficiency. He had been instituting odious comparisons between Edward's length and that of his gun, and went so far as to say that for sixpence he would allow a shot at fifty yards. On this being accepted with the firm determination of peppering him, he thought it better to substitute his hat, and he got away just in time to see it riddled like a sieve. We then began to despise shooting with small shot.
Our parents made a grand mistake about the shooting excursions, especially the mother, who, frightened lest anything should occur, used to get up quarrels to have an excuse to forbid the shooting parties, as punishment. It was soon found out and resented accordingly.
We hoarded the weekly francs which each received, we borrowed Maria's savings, i.e. the poor girl was never allowed to keep it for a day, and invested in what was then known as a "case of pistols." My father—who, when in Sicily with his regiment, had winged a brother-officer, an Irishman, for saying something unpleasant, had carefully and fondly nursed him, and shot him again as soon as ever he recovered, crippling him for life—saw the turn that matters were taking, and ordered the "saw-handles" to be ignominiously returned to the shop. The shock was severe to the pun d'onor of we two Don Quixotes.
I have a most pleasant remembrance of Maria Garcia, a charming young girl, before she became wife and "divine devil" to the old French merchant Morbihan. Both she and her sister (afterwards Madame Viardot) were going through severe training under the old Tartar of a father Garcia, who was, however, a splendid musician and determined to see his girls succeed. They tell me she had spites and rages and that manner of thing in after life, but I can only remember her as worthy of Alfred de Musset's charming stanza.
After a slow but most interesting drive we reached the Eternal City, and, like all the world, were immensely impressed by the entrance at the Porto del Popolo. The family secured apartments in the Piazza di Spagna, which was then, as it is now, the capital of English Rome. Everything in it was English, the librarian, the grocer, and all the other little shops, and mighty little it has changed during the third of a century. In 1873, when my wife and I stayed there, the only points of difference observed were the presence of Americans and the large gilded advertisements of the photographers. The sleepy atmosphere was the same, and the same was the drowsy old fountain.
At Rome sight-seeing was carried on with peculiar ardour. With "Mrs. Starke" under the arm, for "Murray" and "Baedeker" were not invented in those days, we young ones went from Vatican to the Capitol, from church to palazzo, from ruin to ruin. We managed to get introductions to the best studios, and made acquaintance with all the shops which contained the best collections of coins, of cameos, of model temples, in rosso-antico, and giallo-antico, and of all the treasures of Roman Art, ancient and modern. We passed our days in running about the town, and whenever we found an opportunity, we made excursions into the country, even ascending Mount Soracte. In those days Rome was not what it is now. It was the ghost of the Imperial City, the mere shadow of the Mistress of the world. The great Forum was a level expanse of ground, out of which the half-buried ruins rose. The Coliseum had not changed for a century. The Palatine hill had never dreamt of excavation. The greater part of the space within the old walls, that represents the ancient City, was a waste, what would in Africa be called bush, and it was believed that turning up the ground caused fatal fevers. It had no pretensions to be a Capital. It wanted fortifications; the walls could be breached with six-pounders. The Tiber was not regulated, and periodically flooded the lower town. The Ghetto was a disgrace. Nothing could be fouler than the Trastevere: and the Leonine City, with the exception of St. Peter's and the Vatican, was a piggery.