CHAPTER VIII

ON February 24 Cunegonda Patrizi wrote an unusually long letter to her husband, having received two of his together on the preceding day.

"... You describe your Carnival dissipationsa dinner party on Jeudi Gras-I am sure it must have been very cheerful; a good conscience and the company of gallant gentlemen could have no other result. My carnival was even less brilliant than yours, for I should have been unconscious of the season but for hearing others speak of it, and but for the annoyance of being waked up at night by the sound of the revellers' carriages. To-day I was obliged to interrupt the Lenten Fast, finding that I had not the strength to accomplish it, and now I have been forbidden to make the attempt at all."

It may be well to explain here that the Lenten Fast in Italy was exceedingly rigorous in those days, most of the faithful taking neither bite nor sup till three in the afternoon. The custom now is confined chiefly to the stricter of the religious communities, the Holy See having, in indulgence to the exigencies of modern life, enacted that there

shall only be four or five such fasts in the whole year. But abstinence is still very strictly observed all through southern Italy. In many districts meat, milk, eggs, and lard are banished from the tables of the peasants from Ash Wednesday till Easter Sunday. Cunegonda continues :

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"Now I come to your letter of the 13th. There is no truth in what you say about standing idle with your hands in your pockets and not bearing with me the burden of the trial, and I will prove it to you, for what is the heaviest part of this cross? It does not lie in mere travelling and external discomforts, but in the separation and dispersion of the family, in the purpose of this journey, in the exile from home, and so on; and all this you suffer equally with me, besides your isolation and your ignorance of what may be happening, which presents things to your imagination as worse than they really are; so you see that I am right in saying that your part of the cross is sufficiently heavy! I admit that mine is not light, but I deserve worse things, and I am sure of being effectually helped, so do not make yourself unhappy about me; but also do not cease to pray fervently for me and to recommend me to the special prayers of those your friends and companions, including the Lamb,' who I hope will not refuse me this favour for your sake. . . .

"I was sure that you would have been pleased

TOMMASO THE " VETTURINO"

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was destined

to hear that the good Tommaso * from the first to bring me on this journey. We can really give him the diploma of vetturino of Casa Patrizi, for he always appears in Rome when we are about to travel. This time he remained long in the city in the hope of that which finally happened, namely, that he might accompany, or rather, conduct me to Paris. I must confess that it used to make me a little angry to see him sitting in the anteroom, knowing that he was promising himself the pleasure of taking me when I had not yet decided on going at all. I told him so afterwards, and he replied that, on the morning of our departure, if I had lingered but half an hour longer, he would have got down from his horse and renounced the job altogether, so dreadfully cruel did the separation appear to him, so moved was he not only by our tears but by the tears and lamentations of the crowds that gathered on the stairs, many of them not even members of the household.

"It is true that he charges a great deal, but he takes the entire care for the travelling off my mind. Before I left Rome, foreseeing that I should make a little stay here (although I had no idea it would have to be such a long one) I wanted to arrange with him that he should leave me here and go to Florence meanwhile to take

* This man was an owner and driver of posting-horses and carriages in Rome.

advantage of any short

engagements he could procure; but he would not consent to this, so we agreed that, while I should stay in Siena, I was to pay for the feeding of the mules, but no wages either to him or the other man.

"But, from the very first day we arrived here, he began to complain that the allowance for the mules was insufficient, so I sent for him and told him to reconsider my first proposition, since he could earn nothing while waiting here, while the mules were a sheer loss. That I would pay him his journey back to Florence, where he must go and work for some one else, and that as soon as I should need him again I would write to Pollastri to send him back to me to all of which he consented, and it is much better so for him and for me.

"You were mistaken in your explanation of the term, boute-feu, applied to your letters from Civita Vecchia. They" (the police) "called them so because, as they declared, you roused me to resistance, animating me to imitate your conduct, to be courageous, and showing that you regarded yourself as a martyr; for all these reasons, they said, the letters were as incendiary as the notes you had written to the Prefect and others.

"Marianna" (Altieri) "is leading in Paris a life very different from her Roman one. The Empress Joséphine, who remembers being at school in the convent with her, overwhelms her with attentions

THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE

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and kindnesses; she constantly has her with her at Malmaison, and tells her to come and dine whenever she feels inclined. The first time Marianna dined with her it was by formal invitation, and Marianna says that the luxury and elegance of the dinner surpassed all imagination, particularly in the matters of flowers and porcelains. Afterwards there was music, the musician Crescentini and Maestro Pez being among the guests. In fine, Marianna only got back to Paris after midnight; what do you say of it? But I do not envy her at all."

Without feeling envy it must have been a little depressing to the Marchesa to contrast her sister's cheerful lot with her own rather isolated and melancholy one at this time.

The course things

were taking in Rome was not calculated to raise her spirits. On March 2 she writes to her husband:

"You may have heard that the" (religious) "Companies and Confraternities have been ordered to submit to the authority of the Delegates, and are invited () to pay all their revenues into a public coffer, because in this manner they will be better administered and the cult of religion much increased. Such are the motives furnished for this change, and as yet no word has been spoken of pillage or of diminishing the number of religious ceremoniesindeed, they are to be increased . . . if you can manage to believe it!"

A day or two later Cunegonda gives tidings of