What I Remember Part 12

I remember another somewhat a.n.a.logous adventure of mine, equally ill.u.s.trative of the Florentine habits of those days. I saw a man suddenly stagger and fall in the street. It was in the afternoon, and there were many persons in the street, some of them nearer to the fallen man than I was, but n.o.body, attempted to help him. I stepped forward to do so, and was about to take hold of him and try to raise him, when one of the by-standers eagerly caught me by the arm, saying, "He is dying, he is dying!" "Let us try to raise him," said I, still pressing forward. "You mustn't, you mustn't! It is not permitted," he added, as he perceived that he was speaking to a foreigner, and then went on to explain to me that what must be done was to call the Misericordia, for which purpose one must run and ring a certain bell attached to the chapel of that brotherhood in the Piazza del Duomo.

Among the many things that have been written of the Florentine Misericordia, I do not think that I have met with the statement that it used to be universally believed in Florence that the law gave the black brethren the privilege and the monopoly of picking up any dying or dead person in the streets, and that it was forbidden to any one else to do so. Whether any such _law_ really existed I much doubt, but the custom of acting in accordance with it, and the belief that such practice was imperative, undoubtedly did. And I have no doubt that many a life has been sacrificed to it. The half hour or twenty minutes which necessarily elapsed before the Misericordia could be called and answer the call, must often have been supremely important, and in many cases ought to have been employed in the judicious use of the lancet.

The sight of the black robed and black cowled brethren, as they went about the streets on their errands of mercy, was common enough in Florence. But the holiday visitor had very little opportunity of hearing anything of the internal management and rules of that peculiar mediaeval society or of the nature of the work it did.

The Florentine Misericordia was founded in the days when pestilence was ravaging the city so fiercely that the dead lay uncared for in the streets, because there was no man sufficiently courageous to bury or to touch them. The members of the a.s.sociation, which was formed for the performance of this charitable and arduous duty, chose for themselves a costume, the object of which was the absolute concealment of the individual performing it. A loose black linen gown drapes the figure from the neck to the heels, and a black cowl, with two holes cut for the eyes, covers and effectually conceals the head and face.

For more than five hundred years, up to the present day, the dress remains the same, and no human being, either of those to whom their services are rendered, or of the thousands who see them going about in the performance of their self-imposed duty, can know whether the mysterious weird-looking figure he sees be prince or peasant. He knows that he may be either, for the members of the brotherhood are drawn from all cla.s.ses of society.

It used to be whispered, and I have good reasons for believing the whisper to have been true, that the late Grand Duke was a member, and took his turn of duty with his brethren. Some indiscreet personal attendant blabbed the secret, for a.s.suredly the Duke himself was never untrue to the oath which binds the members to secrecy.

The whole society is divided into a number of companies, one of which is by turns on duty. There is a large, most melancholy and ominously sounding bell in the chapel of the brotherhood (not that already mentioned by which anybody can call the attention of the brother in permanent attendance, but a much larger one), which is heard all over the city. This summons the immediate attendance of every member of the company on duty, and the mysterious black figures may any day be seen hurrying to the rendezvous. There they learn the nature of the call, and the place at which their presence is required.

I remember the case of an English girl who was fearfully burned at a villa at some little distance from the city. The injuries were so severe that, while it was extremely desirable that she should be removed to a hospital, there was much doubt as to the possibility of moving her. In this difficulty the Misericordia were summoned. They came, five or six of them, bringing with them their too well-known black covered litter, and transported the patient to the hospital, lifting her from her bed and placing her in the litter with an exquisitely delicate and skilled gentleness of handling which spared her suffering to the utmost, and excited the surprise and admiration of the English medical man who witnessed the operation. Every part of the work, every movement, was executed in absolute silence and with combined obedience to signalled orders from the leader of the company.

Another case which was brought under my notice was that of a woman suffering from dropsy, which made the necessary removal of her a very arduous and difficult operation. It would probably have been deemed impossible save by the a.s.sistance of the Misericordia, who managed so featly and deftly that those who saw it marvelled at the skill and accurately co-operating force, which nothing but long practice could have made possible.

