The Duchessa was overjoyed.
"If we are driven out of Parma," she told him, "we shall come and visit you at Naples.
But since you agree, until further orders, to try for the violet stockings, the Conte, who knows the Italy of to-day through and through, has given me an idea to suggest to you. Believe or not, as you choose, what they teach you, but never raise any objection.
Imagine that they are teaching you the rules of the game of whist; would you raise any objection to the rules of whist?
I have told the Conte that you do believe, and he is delighted to hear it; it is useful in this world and in the next.
But, if you believe, do not fall into the vulgar habit of speaking with horror of Voltaire, Diderot, Raynal and all those harebrained Frenchmen who paved the way to the Dual Chamber.
Their names should not be allowed to pass your lips, but if you must mention them, speak of these gentlemen with a calm irony: they are people who have long since been refuted and whose attacks are no longer of any consequence.
Believe blindly everything that they tell you at the Academy.
Bear in mind that there are people who will make a careful note of your slightest objections; they will forgive you a little amorous intrigue if it is done in the proper way, but not a doubt: age stifles intrigue but encourages doubt.
Act on this principle at the tribunal of penitence.
You shall have a letter of recommendation to a Bishop who is factotum to the Cardinal Archbishop of Naples: to him alone you should admit your escapade in France and your presence on the 18th of June in the neighbourhood of Waterloo.
Even then, cut it as short as possible, confess it only so that they cannot reproach you with having kept it secret.
You were so young at the time!
"The second idea which the Conte sends you is this: if there should occur to you a brilliant argument, a triumphant retort that will change the course of the conversation, do not give in to the temptation to shine; remain silent: people of any discernment will see your cleverness in your eyes.
It will be time enough to be witty when you are a Bishop."
Fabrizio began his life at Naples with an unpretentious carriage and four servants, good Milanese, whom his aunt had sent him.
After a year of study, no one said of him that he was a man of parts: people looked upon him as a great nobleman, of a studious bent, extremely generous, but something of a libertine.
That year, amusing enough for Fabrizio, was terrible for the Duchessa.
The Conte was three or four times within an inch of ruin; the Prince, more timorous than ever, because he was ill that year, believed that by dismissing him he could free himself from the odium of the executions carried out before the Conte had entered his service.
Rassi was the cherished favourite who must at all costs be retained.
The Conte's perils won him the passionate attachment of the Duchessa; she gave no more thought to Fabrizio.
To lend colour to their possible retirement, it appeared that the air of Parma, which was indeed a trifle damp as it is everywhere in Lombardy, did not at all agree with her.
Finally, after intervals of disgrace which went so far as to, make the Conte, though Prime Minister, spend sometimes twenty whole days without seeing his master privately, Mosca won; he secured the appointment of General Fabio Conti, the so-called Liberal, as governor of the citadel in which were imprisoned the Liberals condemned by Rassi.
"If Conti shows any leniency towards his prisoners," Mosca observed to his lady, "he will be disgraced as a Jacobin whose political theories have made him forget his duty as a general; if he shows himself stern and pitiless, and that, to my mind, is the direction in which he will tend, he ceases to be the leader of his own party and alienates all the families that have a relative in the citadel.
This poor man has learned how to assume an air of awed respect on the approach of the Prince; if necessary, he changes his clothes four times a day; he can discuss a question of etiquette, but his is not a head capable of following the difficult path by which alone he can save himself from destruction; and in any case, I am there."
The day after the appointment of General Fabio Conti, which brought the ministerial crisis to an end, it was announced that Parma was to have an ultra-monarchist newspaper.
"What feuds the paper will create!" said the Duchessa.
"This paper, the idea of which is perhaps my masterpiece," replied the Conte with a smile, "I shall gradually and quite against my will allow to pass into the hands of the ultra-rabid section.
I have attached some good salaries to the editorial posts.
People are coming from all quarters to beg for employment on it; the excitement will help us through the next month or two, and people will forget the danger I have been in.
Those seriously minded gentlemen P—— and D——— are already on the list."
"But this paper will be quite revoltingly absurd."
"I am reckoning on that," replied the Conte. "The Prince will read it every morning and admire the doctrines taught by myself as its founder.
As to the details, he will approve or be shocked; of the hours which he devotes every day to work, two will be taken up in this way.
The paper will get itself into trouble, but when the serious complaints begin to come in, in eight or ten months' time, it will be entirely in the hands of the ultra-rabids.
It will be this party, which is annoying me, that will have to answer; as for me, I shall raise objections to the paper; but after all I greatly prefer a hundred absurdities to one hanging.
Who remembers an absurdity two years after the publication of the official gazette!
It is better than having the sons and family of the hanged men vowing a hatred which will last as long as I shall and may perhaps shorten my life."
The Duchessa, always passionately interested in something, always active, never idle, had more spirit than the whole court of Parma put together; but she lacked the patience and impassivity necessary for success in intrigue.
However, she had managed to follow with passionate excitement the interests of the various groups, she was beginning even to establish a certain personal reputation with the Prince.
Clara-Paolina, the Princess Consort, surrounded with honours but a prisoner to the most antiquated etiquette, looked upon herself as the unhappiest of women.
The Duchessa Sanseverina paid her various attentions and tried to prove to her that she was by no means so unhappy as she supposed.
It should be explained that the Prince saw his wife only at dinner: this meal lasted for thirty minutes, and the Prince would spend whole weeks without saying a word to Clara-Paolina.
Signora Sanseverina attempted to change all this; she amused the Prince, all the more as she had managed to retain her independence intact.
Had she wished to do so, she could not have succeeded in never hurting any of the fools who swarmed about this court.
It was this utter inadaptability on her part that led to her being execrated by the common run of courtiers, all Conti or Marchesi, with an average income of 5,000 lire.
She realised this disadvantage after the first few days, and devoted herself exclusively to pleasing the Sovereign and his Consort, the latter of whom was in absolute control of the Crown Prince.
The Duchessa knew how to amuse the Sovereign, and profited by the extreme attention he paid to her lightest word to put in some shrewd thrusts at the courtiers who hated her.
After the foolish actions that Rassi had made him commit, and for foolishness that sheds blood there is no reparation, the Prince was sometimes afraid and was often bored, which had brought him to a state of morbid envy; he felt that he was deriving little amusement from life, and grew sombre when he saw other people amused; the sight of happiness made him furious.
"We must keep our love secret," she told her admirer, and gave the Prince to understand that she was only very moderately attached to the Conte, who for that matter was so thoroughly deserving of esteem.