Again illustrating the narrative by “acting.”
“I tuk notice ’twas yellow, like old ivory, but flabby, as ’twas to be counted upon at his time o’ life. Well, ’twas a sight to see them charitable sisters mumblin’ and smouchin’ over the Holy Father’s hand, and sayin’ prayers like a house a-fire, after they’d done with his slipper and got up onto their knees; and him a-smiling like a pot of hair-oil, and a-blessin’ on his dear daughters! One of ’em had brought along a new white cap for him, embroidered elegant with crosses and crowns and other rigmarees, by her own hands, most likely. When she giv it to him, still on her knees and a-lookin’ up, worshippin’-like, he very politely tuk off his old one and put on the new. You’d a thought the poor thing would ’a died on that floor of delight when he nodded at her, a smilin’ sweeter than ever, to show how well it fitted. She’ll talk about it to her dyin’ day as the biggest thing that ever happened to her, and never think, I presume, that he must have about a hundred caps, given to him by other abbesses, kickin’ ’round in the Vacuum closets. After he’d done up the row of visitors—a hundred and odd—and blessed all the crosses, and bunches of beads, and flowers, and artificial wreaths, and other gimcracks, and all we had on to boot, he stopped in the middle of the room and made us a little French sermon. Sounded neat—but, of course, I didn’t get a word of it. Then he raised his hand and pronounced the benediction, and toddled out. He rocks considerable in his walk, poor old man! He ain’t long for this world; and, indeed, he hez lived as long as his best friends care to hev him.”
I have had many other descriptions of the Pope’s receptions, which were semi-weekly in this the last year of his life. In the main, these accounts tallied so well with the charcoal sketch furnished by my Yankee-Western dame, that I have given it as nearly as possible as I received it from her lips.
Victor Emmanuel had reigned in Rome six years when we were there. The streets were clean; the police vigilant and obliging; every museum and monastery and library was unbarred by the Deliverer of Italy. Protestant churches were going up within the walls of the city; Protestant service was held wherever and whenever the worshippers willed, without the visible protection of English or American flag. One scarcely recognized in the renovated capital the Rome of which the travelers of ’69 had written, so full and free had been the sweep of the tidal wave of liberty and decency. The Pope, than whom never man had a more favorable opportunity to do all the King had accomplished, and more, was a voluntary prisoner in his palace of a thousand rooms, with a beggarly retinue of five hundred servants, and stables full of useless state-coaches and horses. Whoever would see him shorn of the beams of temporal sovereignty must bend the knee to him as spiritual lord. Without attempting to regulate the consciences or actions of others, we declined to make this show of allegiance. Since attendance in the temple of Rimmon was a matter of individual option, we stayed without—Anglicé—we “stopped away.”
Victor Emmanuel we saw frequently in his rides and drives about Rome, and at various popular gatherings, such as reviews and state gala-days. He was the homeliest and best belovèd man in his dominions. Somewhat above medium height and thick-set, his military bearing, especially upon horseback, barely redeemed his figure from clumsiness. The bull-neck, indicative of the baser qualities, the story of which is a blot upon his early life, upbore a massive head, carried in manly, kingly fashion. His complexion was purple-red; the skin, rough in grain, streaked with darker lines, as if blood-vessels had broken under the surface. The firm mouth was almost buried by the moustache, heavy and black, curling upward until the tips threatened the eyes. The nose thick and retroussé, with wide nostrils, corroborated the testimony of the neck. But, beneath the full forehead, the eyes of the master of men and of himself shone out so expressively that to meet them was to forget blemishes of feature and form, and to do justice to the hero of his age—the Father of United Italy.
Prince Umberto was often his father’s companion in the carriage and on horseback—a much handsomer man, whom all regarded with interest as the king of the future, with no premonition that the eventful race of the stalwart parent was so nearly run, or that the aged Pope, whose serious illnesses were reported from week to week, would survive to send a message of amity to the monarch’s death-bed.
The prettiest sight in Rome was one yet more familiar than that of King and heir-apparent driving in a low carriage on the crowded Pincio, unattended by so much as a single equerry. The Princess Margherita, the people’s idol, took her daily airing as any lady of rank might do, her little son at her side, accompanied by one or two ladies of her modest court, and returning affably the salutations of those who met or passed her. The frank confidence of the royal family in the love of the people was with her a happy unconsciousness of possible danger that stirred the most callous to enthusiasm of loyalty. A murmur of blessing followed her appearance among the populace. They never named her without endearing epithets. During the Carnival, she drove, attended as I have described, down the middle of the Corso, wedged in by a slow-moving line of vehicles, the people packing side-walks and gutters up to the wheels, a storm of cheering and waving caps breaking out along the close files as they recognized her. We were abreast of her several times; saw her bow to this side and that, swaying with laughter while she put up both hands to ward off the rain of bouquets poured upon her from balcony and pavement and carriage, until her coach was full above her lap. The small Prince of Naples, on his part, stood up and flung flowers vigorously to left and right, shouting his delight in the fun.
We were strolling in the grounds of the Villa Borghese, one afternoon, when we espied the scarlet liveries of the Princess approaching along the road. That Boy, who was au fait to many tales of her sweetness and charitable deeds, might have a better look at one who ranked, in his imagination, with the royal heroines of fairy-tales, his father lifted him to a seat upon the rail dividing the foot-path from the drive. As the Princess came up, our group was the only one in the retired spot, and Boy, staring solemnly with his great, gray eyes, at the beautiful lady, of his own accord pulled off his Scotch cap and made a profound obeisance from his perch upon the rail. The Princess smiled brightly and merrily, and, after acknowledging Caput’s lifted hat by a gracious bend of the head, leaned forward to throw a kiss at Boy, as his especial token of favor, while her boy took off and waved his cap with a nod of good-fellowship.
One can believe that with this trivial incident in our minds it hurt us to read, eighteen months later, of the little fellow’s terror at sight of the blood streaming from his father’s arm upon his mother’s dress, and at the clash over his innocent head of loyal sword and assassin’s dagger.
The change in the government of Rome is not more apparent in the improved condition of her streets and in the enforcement of sanitary laws unknown or uncared-for under the ancien régime, than in the aspect of the ruins—her principal attraction for thousands of tourists. The Forum Romanum described by Hawthorne and Howells as a cow-pasture, broken by the protruding tops of buried columns, has been carefully excavated, and the rubbish cleared away down to the original floor of the Basilica Julia, commenced by Julius Cæsar and completed by Augustus. The boundaries of this, which was both Law Court and Exchange, are minutely defined in the will of Augustus, and the measurements have been verified by classic archæologists. The Forum, as now laid bare, is a sunken plain with steep sides, divided into two unequal parts by a modern street crossing it. Under this elevated causeway, one passes through an arch of substantial masonry from the larger division—containing the Comitium, Basilica Julia, Temple of Castor and Pollux, site of Temple of Vesta and the column of Phocas—Byron’s “nameless column with the buried base,” now exposed down to the lettered pedestal—into the smaller enclosure, flanked by the Tabularium on which is built the modern Capitol. On a level with the Etruscan foundation-stones of this are the sites of the Tribune and the Rostrum—fragments of colored marble pavement on which Cicero stood when declaiming against Catiline, eight majestic pillars, the remains of the Temple of Saturn, three that were a part of the Temple of Vespasian, and the arch of Septimius Severus. Upon the front of the latter is still seen the significant erasure made by Caracalla, of his brother Geta’s name, after the latter had fallen by his—Caracalla’s—hand. Near the mighty arch is a conical heap of earth and masonry, which was the Golden Milestone, the centre of Rome and of the world.