Part 16 (1/2)
I left Verona with the courier at sunset, and was at _Mantua_ in a few hours. I went to bed in a dirty hotel, the best in the place, and awoke, bitten at every pore by fleas--the first I have encountered in Italy, strange as it may seem, in a country that swarms with them. For the next twenty-four hours I was in such positive pain that my interest in ”Virgil's birthplace” quite evaporated. I hired a _caleche_, and travelled all night to _Modena_.
I liked the town as I drove in, and after sleeping an hour or two, I went out in search of ”Ta.s.soni's bucket” (which Rogers says _is not the true one_), and the picture of ”_Ginevra_.” The first thing I met was a man going to execution. He was a tall, exceedingly handsome man; and, I thought, a marked gentleman, even in his fetters. He was one of the body-guard of the duke, and had joined a conspiracy against him, in which he had taken the first step by firing at him from a window as he pa.s.sed. I saw him guillotined, but I will spare you the description. The duke is the worst tyrant in Italy, it is well known, and has been fired at _eighteen times_ in the streets. So said the cicerone, who added, that ”the d----l took care of his own.” After many fruitless inquiries, I could find nothing of ”the picture,” and I took my place for Bologna in the afternoon.
I was at Bologna at ten the next morning. As I felt rather indisposed, I retained my seat with the courier for Florence; and, hungry with travel and a long fast, went into a _restaurant_, to make the best use of the hour given me for refreshment. A party of Austrian officers sat at one end of the only table, breakfasting; and here I experienced the first rudeness I have seen in Europe. I mention it to show its rarity, and the manner in which, even among military men, a quarrel is guarded against or prevented. A young man, who seemed the wit of the party, chose to make comments from time to time on the solidity of what he considered my breakfast. These became at last so pointed, that I was compelled to rise and demand an apology. With one voice, all except the offender, immediately sided with me, and insisted on the justice of the demand, with so many apologies of their own, that I regretted noticing the thing at all. The young man rose, after a minute, and offered me his hand in the frankest manner; and then calling for a fresh bottle, they drank wine with me, and I went back to my breakfast. In America, such an incident would have ended, nine times out of ten, in a duel.
The two mounted _gens d'armes_, who usually attend the courier at night, joined us as we began to ascend the Appenines. We stopped at eleven to sup on the highest mountain between Bologna and Florence, and I was glad to get to the kitchen fire, the clear moonlight was so cold. Chickens were turning on the long spit, and sounds of high merriment came from the rooms above. A _bridal party_ of English had just arrived, and every chamber and article of provision was engaged.
They had nothing to give us. A compliment to the hostess and a bribe to the cook had their usual effect, however; and as one of the dragoons had ridden back a mile or two for my travelling cap, which had dropped off while I was asleep, I invited them both, with the courier, to share my bribed supper. The cloth was spread right before the fire, on the same table with all the cook's paraphernalia, and a merry and picturesque supper we had of it. The rough Tuscan flasks of wine and Etruscan pitchers, the brazen helmets formed on the finest models of the antique, the long mustaches, and dark Italian eyes of the men, all in the bright light of a blazing fire, made a picture that Salvator Rosa would have relished. We had time for a hasty song or two after the dishes were cleared, and then went gayly on our way to Florence.
Excuse the brevity of this epistle, but I must stop here, or lose the opportunity of sending. If my letters do not reach you with the utmost regularity, it is no fault of mine. You can not imagine the difficulty I frequently experience in getting a safe conveyance.
LETTER x.x.xVI.
BATHS OF LUCCA--SARATOGA OF ITALY--HILL SCENERY--RIVER LIMA--FAs.h.i.+ONABLE LODGINGS--THE VILLA--THE DUKE'S PALACE-- MOUNTAINS--VALLEYS--COTTAGES--PEASANTS--WINDING-PATHS-- AMUs.e.m.e.nTS--PRIVATE PARTIES--b.a.l.l.s--FETES--A CASINO--ORIGINALS OF SCOTT'S DIANA VERNON AND THE MISS PRATT OF THE INHERITANCE--A SUMMER IN ITALY, ETC., ETC.