It is a law of the brotherhood, never broken, that they are to accept nothing, not so much as a gla.s.s of water, in any house to which they are called. The Florentines well know how much they owe as a community, and how much each man may some day come to owe personally to the Misericordia; and when the doleful clang of their well-known bell is heard booming over the city, women may be seen to cross themselves with a muttered prayer, while men, ashamed of their religiosity, but moved by feeling as well as habit, will furtively do the same.

There is an a.s.sociation at Rome copied from that at Florence, and vowed to the performance of very similar duties. I once had an opportunity of seeing the registers of this Roman Misericordia, and was much impressed by the frequently recurring entry of excursions into the Campagna to bring in the corpses of men murdered and left there!

CHAPTER XII.

Among the other things that contributed to make those Florence days very pleasant ones, we did a good deal in the way of private theatricals. Our _impresario_ at least in the earlier part of the time, was Arthur Vansittart. He engaged the Cocomero Theatre for our performances, and to the best of my remembrance defrayed the whole of the expense out of his own pocket. Vansittart was an exceptionally tall man, a thread-paper of a man, and a very bad actor. He was exceedingly noisy, and pushed vivacity to its extreme limits. I remember well his appearance in some play--I fancy it was in _The Road to Ruin_, in which I represented some character, I entirely forget what--where he comes on with a four-in-hand whip in his hand; and I remember, too, that for the other performers in that piece, their appearance on the stage was a service of danger, from which the occupants of the stage boxes were not entirely free. But he was inexhaustibly good-natured and good-humoured, and gave us excellent suppers after the performance.

Then there was Edward Hobhouse, with--more or less with--his exceedingly pretty and clever wife, and her sister, the not at all pretty but still more clever and very witty Miss Graves. Hobhouse was a man abounding in talent of all sorts, extremely witty, brim full of humour, a thorough good fellow and very popular. He and his wife, though very good friends did not entirely pull together; and it used to be told of him, that replying to a man, who asked him "How's your wife?" he answered with much humorous semblance of indignation, "Well!

if you come to that, how's yours?" Hobhouse was far and away the cleverest and best educated man of the little set (these dramatic reminiscences refer to the early years of my Florence life), and in truth was somewhat regrettably wasted in the midst of such a frivolous and idle community. But I take it that he was much of an invalid.

Of course we got up _The Rivals_. I was at first Bob Acres, with an Irishman of the name of Torrens for my Sir Lucius, which he acted, when we could succeed in keeping him sober, to the life. My Bob Acres was not much of a success. And I subsequently took Sir Anthony, which remained my stock part for years, and which I was considered to do well.

Sir Francis Vincent, a resident in Florence for many years, with whom I was for several of them very intimate, played the ungrateful part of Falkland. He was a heavy actor with fairly good elocution and delivery, and not unfitted for a part which it might have been difficult to fill without him. He was to a great degree a reading man, and had a considerable knowledge of the byeways of Florentine history.

My mother "brought the house down" nightly as Mrs. Malaprop; and a very exceptionally beautiful Madame de Parcieu (an Englishwoman married to a Frenchman) was in appearance, _maniere d'etre_, and deportment the veritable _beau ideal_ of Lydia Languish, and might have made _a furore_ on any stage, if it had been possible to induce her to raise her voice sufficiently. She was most good-naturedly amenable. But when she was thus driven against her nature and habits to speak out, all the excellence of her acting was gone. The meaning of the words was taken out of them.

Sir Anthony Absolute became, as I said, my stock part. And the phrase is justified by my having acted it many years afterwards in a totally different company--I the only remaining brick of the old edifice--and to audiences not one of whom could have witnessed the performances of those earlier days. Mrs. Richie, an American lady--who had, I think, been known on a London stage under the name of "Mowatt"--was in those latter days, now so far away in the dim past, our manageress. Mrs.

Proby, the wife, now I am sorry to say the widow, of the British Consul, was on that occasion our Mrs. Malaprop, and was an excellent representative of that popular lady, though she will, I am sure, forgive me for saying not so perfect a one as my mother.

