This morning Patsy, sent back to Rome as a special correspondent of the “Daily——” surprised us at breakfast. You may imagine if we were glad to see him. People here are so tense, so overstrained and excited, that his presence is like a fresh north wind after days of sirocco. He brought us the latest bulletins from the Press Club.
“Yesterday,” he said, “the young King and Queen landed from their yacht somewhere on the coast of Calabria and went directly to Monza by way of Naples, where Crispi, old, broken, and nearly blind, met them at the station. The son of the murdered King hurrying to his father’s body stops to embrace the old Minister. Can’t you imagine it? Though Crispi is out of office and out of public favor, the young man remembers the time when he was a child and Crispi was his father’s right hand. That was a meeting worth seeing. I wish I had been there.”
History will judge both King and Minister more fairly than contemporaries have done; it will find the King worthy of the great name he bore. I gather from Patsy’s talk that the reaction is beginning already.
“The Italians are finding out,” he said, “that the King inherited more than his name from Humbert of the White Hand; he had the same colossal loyalty, courage, and honesty. It sounds brutal to say it, but I believe his tragic death has done more to secure the throne to the dynasty than any act of his life could have done. Sympathy is already wiping out the memory of his mistakes. There could not be a more propitious opening for the new reign.”
August 8.
Rome is crowded. It is strange to see the hotels open, the Corso alive with people, the Pincio and Villa Borghese filled with carriages at this usually dead season. The Court, the people of the embassies, special envoys from all the countries of Europe, and I should think nearly every distinguished personage in Italy, are here for the King’s funeral to-morrow. All these people augment rather than lessen the universal gloom; after six months of jubilation Rome is a mourning city. This afternoon we drove to the Quirinal Palace to inscribe our names in the Queen’s book. A dozen large folios lie on as many tables in the entrance hall; here all who wish to express their sympathy may write their names. I recognized among those waiting to sign, the French Ambassador, Beppino (Prince Nero’s grandson), and our Ignazio. One table was surrounded by poorly dressed lads,—they looked like newsboys, messengers, and the like. They are the best witnesses of the progress made in the last twenty years; when King Umberto came to the throne, the street boys of Rome did not write their names. To-night the walls are covered with manifestoes from the various trades, guilds, and associations, expressing horror at the crime, sympathy for the royal family, grief for the murdered King, loyalty to his house.
August 9.
The King’s funeral was to-day. The weather was fair and very cool for the season. We left home at half-past five in the morning and drove to the Corso, where we were obliged to leave our carriage. We had a pass which took us through the lines of cavalry stretched across the Piazza Venezia. We reached the balcony we had secured (thanks to kind Mr. Iddings, of our embassy) in the Via Nazionale, half an hour before the funeral procession started. We kept a place for Patsy, who soon joined us, looking, for him, rather jaded. He had been up all night, having come down from Monza on the special train which brought the King’s body.
“It was a wonderful journey,” Patsy said. “The bells were tolled in every town we passed through; all the stations were hung with crape; everywhere, even at the poorest villages, we were met by citizens bringing flowers. When we arrived, the train was half buried in laurel and roses.”
“Were you late in reaching Rome?”