Queen Victoria loved this renowned old bridge. After one visit, the Marquis Torrigiani, mayor of Florence, rushed to the train station to curtsey for him. She pointed an aggressive finger at him and warned him, “Never touch the Ponte Vecchio.”
Walburga, Lady Paget. she was the great-granddaughter of Justchen von Krosigk, née von der Schulenburg, and the granddaughter of Field Marshal Count Gneisenau.
From his hilltop perch at Villa Bellosguardo, formerly Villa Michelozzi, he could look down the Arno River, over the city of Florence, to Fiesole and the distant mountains.
In the early years of the 20th century, he gives us a dazzling account of his days of martyrdom during a stay in Florence. A gushing portrait of all his tormented and stomach-turning experiences with the local Florentines and Italians: “…a race that has no moral courage, a race he could never fear”
He found comfort in his angelic dogs, his sheep, goats, and sulfur-breasted cockatoos that resided in one of the Villa’s corridors. He found gratification in their battles for a better life for children, animals, and the preservation of ancient buildings, and in his constant imprecations against the Florentines.
The cacophonous inventory of her teatime guests and residents of Villa Bellosguardo included Madame Zizi Narishkin, née Princess Kourakin, Crown Princess Bariatinsky, Count Mouravieff, Monsieur and Madame de Zoubow, Princess Croy Solre, née CroyDuelmen, Countess Harrach , sister of Princess Lichnowsky and Resi Palffy.
Shocked by the crimes that had recently been perpetrated in Florence and in Italy in her days in Bellosguardo, Lady Walburga reports that most people are armed, and she herself is armed when she goes out late. Just the other day, she reports, as Marchese Ugo della Gherardesca was driving to her villa, he was mugged by three masked gunmen. He shot one and put the other two to flight. While she was sitting on the balcony of her villa one day, Marchesa Bricchieri was shot in the neck, probably by her own hand. Countless people have been attacked in or near her home on the hilltop of Bellosguardo, and several of the neighboring villages have been looted. Even the Stanhope family home, she reports, has been broken into twice.
Italian newspapers, he continues, are full of disgusting crime articles. There are currently half a dozen cases, some have been ongoing for years: Lieutenant Modugno, accused of shooting a young woman, Teodilinda Murri, who showed her true colors by involving her lover and others to poison her husband, Count Notarbartolo . He recovered from the failed attempt, so he was shot. A lady named Rosacca disappears, perhaps murdered by her son, who collects her pension without reporting her disappearance. In a room in his villa, the young Count De Vecchi is attacked, tied up and forced to make a will bequeathing his great fortune to his assailant, who then threatens the servant and orders him to empty the young count in a bathtub and then throw him into a canal. . Fortunately, the order was never carried out and some time later, upon being detected, the assailant shot himself to avoid his capture. Furthermore, the Minister of Finance, Rosada, commits suicide after only a few days in office.
What state is this country in, he admits.
At the time it tells the story of an Englishman living in Rome who had the laudable custom of giving a certain beggar a coin every time he met him on the road. This beggar, he heard one day, was actually a rich man and a pawnbroker, a “strozzino”, a ruthless “strangler”. The Englishman then walked away from him and put his coins in his pocket.
The beggar deliberately sought revenge. He filed a lawsuit against the Englishman stating that he owed him a large sum of money. The ill-fated Englishman, not a rich man, was in a state of depression. He revealed it to an Italian friend who, unperturbed, replied: “Don’t worry. Leave everything to me.” A short time later, his friend told him that everything was cleared up and that his problems were over.
“How did you get it?” – asked the Englishman.
“Simple. I found five witnesses who were directed to say that they had seen him repay the money.”
“How much did it cost?”
“Very little. A witness in the city only costs 10 francs, and one outside the city walls is even cheaper: 5 francs.”
