University of Virginia Library

47. LETTER XLVII.

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, passing through the body-guard of young
nobles, was met at the door of the antechamber 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—travelling at
present in Italy, and waiting to be presented by the
Austrian ambassador—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 ambassador, 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 embassy. 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 noble 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 nobles, 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 assured 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 passes 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 can not 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 passing
through a long gallery, lined with exotics and grenadiers,
we arrived at the anteroom, where the duke's
body-guard of nobles 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 presentations. 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 assembled, crowded them
with a dazzling show of jewels, flowers, feathers, and
uniforms.

The duke and the grand dutchess (the widow of the
late duke) stood in the centre of the room, and in the
pauses of conversation, the different ambassadors 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 flashing 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 reestablishment
of the Jesuits in Florence.

As soon as the presentations were over, the grand
duke led out the wife of the English ambassador, and
opened the ball with a waltz. He then danced a
quadrille with the wife of the French ambassador, 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
assembly; 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 sex 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 English! Her form has
just ripened into womanhood. The bust still wants
fulness, 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 unob
served. 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 anticipate.
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.