Italian Letters of a Diplomat's Wife: January-May, 1880; February-April, 1904. Mary King Waddington
with his tall, slight figure and white lock. (I forgot to look if the boy had it.) She looked very handsome. We had the Minghettis, a Polish Countess—sister-in-law of the Duc de Sermoneta, the Calabrinis, and M. Heding, a German savant. Minghetti was delightful, telling us his early experiences with the old Pope, Pio Nono. He was killing over the entente between the government and the monks for the suppression of the monasteries. The gendarmes arrived, found barred doors and resistance. There was a sort of halt and parley—one father came out, then another—a little livret of the Caisse d'Epargne was put into their hands, and all went off as quietly as possible. Heding seemed to think things wouldn't go so easily in Germany, and they certainly wouldn't in France.
Madame Minghetti and I talked for a long time after dinner exchanging our experiences of the official world, which I fancy is always the same in all countries. Calabrini was of course his same courteous self—so absolutely free from pose of any kind—rather unusual in a man who has always had such a success.
This morning we went to Trajan's Forum, walked, W. as usual quite at home, everywhere recognising old friends at every step. We looked at all manner of inscriptions and basso-rilievos, and enjoyed ourselves very much. This afternoon W. and Schuyler went off together to see some churches and the Palazzo dei Cesari. I backed out, as I can't stand two sight-seeings the same day with a dinner in prospect in the evening. I went over to get Gert, and we drove about together, winding up at the Comtesse Wimpffens, Austrian Ambassadress, who has a charming apartment in the Palazzo Chigi (where Odo Russell used to live when we were in Rome). There were various ladies there, the Marquise de Noailles, French Ambassadress (who immediately asked me who made my dress, the blue velvet that did all my visits the last year of the Quai d'Orsay), Lady Paget, Madame Minghetti, and a sprinkling of secretaries and attachés. Comtesse d'Aulnay, looking very pretty, very well dressed, came in just as we were leaving. We wound up with a turn in the Villa Borghese. There were grooms waiting at the gate with saddle horses, just as our old Carmine used to wait for us. It is all so curiously familiar and yet changed. I can't get accustomed to the quantities of people in the streets where there never used to be any one—occasionally a priest, or a few beggars, or a water-carrier. Now there are soldiers, people carrying parcels, small employees, workmen, carts, carriages, life in fact. There were quantities of people in the Villa Borghese. Some of the carriages very well turned out, again very different from our days when we knew every carriage, and when a new equipage or a new face made a sensation.
W. has had a delightful afternoon looking at some of the very old churches with Eugene. He had, too, a note from Desprez saying our audience from the Pope would be to-morrow at one o'clock, and giving me the necessary instructions for my veil, long black dress, etc. To-morrow night we dine at the Noailles. The breakfast there the other day was pleasant—no one but ourselves and Ripalda. Of course it is a magnificent Embassy—the Farnese Palace—and they do it very well, but it would take an army of servants to "garnish" these long anterooms and passages, in fact ordinary servants are quite lost there; there ought to be Swiss guards or halberdiers with steel cuirasses and lances which would stand out splendidly from the old grey walls. One could quite imagine an Ambassador of Louis XIV arriving with 100 gentlemen and armed retainers in his suite. The famous room with the Caracci frescoes must be beautiful at night. Ripalda asked us to come to tea one afternoon at his palace on the Tiber, the "Farnesina." Marquise de Noailles was charming.
Now I will say good-night, dear, for I am tired, and we have a busy day to-morrow. I wonder if Leo XIII. will impress me as much as Pio Nono did.
To H. L. K
The Piazza is delightful this morning, dear mother; it is bright and warm, and there are lots of people starting for excursions with guide-books, white umbrellas, and every variety of wrap. The coachmen of the little botte look so smiling and interested, so anxious to make things easy and comfortable. Vera came to see us yesterday, and told me he was hailed by one of the coachmen from the top of his box, just as he was crossing the Piazza, who said to him: "Sai Maestro, una di quelle signorine King è tornata col marito?" (Do you know, master, one of those King young ladies has come back with her husband?) He was much amused—told him he was quite right, and that he was going to see that same signorina. I dare say he had driven us often to one of the gates to meet the saddle horses.