I spent a week at the baths of Lucca, which is about sixty miles north of Florence, and the Saratoga of Italy. None of the cities are habitable in summer, for the heat, and there flocks all the world to bathe and keep cool by day, and dance and intrigue by night, from spring to autumn. It is very like the month of June in our country in many respects, and the differences are not disagreeable. The scenery is the finest of its kind in Italy. The whole village is built about a bridge across the river Lima, which meets the Serchio a half mile below. On both sides of the stream the mountains rise so abruptly, that the houses are erected against them, and from the summits on both sides you look directly down on the street. Half-way up one of the hills stands a cl.u.s.ter of houses, overlooking the valley to fine advantage, and these are rather the most fas.h.i.+onable lodgings. Round the base of this mountain runs the Lima, and on its banks for a mile is laid out a superb road, at the extremity of which is another cl.u.s.ter of buildings, called the Villa, composed of the duke's palace and baths, and some fifty lodging-houses. This, like the pavilion at Saratoga, is usually occupied by invalids and people of more retired habits. I have found no hill scenery in Europe comparable to the baths of Lucca. The mountains ascend so sharply and join so closely, that two hours of the sun are lost, morning and evening, and the heat is very little felt. The valley is formed by four or five small mountains, which are clothed from the base to the summit with the finest chestnut woods; and dotted over with the nest-like cottages of the Luccese peasants, the smoke from which, morning and evening, breaks through the trees, and steals up to the summits with an effect than which a painter could not conceive anything more beautiful. It is quite a little paradise; and with the drives along the river on each side at the mountain foot, and the trim winding-paths in the hills, there is no lack of opportunity for the freest indulgence of a love of scenery or amus.e.m.e.nt.
Instead of living as we do in great hotels, the people at these baths take their own lodgings, three or four families in a house, and meet in their drives and walks, or in small exclusive parties. The Duke gives a ball every Tuesday, to which all respectable strangers are invited; and while I was there an Italian prince, who married into the royal family of Spain, gave a grand _fete_ at the theatre. There is usually some party every night, and with the freedom of a watering-place, they are rather the pleasantest I have seen in Italy.
The Duke's chamberlain, an Italian cavalier, has the charge of a _casino_, or public hall, which is open day and night for conversation, dancing and play. The Italians frequent it very much, and it is free to all well-dressed people; and as there is always a band of music, the English sometimes make up a party and spend the evening there in dancing or promenading. It is maintained at the Duke's expense, lights, music, and all, and he finds his equivalent in the profits of the gambling-bank.
I scarce know who of the distinguished people I met there would interest you. The village was full of coroneted carriages, whose masters were n.o.bles of every nation, and every reputation. The originals of two well-known characters happened to be there--Scott's _Diana Vernon_, and the _Miss Pratt_ of the Inheritance. The former is a Scotch lady, with five or six children; a tall, superb woman still, with the look of a mountain-queen, who rode out every night with two gallant boys mounted on ponies, and das.h.i.+ng after her with the spirit you would bespeak for the sons of Die Vernon. Her husband was the best horseman there, and a ”has been” handsome fellow, of about forty-five.
An Italian abbe came up to her one night, at a small party, and told her he ”wondered the king of England did not marry her.” ”Miss Pratt”
was the companion of an English lady of fortune, who lived on the floor below me. She was still what she used to be, a much-laughed-at but much-sought person, and it was quite requisite to know her. She flew into a pa.s.sion whenever the book was named. The rest of the world there was very much what it is elsewhere--a medley of agreeable and disagreeable, intelligent and stupid, elegant and awkward. The _women_ were perhaps superior in style and manner to those ordinarily met in such places in America, and the _men_ vastly inferior. It is so wherever I have been on the continent.
I remained at the baths a few weeks, recruiting--for the hot weather and travel had, for the first time in my life, worn upon me. They say that a summer in Italy is equal to five years elsewhere, in its ravages upon the const.i.tution, and so I found it.
LETTER x.x.xVII.
