Part 20 (1/2)
LETTER XLVII.
FLORENCE--GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY--THE GRAND CHAMBERLAIN--PRINCE DE LIGNE--THE AUSTRIAN AMBa.s.sADOR--THE MARQUIS TORRIGIANI--LEOPOLD OF TUSCANY--VIEWS OF THE VAL D'ARNO--SPLENDID BALL--TREES OF CANDLES--THE DUKE AND d.u.c.h.eSS--HIGHBORN ITALIAN AND ENGLISH BEAUTIES, ETC., ETC.
I was presented to the grand Duke of Tuscany yesterday morning, at a private audience. As we have no minister at this court, I drove alone to the ducal palace, and, pa.s.sing through the body-guard of young n.o.bles, was met at the door of the ante-chamber by the Marquis Corsi, the grand chamberlain. Around a blazing fire, in this room, stood five or six persons, in splendid uniforms, to whom I was introduced on entering. One was the Prince de Ligne--traveling at present in Italy, and waiting to be presented by the Austrian amba.s.sador--a young and remarkably handsome man of twenty-five. He showed a knowledge of America, in the course of a half hour's conversation, which rather surprised me, inquiring particularly about the residences and condition of the United States' ministers whom he had met at the various courts of Europe. The Austrian amba.s.sador, an old, wily-looking man, covered with orders, joined in the conversation and asked after our former minister at Paris, Mr. Brown, remarking that he had done the United States great credit, during his emba.s.sy. He had known Mr. Gallatin also, and spoke highly of him. Mr. Van Buren's election to the vice-presidency, after his recall, seemed greatly to surprise him.
The Prince was summoned to the presence of the Duke, and I remained some fifteen minutes in conversation with a venerable and n.o.ble-looking man, the Marquis Torrigiani, one of the chamberlains.
His eldest son has lately gone upon his travels in the United States, in company with Mr. Thorn, an American gentleman living in Florence.
He seemed to think the voyage a great undertaking. Torrigiani is one of the oldest of the Florentine n.o.bles, and his family is in high esteem.
As the Austrian minister came out, the Grand Chamberlain came for me, and I entered the presence of the Duke. He was standing quite alone in a small, plain room, dressed in a simple white uniform, with a star upon his breast--a slender, pale, scholar-like looking young man, of perhaps thirty years. He received me with a pleasant smile, and crossing his hands behind him, came close to me, and commenced questioning me about America. The departure of young Torrigiani for the United States pleased him, and he said he should like to go himself--”but,” said he, ”a voyage of three thousand miles and back--_comment faire!_” and he threw out his hands with a look of mock despair that was very expressive. He a.s.sured me he felt great pleasure at Mr. Thorn's having taken up his residence in Florence. He had sent for his whole family a few days before, and promised them every attention to their comfort during the absence of Mr. Thorn. He said young Torrigiani was _bien instruit_, and would travel to advantage, without doubt. At every pause of his inquiries, he looked me full in the eyes, and seemed anxious to yield me the _parole_ and listen. He bowed with a smile, after I had been with him perhaps half an hour, and I took my leave with all the impressions of his character which common report had given me, quite confirmed. He is said to be the best monarch in Europe, and it is written most expressively in his mild, amiable features.
The Duke is very unwilling to marry again, although the crown pa.s.ses from his family if he die without a male heir. He has two daughters, lovely children, between five and seven, whose mother died not quite a year since. She was unusually beloved, both by her husband and his subjects, and is still talked of by the people, and never without the deepest regret. She was very religious, and is said to have died of a cold taken in doing a severe penance. The Duke watched with her day and night, till she died; and I was told by the old Chamberlain, that he cannot yet speak of her without tears.
With the new year, the Grand Duke of Tuscany threw off his mourning.
Not from his countenance, for the sadness of that is habitual; but his equipages have laid off their black trappings, his grooms and outriders are in drab and gold, and, more important to us strangers in his capital, the ducal palace is aired with a weekly reception and ball, as splendid and hospitable as money and taste can make them.
Leopold of Tuscany is said to be the richest individual in Europe. The Palazzo Pitti, in which he lives, seems to confirm it. The exterior is marked with the character of the times in which it was built, and might be that of a fortress--its long, dark front of roughly-hewn stone, with its two slight, out-curving wings, bearing a look of more strength than beauty. The interior is incalculably rich. The suite of halls on the front side is the home of the choicest and most extensive gallery of pictures in the world. The tables of inlaid gems and mosaic, the walls encrusted with relievos, the curious floors, the drapery--all satiate the eye with sumptuousness. It is built against a hill, and I was surprised, on the night of the ball, to find myself alighting from the carriage upon the same floor to which I had mounted from the front by tediously long staircases. The Duke thus rides in his carriage to his upper story--an advantage which saves him no little fatigue and exposure. The gardens of the Boboli, which cover the hill behind, rise far above the turrets of the palace, and command glorious views of the Val d'Arno.
The reception hour at the ball was from eight to nine. We were received at the steps on the garden side of the palace, by a crowd of servants, in livery, under the orders of a fat major-domo, and pa.s.sing through a long gallery, lined with exotics and grenadiers, we arrived at the anteroom, where the Duke's body-guard of n.o.bles were drawn up in attendance. The band was playing delightfully in the saloon beyond.
I had arrived late, having been presented a few days before, and desirous of avoiding the stiffness of the first hour of presentation.