Yesterday was our udienza particolare (special audience), and most interesting it was. Madame Hubert was madly excited dressing me. I wore my black satin, long, with the Spanish lace veil I had brought in case I should be received by his Holiness, and of course no gloves, though I had a pair with me and left them in the carriage. We started at 12.30, as our audience was at one, and got there quickly enough. I had forgotten all the queer little courts and turns at the back of the Vatican. Everything was ready for us; we were received really in royal state—Swiss Guard, with their extraordinary striped yellow uniform (designed, some one told us the other day, by Michelangelo), tall footmen attired in red damask, Guardia Nobile, chamberlains, and two monsignori. The garde noble de service was Felice Malatesta. He really seemed much pleased to see me again, and to make W.'s acquaintance—swore he would have known me at once, I was so little changed; but I rather suspect if he hadn't known we were coming he wouldn't have recognised me. We had a nice talk the few minutes we stood waiting in the room adjoining the one where the Pope received us, and he gave me news of all his family—Emilio (still unmarried), Francesco, etc.; then a door was opened, a monsignore came out, bowed, and said his Holiness was ready to receive us. We went in at once, the monsignore closing the door behind us and leaving us alone with the Pope, who came almost to the door to receive us, so that the three regulation curtseys were impossible. There were three red and gold arm-chairs at one end of the room, with a thick, handsome carpet in front of them. The Pope sat on the one in the middle, put me on his right and W. on his left. He is a very striking figure; tall, slight, a fine intellectual brow and wonderfully bright eyes—absolutely unlike Pio Nono, the only Pope I had ever approached. He was most gracious, spoke to me always in Italian, said he knew I was an old Roman, and that we had lived many years in Rome; spoke French to W., who, though he knows Italian fairly, prefers speaking French. He asked W. all sorts of questions about home politics and the attitude of the clergy, saying that as a Protestant his opinion would be impartial (he was well up in French politics, and knew that there were three Protestants in W.'s ministry: himself, Léon Say, and Freycinet). W. was rather guarded at first (decidedly "banale," I told him afterward), but the Pope looked straight at him with his keen, bright eyes, saying: "Je vous en prie, M. Waddington, parlez sons réserves."
We stayed about three-quarters of an hour, and the talk was most interesting. The Pope is very anxious to bring about a better state of feeling between the clergy and the people in France, and tries so hard to understand why the priests are so unpopular; asked about the country curate, who baptizes the children and buries the old people—surely there must be a feeling of respect for him; said, too, that everywhere in town or country the priests do so much for the sick and poor. W. told him the women all went to church and sent their children to the catechism, but the men are indifferent, if not hostile, and once the boys have made their first communion they never put their foot in a church. "What will keep them straight and make good men of them, if they grow up without any religious education?" The answer was difficult—example and home teaching, when they get it. Evidently he had been curious to see W., and I think he was pleased. It was quite a picture to see the two men—the Pope dressed all in white, sitting very straight in his arm-chair with his two hands resting on the arms of the chair, his head a little bent forward, and listening attentively to every word that W. said. W. drew his chair a little forward, spoke very quietly, as he always does, and said all he wanted to say with just the same steady look in his blue eyes.
From time to time the Pope turned to me and asked me (always in Italian) if politics interested me—he believed all French women were keen politicians; also if I had found many old friends in Rome. I told him I was so pleased to see Felice Malatesta as we came in, and that we were going to meet Cardinal Howard one day at breakfast. I shouldn't think he took as much interest in the social life of Rome as Pio Nono did. They used always to say he knew everything about everybody, and that there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a visit from Odo Russell, who used to tell him all sorts of "petites histoires" when their official business was over.
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