Quite indescribably strange is the effect on my mind of looking back at my three Thespian avatars--Falstaff at Cincinnati, Acres and Sir Anthony in Grand Ducal Florence, and Sir Anthony again in a liberated Tuscany! I seem to myself like some old mail-coach guard, who goes through the whole long journey, while successive coachmen "Leave you here, sir!" But then in my case the pa.s.sengers are all changed too; and I arrive at the end of the journey without one "inside" or "outside" of those who started with me! I can still blow my horn cheerily, however, and chat with the pa.s.sengers, who joined the coach when my journey was half done, as if they were quite old fellow travellers!

It must not be imagined, however, that that pleasant life at Florence was all cakes and ale.

I was upon the whole a hard worker. I wrote a series of volumes on various portions of Italian, and especially Florentine, history, beginning with _The Girlhood of Catherine de Medici_. They were all fairly well received, the _Life of Filippo Strozzi_ perhaps the most so. But the volume on the story of the great quarrel between the Papacy and Venice, ent.i.tled _Paul the Pope and Paul the Friar_, was, I think, the best. The volumes ent.i.tled _A Decade of Italian Women_, and dealing with ten typical historic female figures, has attained, I believe, to some share of public favour. I see it not unfrequently quoted by writers on Italian subjects. Then I made a more ambitious attempt, and produced a _History of the Commonwealth of Florence_, in four volumes.

Such a work appeals, of course, to a comparatively limited audience.

But that it was recognised to have some value among certain Anglo-Saxons whose favourable judgment in the matter was worth having, may be gathered from the fact that it has been a text-book in our own and in transatlantic universities; while a verdict perhaps still more flattering (though I will not say more gratifying) was given by Professor Pasquale Villari (now senator of the kingdom of Italy), who, in a letter in my possession, p.r.o.nounces my history of Florence to be in his opinion the best work on the subject extant.

Professor Villari is not only an accomplished scholar of a wide range of culture, but his praise of any work on Italian--and perhaps especially on Tuscan--history comes from no "prentice han'." His masterly _Life of Macchiavelli_ is as well known in our country as in his own, through the translation of it into English by his gifted wife, Linda Villari, whilom Linda White, and my very valued friend.

All these historical books were written _con amore_. The study of bygone Florentines had an interest for me which was quickened by the daily and hourly study of living Florentines. It was curious to mark in them resemblances of character, temperament, idiosyncrasy, defects, and merits, to those of their forefathers who move and breathe before us in the pages of such old chroniclers as Villani, Segni, Varchi, and the rest, and in sundry fire-graven strophes and lines of their mighty poet. Dante's own local and limited characteristics, as distinguished from the universality of his poetic genius, have always seemed to me quintessentially Tuscan.

Of course it is among the lower orders that such traits are chiefly found, and among the lower orders in the country more than those in the towns. But there is, or was, for I speak of years ago, a considerable conservative pride in their own inherited customs and traditions common to all cla.s.ses.

Especially this is perceived in the speech of the genuine Florentine.

Quaint proverbs, not always of scrupulous refinement, old-world phrases, local allusions, are stuffed into the conversation of your real citizen or citizeness of _Firenze la Gentile_ as thickly as the beads in the _vezzo di corallo_ on the neck of a _contadina_. And above all, the accent--the soft (not to say s...o...b..ring) _c_ and _g_, and the guttural aspirate which turns _casa_ into _hasa_ and _capitale_ into _hapitale_, and so forth--this is cherished with peculiar fondness. I have heard a young, elegant, and accomplished woman discourse in very choice Italian with the accent of a market-woman, and on being remonstrated with for the use of some very pungent proverbial ill.u.s.tration in her talk, she replied with conviction, "That is the right way to speak Tuscan. I have nothing to do with what Italians from other provinces may prefer. But pure, racy Tuscan--the Tuscan tongue that we have inherited--is spoken as I speak it--or ought to be!"

I had gathered together, partly for my own pleasure, and partly in the course of historical researches, a valuable collection of works on _Storia Patria_, which were sold by me when I gave up my house there.

