Volume Ii Part 11 (1/2)

”Oh, monsieur! I should be, indeed, touched by this flattery, if I could but see the face of him who uttered it.”

”Pardon me, fair Countess, if I do not respond to even the least of your wishes; we shall both appear in our true colours one of these days.

Meanwhile, remember our proverb that says, 'It's not the cowl makes the monk.' When you shall hear this again, it will be in your chateau of Vaugirarde, and----”

”Is that the _consigne_, then?” said she, laughing.

”Yes, that is the _consigne_,--don't forget it;” and, with a graceful salutation, the Marechal withdrew to perfect his further arrangements.

There was a listener to this scene, that none of its actors ever guessed at--the poor actor, who, having lost his way among forests of pasteboard and palaces of painted canva.s.s, at last found himself at the back of a pavilion, from which the speakers were not more than two paces distant.

Scarcely had the Marechal departed, than he followed his steps, and made all haste to an obscure _auberge_ outside the barriers, where a companion, poor and friendless as himself, awaited him. There is no need to trace what ensued at this meeting. The farce-writer might, indeed, make it effective enough, ending as it does in the resolve, that since an engagement was denied them at Paris, they'd try their fortune at Fontainebleau, by personating the two strangers, who were to arrive by a hazard at the Chateau de Vaugirarde.

The whole plot is now seen. They set out, and in due time arrive at the chateau. Their wardrobe and appearance generally are the very reverse of what the fair Countess expected, but as their stage experiences supply a certain resemblance to rank and distinction--at least to her notions of such--she never doubts that they are the promised visitors, and is convinced by the significant declaration, that if their wayworn looks and strange costume seem little indicative of their actual position, yet the Countess should remember, ”It is not the cowl makes the monk.”

The constraint with which each a.s.sumes a new character forms the second era of the piece. The lover, far from suspecting the real pretensions he should strive to personate--the Countess, as much puzzled by the secrecy of her guest's conduct, and by guesses as to his actual rank and fortune. It is while these doubts are in full conflict, and when seated at supper, that the King and Richelieu appear, announced as two travellers, whose carriage being overturned and broken, are fain to crave the hospitality of the chateau.

The discomfiture of Richelieu and the anger of the King at finding the ground occupied, contrast well with the patronising graces of the mock Countess and the insolent demeanour of the lover, who whispers in her ear that the new arrivals are strolling players, and that he has seen them repeatedly in the provinces. All Richelieu's endeavours to set matters right, un.o.bserved by the King, are abortive; while his Majesty is scarce more fortunate in pressing his suit with the fair Countess, by whose grace and beauty he is fascinated. In the very midst of the insolent _badinage_ of the real actors, an officer of the household arrives, with important despatches. Their delivery brooks no delay, and he at once presents himself, and, kneeling, hands them to the King.

Shame, discomfiture, terror, and dismay, seize on the intruding players.

The King, however, is merciful. After a smart reproof all is forgiven; his Majesty sagely observing, that although ”the Cowl may not make the Monk,” the Ermine has no small share in forming the Monarch.

CHAPTER IX. _Florence_

What did Sh.e.l.ley, what does any one, mean by their raptures about Florence? Never, surely, was the epithet of _La Bella_ more misapplied.

I can well understand the enthusiasm with which men call Genoa _Il Superbo_. Its mountain background, its deep blue sea, its groves of orange and acacia, the p.r.i.c.kly aloe growing wild upon the very sh.o.r.e in all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, indicative of an almost wasteful extravagance of production; while its amphitheatre of palaces, proudly rising in terraced rows, are gorgeous remembrances of the haughty Republic. But Florence! dark, dirty, and discordant! Palaces, gaol-like and gloomy, stand in streets where wretchedness and misery seem to have chosen their dwelling-place--the types of feudal tyranny side by side with modern dest.i.tution. The boasted Arno, too, a shrunk-up, trickling stream, not wide enough to be a river, not clear enough to be a rivulet, winds along between hills hot and sun-scorched, where the brown foliage has no touch of freshness, but stands parched and shrivelled by the hot glare of eternal noon. The white-walled villas glisten in the dazzling heat, not tempered by the slightest shade, but reflecting back the scorching glow from rocks cracked and fissured by the sun!