RETURN TO VENICE--CITY OF LUCCA--A MAGNIFICENT WALL--A CULTIVATED AND LOVELY COUNTRY--A COMFORTABLE PALACE--THE DUKE AND d.u.c.h.eSS OF LUCCA--THE APPENINES--MOUNTAIN SCENERY-- MODENA--VIEW OF AN IMMENSE PLAIN--VINEYARDS AND FIELDS-- AUSTRIAN TROOPS--A PETTY DUKE AND A GREAT TYRANT--SUSPECTED TRAITORS--LADIES UNDER ARREST--MODENESE n.o.bILITY--SPLENDOR AND MEANNESS--CORREGIO'S BAG OF COPPER COIN--PICTURE GALLERY-- CHIEF OF THE CONSPIRATORS--OPPRESSIVE LAWS--ANTIQUITY-- MUSEUM--BOLOGNA--Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS OF Ta.s.sO AND ARIOSTO--THE PO--AUSTRIAN CUSTOM-HOUSE--POLICE OFFICERS--DIFFICULTY ON BOARD THE STEAMBOAT--VENICE ONCE MORE, ETC.
After five or six weeks _sejour_ at the baths of Lucca, the only exception to the pleasure of which was an attack of the ”country fever,” I am again on the road, with a pleasant party, bound for Venice; but pa.s.sing by cities I had not seen, I have been from one place to another for a week, till I find myself to-day in Modena--a place I might as well not have seen at all as to have hurried through, as I was compelled to do a month or two since. To go back a little, however, our first stopping-place was the city of Lucca, about fifteen miles from the baths; a little, clean, beautiful gem of a town, with a wall three miles round only, and on the top of it a broad carriage road, giving you on every side views of the best cultivated and loveliest country in Italy. The traveller finds nothing so rural and quiet, nothing so happy-looking, in the whole land. The radius to the horizon is nowhere more than five or six miles; and the bright green farms and luxuriant vineyards stretch from the foot of the wall to the summits of the lovely mountains which form the theatre around.
It is a very ancient town, but the duchy is so rich and flouris.h.i.+ng that it bears none of the marks of decay, so common to even more modern towns in Italy. Here Caesar is said to have stopped to deliberate on pa.s.sing the Rubicon.
The palace of the Duke is the _prettiest_ I ever saw. There is not a room in it you could not _live_ in--and no feeling is less common than this in visiting palaces. It is furnished with splendor, too--but with such an eye to comfort, such taste and elegance, that you would respect the prince's affections that should order such a one. The Duke of Lucca, however, is never at home. He is a young man of twenty-eight or thirty, and spends his time and money in travelling, as caprice takes him. He has been now for a year at Vienna, where he spends the revenue of these rich plains most lavishly. The d.u.c.h.ess, too, travels always, but in a different direction, and the people complain loudly of the desertion. For many years they have now been both absent and parted. The Duke is a member of the royal family of Spain, and at the death of Maria Louisa of Parma, he becomes Duke of Parma, and the duchy goes to Tuscany.
From Lucca we crossed the Appenines, by a road seldom travelled, performing the hundred miles to Modena in three days. We suffered, as all must who leave the high roads in continental countries, more privations than the novelty was worth. The mountain scenery was fine, of course, but I think less so than that on the pa.s.ses between Florence and Bologna, the account of which I wrote a few weeks since.
We were too happy to get to Modena.
Modena lies in the vast campagna lying between the Appenines and the Adriatic--an immense plain looking like the sea as far as the eye can stretch from north to south. The view of it from the mountains in descending is magnificent beyond description. The capital of the little duchy lay in the midst of us, like a speck on a green carpet, and smaller towns and rivers varied its else unbroken surface of vineyards and fields. We reached the gates just as a fine sunset was reddening the ramparts and towers, and giving up our pa.s.sports to the soldier on guard, rattled into the hotel.
The town is full of Austrian troops, and in our walk to the ducal palace we met scarce any one else. The streets look gloomy and neglected, and the people singularly dispirited and poor. This petty Duke of Modena is a man of about fifty, and said to be the greatest tyrant, after Don Miguel, in the world. The prisons are full of suspected traitors; one hundred and thirty of the best families of the duchy are banished for liberal opinions; three hundred and over are now under arrest (among them a considerable number of ladies); and many of the Modenese n.o.bility are now serving in the galleys for conspiracy. He has been shot at eighteen times. The last man who attempted it, as I stated in a former letter, was executed the morning I pa.s.sed through Modena on my return from Venice. With all this he is a fine soldier, and his capital looks in all respects like a garrison in the first style of discipline. He is just now absent at a chateau three miles in the country.