The reading of Italian, even very crabbed and ancient Italian which might have puzzled more than one "elegant scholar," became quite easy and familiar to me, but I have never attained a colloquial mastery over the language. I can talk, to be sure, with the most incorrect fluency, and I can make myself understood--at all events by Italians, whose quick, sympathetic apprehension of one's meaning, and courteous readiness to a.s.sist a foreigner in any linguistic straits, are deserving of grateful recognition from all of us who, however involuntarily, maltreat their beautiful language.

But the colloquial use of a language must be acquired when the organs are young and lissom. I began too late. And besides, I have laboured under the great disadvantage that my deafness prevents me from sharing in the hourly lessons which those who hear all that is going on around them profit by.

Besides the above-mentioned historical works, I wrote well nigh a score, I think, of novels, which also had no great, but a fair, share of success. The majority of them are on Italian subjects; and these, if I may be allowed to say so, are good. The pictures they give of Italian men and women and things and habits are true, vivid, and accurate. Those which I wrote on English subjects are unquestionably bad. I had been living the best part of a life-time out of England; I knew but little comparatively of English life, and I had no business to meddle with such subjects. But besides all this, I was always writing in periodical publications of all sorts, English and American, to such an extent that I should think the bulk of it, if brought together, would exceed that of all the many volumes I am answerable for. No! my life in that Castle of Indolence--Italy--was not a _far-niente_ one!

We were great at picnics in those Florence days. Perhaps the most favourite place of all for such parties was Pratolino, a park belonging to the Grand Duke, about seven miles from Florence, on the Bologna road. These seven miles wave almost all more or less up hill, and when the high ground on which the park is situated has been reached, there is a magnificent view over the Val d'Arno, its thousand villas, and Florence, with its circle of surrounding hills.

There was once a grand ducal residence there, which was famous in the later Medicean days for the multiplicity and ingenuity of its water-works. All kinds of surprises, picturesque and grotesque effects, and practical jokes, had been prepared by the ingenious, but somewhat childish skill of the architect. Turning the handle of a door would produce a shower-bath, sofas would become suddenly boats surrounded by water, and such like more or less disagreeable surprises to visitors, who were new to the specialties of the place. But all this practical joking was at length fatal to the scene of it. The pipes and conduits got out of order, and eventually so ruined the edifice that it had to be taken down, and has never been replaced.

But the princ.i.p.al object of attraction--besides the view, the charming green turf for dining on, the facility for getting hot water, plates, gla.s.ses, &c., from a gardeners house, and a large hall in the same, good for dancing--was the singular colossal figure, representing "The Apennine," said to have been designed by Michael Angelo. One used to clamber up inside this figure, which sits in a half crouching att.i.tude, and reach on the top of the head a platform, on which four or five persons could stand and admire the matchless view.

About three miles further, still always ascending the slope of the Apennine, is a Servite monastery which is the cradle and mother establishment of the order. Sometimes we used to extend our rambles thither. The brethren had the reputation, I remember, of possessing a large and valuable collection of prints. They were not very willing to exhibit it; but I did once succeed in examining it, and, as I remember, found that it contained nothing much worth looking at.

A much more favourite amus.e.m.e.nt of mine was a picnic arranged to last for two or three days, and intended to embrace objects further afield.

Vallombrosa was a favourite and admirably well selected locality for this purpose. And many a day and moonlight night never to be forgotten, have I spent there. Sometimes we pushed our expeditions to the more distant convents--or "Sanctuaries" as they were called--of Camaldoli and Lavernia. And of one very memorable excursion to these two places I shall have to speak in a subsequent chapter.

Meantime those dull mutterings as of distant thunder, which Signor Alberi had, as mentioned at a former page, first signalised to me, were gradually growing into a roar which was attracting the attention and lively interest of all Europe.

Of the steady increase in the volume of this roar, and of the results in which it eventuated, I need say little here, for I have already said enough in a volume ent.i.tled _Tuscany in 1849 and in 1859_. But I may jot down a few recollections of the culminating day of the Florentine revolution.

I had been out from an early hour of that morning, and had a.s.sisted at sundry street discussions of the question, What would the troops do?