The rooms were in a blaze of light from eight _trees_ of candles, cypress-shaped, and reaching from the floor to the ceiling, and the company entirely a.s.sembled, crowded them with a dazzling show of jewels, flowers, feathers, and uniforms.
The Duke and the Grand d.u.c.h.ess (the widow of the late Duke) stood in the centre of the room, and in the pauses of conversation, the different amba.s.sadors presented their countrymen. His highness was dressed in a suit of plain black, probably the worst made clothes in Florence. With his pale, timid face, his bent shoulders, an inexpressibly ill-tied cravat, and rank, untrimmed whiskers, he was the most uncourtly person present. His extreme popularity as a monarch is certainly very independent of his personal address. His mother-in-law is about his own age, with marked features, full of talent, a pale, high forehead, and the bearing altogether of a queen.
She wore a small diadem of the purest diamonds, and with her height and her flas.h.i.+ng jewels, she was conspicuous from every part of the room. She is a high Catholic, and is said to be bending all her powers upon the re-establishment of the Jesuits in Florence.
As soon as the presentations were over, the Grand Duke led out the wife of the English amba.s.sador, and opened the ball with a waltz. He then danced a quadrille with the wife of the French amba.s.sador, and for his next partner selected an _American lady_--the daughter of Colonel T----, of New York.
The supper rooms were opened early, and among the delicacies of a table loaded with everything rare and luxurious, were a brace or two of pheasants from the Duke's estates in Germany. Duly flavored with _truffes_, and accompanied with Rhine wines, which deserved the conspicuous place given them upon the royal table--and in this letter.
I hardly dare speak of the degree of _beauty_ in the a.s.sembly; it is so difficult to compare a new impression with an old one, and the thing itself is so indefinite. But there were two persons present whose extreme loveliness, as it is not disputed even by admiring envy, may be worth describing, for the sake of the comparison.
The Princess S---- may be twenty-four years of age. She is of the middle height, with the slight stoop in her shoulders, which is rather a grace than a fault. Her bust is exquisitely turned, her neck slender but full, her arms, hands, and feet, those of a Psyche. Her face is the abstraction of highborn Italian beauty--calm, almost to indifference, of an indescribably _glowing paleness_--a complexion that would be alabaster if it were not for the richness of the blood beneath, betrayed in lips whose depth of color and fineness of curve seem only too curiously beautiful to be the work of nature. Her eyes are dark and large, and must have had an indolent expression in her childhood, but are now the very seat and soul of feeling. A constant trace of pain mars the beauty of her forehead. She dresses her hair with a kind of characteristic departure from the mode, parting its glossy flakes on her brow with nymph-like simplicity, a peculiarity which one regrets not to see in the too Parisian dress of her person.
In her manner she is strikingly elegant, but without being absent, she seems to give an unconscious attention to what is about her, and to be gracious and winning without knowing or intending it, merely because she could not listen or speak otherwise. Her voice is sweet, and, in her own Italian, mellow and soft to a degree inconceivable by those who have not heard this delicious language spoken in its native land.
With all these advantages, and a look of pride that nothing could insult, there is an expression in her beautiful face that reminds you of her s.e.x and its temptations, and prepares you fully for the history which you may hear from the first woman that stands at your elbow.
The other is that English girl of seventeen, shrinking timidly from the crowd, and leaning with her hands clasped over her father's arm, apparently listening only to the waltz, and unconscious that every eye is fixed upon her in admiration. She has lived all her life in Italy, but has been bred by an English mother, in a retired villa of the Val d'Arno--her character and feelings are those of her race, and nothing of Italy about her, but the glow of its sunny clime in the else spotless snow of her complexion, and an enthusiasm in her downcast eye that you may account for as you will--it is not Englis.h.!.+ Her form has just ripened into womanhood. The bust still wants fullness, and the step confidence. Her forehead is rather too intellectual to be maidenly; but the droop of her singularly long eye-lashes over eyes that elude the most guarded glance of your own, and the modest expression of her lips closed but not pressed together, redeem her from any look of conscious superiority, and convince you that she only seeks to be un.o.bserved. A single ringlet of golden brown hair falls nearly to her shoulder, catching the light upon its glossy curves with an effect that would enchant a painter. Lilies of the valley, the first of the season, are in her bosom and her hair, and she might be the personification of the flower for delicacy and beauty. You are only disappointed in talking with her. She expresses herself with a nerve and self-command, which, from a slight glance, you did not antic.i.p.ate. She shrinks from the general eye, but in conversation she is the high-minded woman more than the timid child for which her manner seems to mark her. In either light, she is the very presence of purity. She stands by the side of her not less beautiful rival, like a Madonna by a Magdalen--both seem not at home in the world, but only one could have dropped from heaven.
LETTER XLVIII.
VALLOMBROSA--ITALIAN OXEN--CONVENT--SERVICE IN THE CHAPEL--HOUSE OCCUPIED BY MILTON.
I left Florence for Vallombrosa at daylight on a warm summer's morning, in company with four ladies. We drove along the northern bank of the Arno for four or five miles, pa.s.sing several beautiful villas, belonging to the Florentine n.o.bles; and, crossing the river by a picturesque bridge, took the road to the village of Pelago, which lies at the foot of the mountain, and is the farthest point to which a carriage can mount. It is about fourteen miles from Florence, and the ascent thence to the convent is nearly three.