To my
astonishment, however, my trunks were allowed to pass without being
opened, or even the payment of the customary gratuity. I was told
afterwards that my Italian servant had effected this by telling the
custom-house officers some lie about my being the American Minister.
Pisa has a delightful winter climate, though Madame de Stael has left on
record a condemnation of it, having passed here a season of unusually bad
weather. Orange and lemon trees grow in the open air, and are now loaded
with ripe fruit. The fields in the environs are green with grass nourished
by abundant rains, and are spotted with daisies in blossom. Crops of flax
and various kinds of pulse are showing themselves above the ground, a
circumstance sufficient to show that the cultivators expect nothing like
what we call winter.
Letter V.
Practices of the Italian Courts.
Florence, _May_ 12, 1835.
Night before last, a man-child was born to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
yesterday was a day of great rejoicing in consequence. The five hundred
bells of Florence kept up a horrid ringing through the day, and in the
evening the public edifices and many private houses were illuminated.
To-day and to-morrow the rejoicings continue, and in the mean time the
galleries and museums are closed, lest idle people should amuse themselves
rationally. The Tuscans are pleased with the birth of an heir to the
Dukedom, first because the succession is likely to be kept in a good sort
of a family, and secondly because for want of male children it would have
reverted to the House of Austria, and the province would have been
governed by a foreigner. I am glad of it, also, for the sake of the poor
Tuscans, who are a mild people, and if they must be under a despotism,
deserve to live under a good-natured one.
An Austrian Prince, if he were to govern Tuscany as the Emperor governs
the Lombardo-Venetian territory, would introduce a more just and efficient
system of administering the laws between man and man, but at the same
time a more barbarous severity to political offenders. I saw at Volterra,
last spring, four persons who were condemned at Florence for an alleged
conspiracy against the state. They were walking with instruments of music
in their hands, on the top of the fortress, which commands an extensive
view of mountain, vale, and sea, including the lower Val d'Arno, and
reaching to Leghorn, and even to Corsica. They were well-dressed, and I
was assured their personal comfort was attended to. A different treatment
is the fate of the state prisoners who languish in the dungeons of
Austria. In Tuscany no man's life is taken for any offense whatever, and
banishment is a common sentence against those who are deemed dangerous or
intractable subjects. In all the other provinces a harsher system
prevails. In Sardinia capital executions for political causes are
frequent, and long and mysterious detentions are resorted to, as in
Lombardy, with a view to strike terror into the minds of a discontented
people.
The royal family of Naples kill people by way of amusement. Prince
Charles, a brother of the king, sometime in the month of April last, found
an old man cutting myrtle twigs on some of the royal hunting-grounds, of
which he has the superintendence. He directed his attendants to seize the
offender and tie him to a tree, and when they had done this ordered them
to shoot him. This they refused, upon which he took a loaded musket from
the hands of one of them, and with the greatest deliberation shot him
dead upon the spot. His Royal Highness soon after set out for Rome to
amuse himself with the ceremonies of the Holy Week, and to figure at the
balls given by Torlonia and other Roman nobles, where he signalized
himself by his attentions to the English ladies.
Of the truth of the story I have related I have been assured by several
respectable persons in Naples. About the middle of May I was at the spot
where the murder was said to have been committed. It was on the borders of
the lake of Agnano. We reached it by a hollow winding road, cut deep
through the hills and rocks thousands of years ago. It was a pretty and
solitary spot; a neat pavilion of the royal family stood on the shore, and
the air was fragrant with the blossoms of the white clover and the
innumerable flowers which the soil of Italy, for a short season before the
summer heats and drought, pours forth so profusely. The lake is evidently
the crater of an old volcano: it lies in a perfect bowl of hills, and the
perpetual escape of gas, bubbling up through the water, shows that the
process of chemical decomposition in the earth below has not yet ceased.
Close by, in the side of the circular hill that surrounds the lake, stands
the famous _Grotto del Cane_, closed with a door to enable the keeper to
get a little money from the foreigners who come to visit it. You may be
sure I was careful not to trim any of the myrtles with my penknife.
But to return to Tuscany - it is after all little better than an Austrian
province, like the other countries of Italy. The Grand Duke is a near
relative of the Emperor; he has the rank of colonel in the Austrian
service, and a treaty of offense and defense obliges him to take part in
the wars of Austria to the extent of furnishing ten thousand soldiers. It
is well understood that he is watched by the agents of the Austrian
Government here, who form a sort of high police, to which he and his
cabinet are subject, and that he would not venture upon any measure of
national policy, nor even displace or appoint a minister, without the
consent of Metternich.