Such troops as were in Florence were mainly lodged in the forts, the Fortezza da Ba.s.so, which I have had occasion to mention in a former chapter, and the other situated on the high ground beyond the Boboli Gardens, and therefore immediately above the Pitti Palace. My house at the corner of the large square, now the Piazza dell Indipendenza, was almost immediately under the walls and the guns of the Fortezza da Ba.s.so; but I felt sure that the troops would simply do nothing; might very possibly fraternise with the people; but would in no case burn a cartridge for the purpose of keeping the Grand Duke on his throne.

A short wide street runs in a straight line from the middle of one side of the Piazza to the fort; and a considerable crowd of people, at about ten o'clock, I think, began to advance slowly up this street towards the _fortezza_, and I went with them. High above our heads on the turf-covered top of the lofty wall, there were a good number, perhaps thirty or forty soldiers, not drawn up in line, but apparently merely lounging and enjoying the air and suns.h.i.+ne. They had, I think all of them, their muskets in their hands, but held them idly and with apparently no thought whatever of using them. I felt confirmed in my opinion that they had no intention of doing so.

Arrived at the foot of the fortress wall, the foremost of the people began calling out to the soldiers, "_Abba.s.so l'Austria! Siete per Italia o per l'Austria?_" I did not--and it is significant--hear any cries of "_Abba.s.so il Gran Duca!_" The soldiers, as far as I could see at that distance, appeared to be lazily laughing at the people.

One man called out "_Ecco un bel muro per fraca.s.sare il capo contro!_"--"That is an excellent wall to break your heads against!"

It was very plain that they had no intention of making any hostile demonstration against the crowd. At the same time there was no sort of manifestation of any inclination to fraternise with the revolutionists. They were simply waiting to see how matters would go; and under the circ.u.mstances they can hardly be severely blamed for doing so. But there can be no doubt that, whichever way things might go, their view of the matter would be strongly influenced by the very decided opinion that that course would be best which should not imply the necessity for _doing_ anything. I think that the feeling generally in "the army," if such it could be called, was on the whole kindly to the Grand Duke, but not to the extent of being willing to fight anybody, least of all the Florentines, in his defence!

How matters _did_ go it is not necessary to tell here. If ever there was a revolution "made with rose-water," it was the revolution which deposed the poor _gran ciuco_. I don't think it cost any human being in all Florence a scratch or a b.l.o.o.d.y nose. It cost an enormous amount of talking and screaming, but nothing else. At the same time it is fair to remember that the popular leaders could not be sure that matters might not have taken another turn, and that it _might_ have gone hard with some of them. In any case, however, it would not have gone _very_ hard with any of them. Probably exile would have been the worst fate meted out to them. It is true that exile from Tuscany just then would have been attended by a similar difficulty to that which caused the old Scotch lady, when urged to run during an earthquake, to reply, "Ay! but whar wull I run to?"

I do not think there was any bitter, or much even unkind, feeling on the part of the citizens towards the sovereign against whom they rebelled. If any fact or circ.u.mstance could be found which was calculated to hold him up to ridicule, it was eagerly laid hold of, but there was no fiercer feeling.

A report was spread during the days that immediately followed the Duke's departure that orders had been given to the officers in the upper fortress to turn their cannon on the city at the first sign of rising. Such reports were very acceptable to those who for political purposes would fain have seen somewhat of stronger feeling against the Duke. I have good reason to believe that such orders _had_ been given.

But I have still stronger reasons for doubting that they were ever given by the Grand Duke. And I am surest of all, that let them have been given by whom they may, there was not the smallest chance of their being obeyed. As for the Duke himself, I am very sure that he would have given or even done much to prevent any such catastrophe.

But perhaps the most remarkable and most singular scene of all that rose-water revolution was the Duke's departure from his capital and his duchy. Other sovereigns in similar plight have hidden themselves, travestied themselves, had hairbreadth escapes, or have not escaped at all. In Tuscany the fallen ruler went forth in his own carriage with one other following it, both rather heavily laden with luggage. The San Gallo gate is that by which the hea.r.s.e that conveys the day's dead to the cemetery on the slope of the Apennine leaves the city every night. And the Duke pa.s.sed amid the large crowd a.s.sembled at the gate to see him go, as peaceably as the vehicle conveying those whose days in Florence, like his, were at an end, went out a few hours later by the same road.