University of Virginia Library

51. LETTER LI.

I am about starting on my second visit to Rome,
after having passed nearly three months in Florence.
As I have seen most of the society of this gayest and
fairest of the Italian cities, it may not be uninteresting
to depart a little from the traveller's routine by sketching
a feature or two.

Florence is a resort for strangers from every part of
the world. The gay society is a mixture of all nations,
of whom one third may be Florentine, one
third English, and the remaining part equally divided
between Russians, Germans, French, Poles, and Americans.
The English entertain a great deal, and give
most of the balls and dinner parties. The Floren

tines seldom trouble themselves to give parties, but
are always at home for visits in the prima sera (from
seven till nine), and in their box at the opera. They
go, without scruple, to all the strangers' balls, considering
courtesy repaid, perhaps, by the weekly reception
of the grand duke, and a weekly ball at the club-house
of young Italian nobles.

The ducal entertainments occur every Tuesday,
and are the most splendid of course. The foreign
ministers present all of their countrymen who have
been presented at their own courts, and the company
is necessarily more select than elsewhere. The Florentines
who go to court are about seven hundred, of
whom half are invited on each week—strangers, when
once presented, having the double privilege of coming
uninvited to all. There are several Italian families,
of the highest rank, who are seen only here; but,
with the single exception of one unmarried girl, of
uncommon beauty, who bears a name celebrated in
Italian history, they are no loss to general society.
Among the foreigners of rank, are three or four German
princes, who play high and waltz well, and are
remarkable for nothing else; half a dozen star-wearing
dukes, counts, and marquises, of all nations and in
any quantity, and a few English noblemen and noble
ladies—only the latter nation showing their blood at
all in their features and bearing.

The most exclusive society is that of the Prince
Montfort (Jerome Bonaparte), whose splendid palace
is shut entirely against the English, and difficult of
access to all. He makes a single exception in favor
of a descendant of the Talbots, a lady whose beauty
might be an apology for a much graver departure
from rule. He has given two grand entertainments
since the carnival commenced, to which nothing was
wanting but people to enjoy them. The immense
rooms were flooded with light, the music was the best
Florence could give, the supper might have supped
an army—stars and red ribands entered with every
fresh comer, but it looked like a “banquet hall deserted.”
Some thirty ladies, and as many men, were all
that Florence contained worthy of the society of the
ex-king. A kinder man in his manners, however, or
apparently a more affectionate husband and father, I
never saw. He opened the dance by waltzing with
the young princess, his daughter, a lovely girl of fourteen,
of whom he seems fond to excess, and he was
quite the gayest person in the company till the ball
was over. The ex-queen, who is a miracle of size,
sat on a divan, with her ladies of honor about her, following
her husband with her eyes, and enjoying his
gayety with the most childish good humor.

The Saturday evening soirées, at Prince Poniatowski's
(a brother of the hero), are perhaps as agreeable
as any in Florence. He has several grown-up
sons and daughters married, and, with a very sumptuous
palace and great liberality of style, he has made
his parties more than usually valued. His eldest
daughter is the leader of the fashion, and his second
is the “cynosure of all eyes.” The old prince is a
tall, bent, venerable man, with snow-white hair, and
very peculiarly marked features. He is fond of speaking
English, and professes a great affection for America.

Then there are the soirées of the rich banker, Fenzi,
which, as they are subservient to business, assemble
all ranks on the common pretensions of interest.
At the last, I saw, among other curiosities, a young
girl of eighteen from one of the more common families
of Florence—a fine specimen of the peasant
beauty of Italy. Her heavily moulded figure, hands,
and feet, were quite forgiven when you looked at her
dark, deep, indolent eye, and glowing skin, and strongly-lined
mouth and forehead. The society was evidently
new to her, but she had a manner quite beyond
being astonished. It was the kind of animal dignity
so universal in the lower classes of this country.

A German baroness of high rank receives on the
Mondays, and here one sees foreign society in its
highest coloring. The prettiest woman that frequents
her parties, is a Genoese marchioness, who has left her
husband to live with a Lucchese count, who has left
his wife. He is a very accomplished man, with the
look of Mephistopheles in the “Devil's Walk,” and
she is certainly a most fascinating woman. She is received
in most of the good society of Florence—a severe,
though a very just comment on its character. A
prince, the brother of the king of—, divided the
attention of the company with her last Monday. He
is a tall, military-looking man, with very bad manners,
ill at ease, and impudent at the same time. He entered
with his suite in the middle of a song. The
singer stopped, the company rose, the prince swept
about, bowing like a dancing-master, and, after the
sensation had subsided, the ladies were taken up and
presented to him, one by one. He asked them all the
same question, stayed through two songs, which he
spoiled by talking loudly all the while, and then bowed
himself out in the same awkward style, leaving everybody
more happy for his departure.

One gains little by his opportunities of meeting
Italian ladies in society. The cavaliere servente flourishes
still as in the days of Beppo, and it is to him
only that the lady condescends to talk. There is a
delicate, refined-looking, little marchioness here, who
is remarkable as being the only known Italian lady
without a cavalier. They tell you, with an amused
smile, “that she is content with her husband.” It
really seems to be a business of real love between the
lady of Italy and her cavalier. Naturally enough too
—for her patients marry her without consulting her at
all, and she selects a friend afterward, as ladies in other
countries select a lover, who is to end in a husband.
The married couple are never seen together by any
accident, and the lady and her cavalier never apart.
The latter is always invited with her as a matter of
course, and the husband, if there is room, or if he is
not forgotten. She is insulted if asked without a cavalier,
but is quite indifferent whether her husband
goes with her or not. These are points really settled
in the policy of society, and the rights of the cavalier
are specified in the marriage contracts. I had thought,
until I came to Italy, that such things were either a
romance, or customs of an age gone by.

I like very much the personal manners of the Italians.
They are mild and courteous to the farthest extent
of looks and words. They do not entertain, it is
true, but their great dim rooms are free to you whenever
you can find them at home, and you are at liberty
to join the gossipping circle around the lady of
the house, or sit at the table and read, or be silent
unquestioned. You are let alone, if you seem to
choose it, and it is neither commented on, nor thought
uncivil, and this I take to be a grand excellence in
manners.

The society is dissolute, I think, almost without an
exception. The English fall into its habits, with the
difference that they do not conceal it so well, and have
the appearance of knowing its wrong—which the Italians
have not. The latter are very much shocked at the
want of propriety in the management of the English.
To suffer the particulars of an intrigue to get about is
a worse sin, in their eyes, than any violation of the
commandments. It is scarce possible for an American
to conceive the universal corruption of a society
like this of Florence, though, if he were not told of
it he would think it all that was delicate and attractive.
There are external features in which the society
of our own country is far less scrupulous and
proper.