"We are going to fall back into the ordinary Monarchy of the eighteenth century; the confessor and the mistress.
At heart the Prince cares for nothing but mineralogy, and perhaps yourself, Signora.
Since he began to reign, his valet, whose brother I have just made a captain, this brother having nine months' service, his valet, I say, has gone and stuffed into his head that he ought to be the happiest of men because his profile is going to appear on the scudi.
This bright idea has been followed by boredom.
"What he now needs is an Aide-de-Camp, as a remedy for boredom.
Well, even if he were to offer me that famous million which is necessary for us to live comfortably in Naples or Paris, I would not be his remedy for boredom, and spend four or five hours every day with His Highness.
Besides, as I have more brains than he, at the end of a month he would regard me as a monster.
"The late Prince was evil-minded and jealous, but he had been on service and had commanded army corps, which had given him a bearing; he had the stuff in him of which Princes are made, and I could be his Minister, for better or worse.
With this honest fellow of a son, who is candid and really good, I am forced to be an intriguer.
You see me now the rival of the humblest little woman in the Castle, and a very inferior rival, for I shall scorn all the hundred essential details.
For instance, three days ago, one of those women who put out the clean towels every morning in the rooms, took it into her head to make the Prince lose the key of one of his English desks.
Whereupon His Highness refused to deal with any of the business the papers of which happened to be in this desk; as a matter of fact, for twenty francs, they could have taken off the wooden bottom, or used skeleton keys; but Ranuccio-Ernesto V told me that that would be teaching the court locksmith bad habits.
"Up to the present, it has been absolutely impossible for him to adhere to any decision for three days running.
If he had been born Marchese so-and-so, with an ample fortune, this young Prince would have been one of the most estimable men at court, a sort of Louis XVI; but how, with his pious simplicity, is he to resist all the cunningly laid snares that surround him?
And so the drawing-room of your enemy the Marchesa Raversi is more powerful than ever; they have discovered there that I, who gave the order to fire on the people, and was determined to kill three thousand men if necessary, rather than let them outrage the statue of the Prince who had been my master, am a red-hot Liberal, that I wished him to sign a Constitution, and a hundred such absurdities.
With all this talk of a Republic, the fools would prevent us from enjoying the best of Monarchies. In short, Signora, you are the only member of the present Liberal Party of which my enemies make me the head, at whose expense the Prince has not expressed himself in offensive terms; the Archbishop, always perfectly honest, for having spoken in reasonable language of what I did on the unhappy day, is in deep disgrace.
"On the morrow of the day which was not then called unhappy, when it was still true that the revolt had existed, the Prince told the Archbishop that, so that you should not have to take an inferior title on marrying me, he would make me a Duca.
To-day I fancy that it is Rassi, ennobled by me when he sold me the late Prince's secrets, who is going to be made Conte.
In the face of such a promotion as that, I shall cut a sorry figure."
"And the poor Prince will bespatter himself with mud."
"No doubt; but after all he is master, a position which, in less than a fortnight, makes the ridiculous element disappear.
So, dear Duchessa, as at the game of tric-trac, let us get out."
"But we shall not be exactly rich."
"After all, neither you nor I have any need of luxury.
If you give me, at Naples, a seat in a box at San Carlo and a horse, I am more than satisfied; it will never be the amount of luxury with which we live that will give you and me our position, it is the pleasure which the intelligent people of the place may perhaps find in coming to take a dish of tea with you."
"But," the Duchessa went on, "what would have happened, on the unhappy day, if you had held aloof, as I hope you will in future?"
"The troops would have fraternised with the people, there would have been three days of bloodshed and incendiarism (for it would take a hundred years in this country for the Republic to be anything more than an absurdity), then a fortnight of pillage, until two or three regiments supplied from abroad came to put a stop to it.
Ferrante Palla was in the thick of the crowd, full of courage and raging as usual; he had probably a dozen friends who were acting in collusion with hun, which Rassi will make into a superb conspiracy.
One thing certain is that, wearing an incredibly dilapidated coat, he was scattering gold with both hands."
The Duchessa, bewildered by all this information, went in haste to thank the Princess.
As she entered the room the Lady of the Bedchamber handed her a little gold key, which is worn in the belt, and is the badge of supreme authority in the part of the Palace which belongs to the Princess.
Clara-Paolina hastened to dismiss all the company; and, once she was alone with her friend, persisted for some moments in giving only fragmentary explanations.
The Duchessa found it hard to understand what she meant, and answered only with considerable reserve.
At length the Princess burst into tears, and, flinging herself into the Duchessa's arms, cried:
"The days of my misery are going to begin again; my son will treat me worse than his father did!"
"That is what I shall prevent," the Duchessa replied with emphasis. "But first of all," she went on, "I must ask Your Serene Highness to deign to accept this offering of all my gratitude and my profound respect."
"What do you mean?" cried the Princess, full of uneasiness, and fearing a resignation.
"I ask that whenever Your Serene Highness shall permit me to turn to the right the head of that nodding mandarin on her chimneypiece, she will permit me also to call things by their true names."
"Is that all, my dear Duchessa?" cried Clara-Paolina, rising from her seat and hastening herself to put the mandarin's head in the right position: "speak then, with the utmost freedom, Signora Maggiordoma," she said in a charming tone.
"Ma'am," the Duchessa went on, "Your Highness has grasped the situation perfectly; you and I are both running the greatest risk; the sentence passed on Fabrizio has not been quashed; consequently, on the day when they wish to rid themselves of me and to insult you, they will put him back in prison.
Our position is as bad as ever.
As for me personally, I am marrying the Conte, and we are going to set up house in Naples or Paris.
The final stroke of ingratitude of which the Conte is at this moment the victim has entirely disgusted him with public life, and but for the interest Your Serene Highness takes in him, I should advise him to remain in this mess only on condition of the Prince's giving him an enormous sum.
I shall ask leave of Your Highness to explain that the Conte, who had 130,000 francs when he came into office, has to-day an income of barely 20,000 lire.
In vain did I long urge him to think of his pocket.
In my absence, he has picked a quarrel with the Prince's Farmers-General, who were rascals; he has replaced them with other rascals, who have given him 800,000 francs."
"What!" cried the Princess in astonishment; "Heavens, I am extremely annoyed to hear that!"
"Ma'am," replied the Duchessa with the greatest coolness, "must I turn the mandarin's head back to the left?"
"Good heavens, no," exclaimed the Princess; "but I am annoyed that a man of the Conte's character should have thought of enriching himself in such a way."
"But for this peculation he would be despised by all the honest folk."