How disappointing is all this! and how wearisome is the endeavour, from the scattered objects here and there, to make any approach to that Florence one has imagined to himself! To me the abstraction is impossible. I carry about with me, even into the galleries, before the triumphs of Raf-faelle and the wonders of Michael Angelo, the sad discordant scenes through which I have pa.s.sed. The jarred senses are rendered incapable of properly appreciating and feeling those influences that should diffuse their effect upon the mind; and even the sight of the ”Guardia Civica,” strutting in solemn mockery beneath the archways where the proud Medici have trod, are contrasts to suggest rather a sense of sarcasm than of pleasure.

Here and there you do come upon some grand and imposing pile of building, the very stones of which seem laid by giant hands; but even these have the fortress character, the air of strongholds, rather than of princely dwellings, as at Genoa. You see at once how much more defence and safety were the guiding principles, than elegance of design and beauty of proportion. No vestibule, peopled with its marble groups, opens here to the pa.s.ser-by a glimpse of a n.o.ble stair rising in s.p.a.cious amplitude between walls of marble. No gate of gilded fretwork shews the terraced garden, with the plas.h.i.+ng fountains, and the orange-trees bending with their fruit.

Like all continental cities where the English congregate, the inhabitants have a mongrel look, grafting English notions of dress and equipage upon their own, and, like most imitators, only successful in following the worst models. The Cascini, too, exhibits a very motley a.s.semblage of gaudy liveries and, dusky carriages, riding-grooms dressed like footmen, their masters no bad resemblance to the ”Jeunes Premiers”

of a vaudeville. The men are very inferior in appearance to the Milanese; they are neither as well-built nor well-grown, and rarely have any pretensions to a fas.h.i.+onable exterior. The women are mostly ill-dressed, and, in no instance that I have seen, even well-looking.

They have the wearied look, without the seductive languor, of the South; they are pale, but not fair; and their gestures are neither plastic nor graceful. In fact, in all that I have seen here, I am sadly disappointed-all, save the Raffaelle's! they are above my conception of them.

How much of this lies in myself I dare not stop to inquire; a large share, perhaps, but a.s.suredly not all. This climate should be avoided by those of weak chest. Symptoms of further ”breaking-up” crowd upon me each day; and this burning sun and piercing wind make a sad conflict in the debilitated frame. But where to go, where to seek out a quiet spot to linger a few days and die! Rome is in all the agonies of its mock liberty--Naples in open revolt: here, where I am, all rule and government have ceased to exist; the mob have every thing at their mercy: that they have not abused their power, is more owing to their ignorance than their honour. When the Irish rebels carried the town of Ross by storm, they broke into the grocers' shops to eat sugar!

The Florentines having bullied the Duke, are only busied about the new uniforms of their Civic Guard!

Hitherto the reforms have gone no further than in organising this same National Guard, and in thras.h.i.+ng the police authorities wherever found.

Now, bad as this police was, it was still the only protection to the public peace. It exists no longer; and Tuscany has made her first step in liberty ”_en Americaine_” by adopting ”Lynch Law.”

I was about to note down a singular instance of this indignant justice of the people, when the arrival of a letter, in a hand unknown to me, suddenly-routed all my intentions. If I am able to record the circ.u.mstance here, calmly and without emotion, it is neither from that philosophy the world teaches, nor from any higher motive--it is merely on the same principle that one would bear with tolerable equanimity the break-down of a carriage when within a few miles of the journey's end!

The fact, then, is simply this, that I, Horace Templeton, whose draughts a few days back might have gone far into the ”tens of thousands,”

without fear of ”dishonour,” am now ruined! When we read this solemn word in the newspapers, we at once look back to the rank and station of him whose ruin is predicated. A Duke is ”ruined” when he must sell three packs of hounds, three studs of horses, four of his five or six mansions, part with his yacht at Cowes, and his racers at Newmarket, and retire to the Continent with a beggarly pittance of some fifteen thousand per annum. A Merchant is ruined when, by the sudden convulsions of mercantile affairs, he is removed from the unlimited command of millions to pa.s.s his days, at Leamington or Cheltenham, on his wife's jointure of two thousand a-year.

His clerk is ruined when he drops his pocket-book on his way from the Bank, and loses six hundred pounds belonging to the firm. His is more real ruin, for it implies stoppages, suspicion--mayhap loss of place, and its consequences.

But I have lost every thing! Hamerton and Scott, my bankers, have failed; their liabilities, as the phrase is--meaning thereby what they are liable to be asked for, but cannot satisfy--are enormous. My only landed property is small, and so heavily mortgaged as to be worth nothing. I had only waited for the term of an agreement to redeem the mortgage, and clear off all enc.u.mbrances; but the ”crash” has antic.i.p.ated me, and I am now a beggar!