I was at Genoa, and one spring morning I strolled through a network of narrow streets to the harbour. The sea was as blue as a turquoise, gleaming like a jewel in the sunshine, and I could not resist the temptation to hire a boat and waste an hour gliding over the enchanted waves. The boatman who rowed me was a lively fellow. Luckily for me, as I afterwards realised, he had not the faintest idea who I was, and I let him chatter to his heart’s content. “The old Duke of Galliera gave many million lire to make that,” he said, indicating, with a jerk of his head, the new harbour, hidden from sight by the building on the Molo Vecchio.
“The Duke of Galliera,” he went on, “was a fine gentleman. The Duchess was left a widow, and inherited the enormous, the colossal fortune of her husband. And what did she do? Does the signora know what she did?{214}”
I did know, but I thought it prudent to shake my head.
The man leant on his oars, and looked intently at me.
“The Duchess,” he said, “left the title and every lira she had, and her palace in Bologna, and all the estates of her Duchy, to foreigners. A curse on them! And the Duchess belonged to Genoa; she had relatives in Genoa. Everything went to the Duca di Montpensier, a Frenchman who had become a Spaniard, and now it belongs to his son.”
“Really,” I said; and I did not mention that the Duc de Montpensier was my father-in-law, and that I was actually Duchess of Galliera.
“If I could get hold of that man and his wife, although she is an Infanta of Spain, I would kill them,” he shouted at me fiercely. “I would show them no mercy.”
On the whole I was not sorry when I found myself on land again, and I am convinced that the man would have upset his boat and let me drown, if he had discovered who I was. And I have often wondered who he was; perhaps a relative of the old Duchess. There was truth in the story he told, a{215} mystery which neither I nor anybody else is ever likely to solve. The Duke of Galliera had a son, Philippo Ferrari, who refused absolutely to use the privileges which his birth bestowed upon him. What were his reasons, nobody knows. And why in default of the son, one of the richest duchies in Italy was left to my father-in-law is a question which remains, and is likely to remain, unanswerable. And partly through the strange connection of the family into which I married with Italy, partly through my love of the most beautiful and romantic land in Europe, I have lived there a great deal. I used to stay often at the magnificent palace of the Galliera family in Bologna, a sumptuous place with vast rooms paved with mosaic and glittering with rare marbles. The people of that city of colonnades and cool courtyards took a kindlier view of the new owners of the palace than the Genoese boatman did, and the ancient families of the place had that charm of manner which gives such a fascination to the cultured society of Italian towns. It was a great delight to receive them, and I used to enjoy the balls and parties in that wonderful palace.
In most countries society gathers in the capital,{216} and when there is a Court it acts as a magnet to draw people from the provinces. The unification of Italy, and the erection of the Italian kingdom, had not materially altered the structure of Italian society. It remains what it was when Italy was divided into a number of small states. Rome and the Quirinal do not attract the nobles of Venice, or Florence, or Bologna, or of other historic Italian towns: they continue to spend the winter in the cities with which their families have been associated for centuries, giving to them a certain brilliance which is not to be found in the provincial towns of France or England.
It seems to be the special prerogative of a Queen Mother to be Queen of Hearts, and Queen Margherita holds the same place in the affection of the Italian people as beautiful Queen Alexandra—has ever a Queen been more beloved than she?—holds in England, and the Empress Marie in Russia. I paid a visit to her and King Humbert at the Castle of Monza, their summer home in the outskirts of the town in which the kings of Lombardy were crowned, and, although the etiquette of the Court was severe, she had a charm which made one tolerate the restric{217}tions of palace life. Those about her used to complain that she hardly ever sat down. I have remarked that several queens whom I know have this rather trying capacity for standing, and, as nobody can sit down while they stand, their guests and their ladies-and gentlemen-in-waiting are sometimes a good deal fatigued. Numbers of women are not aware that they owe to Queen Margherita the pretty fashion of wearing a string of pearls in the daytime. But she did not limit herself to the single string of pearls worn by women of fashion, she was simply hung with ropes of pearls morning, noon and night; in fact, I have never seen her without them.
Although the King of Italy made Rome his capital, the other members of the Royal Family have never gone to live there, and con............