Lady Paget’s unwavering efforts to alleviate the suffering of animals and children, her campaigns against vivisection, her crusades to preserve ancient monuments, and her “Hygiene Lectures,” as she calls them, command our greatest admiration. She with the Countess Tommasini, she arranged an interview one day with the mayor of Florence to try to put an end to the brutality that was exerted on horses in the area. It was agreed that the Mayor, a lawyer by profession, would receive the ladies at five in the afternoon. Now, it so happened that on that particular afternoon her horses suddenly turned to another, more important mission, and she was left walking to the center of town. She withstood a strong northerly “tramontana” wind, she tells us, as she descended the Bellosguardo hill, crossed the Arno River and reached Palazzo Vecchio where she and the Countess met and then advanced to the mayor’s office. An employee said that the Sindaco could not see the two women that afternoon because he had forgotten about the matter and had other things to do. Lady Paget had failed. She understood the hopelessness of this or any future mission. She rebelled, lashed out at the clerk who could only write and squirm without an answer, and the two ladies went home. Italians, she later reports, are always flabbergasted by direct statements.
Lady Paget then reports that she has lately been completely absorbed in dealing with horses, in Florence a strenuous and strenuous undertaking for so regal a lady. The lie and the double game, she tells us, are exercised freely in such a way that “we northerners” always end up being severely beaten and liquidated.
With the Princess of Croy an attempt was made to persuade the Archbishop to order his parish priests to instruct parishioners to put an end to the wanton killing, by shooting, trapping and netting (and consequently roasting on a stick) the singing birds, especially on Sundays when the entire male population wanders around carrying rifles.
A servant left her after she regularly gave him her dismissal notice. Like all Florentine servants and coachmen, people whom she had hired to put them out of her misery, he claimed three months’ wages and took legal action. Lady Pager was harassed and harassed for months, many lies were fabricated. Her lawyer assured her that she would win, but Italian law can lead to devastating disappointments. She can go on for years.
Fortunately, it only lasted a few months. She won her case, but in the meantime the man had gone to Naples, he was now penniless and Lady Paget had to pay all the costs herself.
Every Italian child threatens you with the law. He will tell you that in a dispute you cannot use a certain expression, if your barking dog breaks people’s nerves, if your donkey has inadvertently brushed against someone in the market, or if your servant has quarreled with someone, you are subject to a pity. lawsuit.
He further mentions that the manners of Italian businessmen are the worst he has ever met, that Italian policemen are uncivilized and irritating, and that the local dog catchers are the scum of the rabble. Tuscan children are taught to be cowards. The first action of a Tuscan when he sees a dog is to hide behind the first protective object he finds, shouting: -Non bite mica? It doesn’t bite, right?
Traveling on Italian trains means putting up with passengers arguing over who has the right to sit in that particular seat, or sleep on that bunk, with furious arguments and threats to take the whole matter to the Questura, police headquarters. Fires on the train, guards, stokers and engineers who get off at each station to talk. The famous Lampo (Lightning) train, crawls on the line from one small station to the next and delays can be a good number of hours.
One day, out for a walk, Lady Paget and her pack of dogs were accosted by the Township’s dog catchers. One of the dogs had lost her dog tag, but the lady had all the regular papers with her showing that she had paid her tax. The dog catchers immediately threw a wire noose around that particular dog’s head and pulled it tight. Lady Paget responded by trying to insert her hand between the wire and the animal’s neck. Meanwhile, a crowd had gathered. Curiously, on this occasion, the horde of curious children, peasants, taxi drivers and cart drivers who were looking at her gave her their full support. Finally, disappointed, the dogmen withdrew without the reward they expected to get from the lady for letting go of the rope and not kidnapping the dog.
As a coda, he relates that for once justice was done: the cruel men were suspended for three months, come what may, and that a week after this unpleasant incident the kennel that had injured his dog and his hand committed two murders and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Lady Walburga concludes her narrative with a moving epilogue, mourning the death of a loved one: The hand of God has taken hold of me. I never wrote another line.