1900] The Duke of Aosta at Turin 365 



reverse of this. In face she is much more French than English (her 

 father, she told us, was French, M. de la Ramee, and her mother an 

 Englishwoman), small featured, soft, and distinguished, with a high 

 forehead, rather prominent blue eyes, dulled and watery with age, 

 almost white hair, and that milk and roses complexion old people some- 

 times acquire, and which gives them a beatified look. It was difficult 

 to believe her capable of such a malevolence as her novel, ' Friendship.' 

 She can never have been a sensual woman, whatever passions she may 

 have revelled in in her writings. Her conversation is good, intellec- 

 tual, without being affected, or the talk of a blue stocking. It gives 

 you the impression of a woman who has thought out her ideas, and 

 has the courage of her opinions. We talked about the inhumanity 

 of modern Europe, especially modern England, and the rage for 

 slaughter, which is its chief feature. Also about Italy and Crispi, 

 who is her bete noir there, as Chamberlain is in England. She talks 

 English perfectly, as she says she does also French and Italian, and com- 

 plained to us of the slipshod writing of the day. It was evidently 

 a pleasure to her to talk, and to find us such good listeners. With 

 Cockerell she was immensely taken, and was curious to know who 

 he could be, for I had not introduced him, and persisted in thinking 

 him a personage in disguise. At the end of a couple of hours we moved 

 to go, but she would have detained us, and made us promise to come 

 again. She cannot, she says, now go to England, on her dogs' account, 

 and, indeed, they monopolize her life. Altogether she is a pathetic 

 figure, condemned to solitude, not by choice, but by necessity, and re- 

 gretting the cheerful society of Florence, an exile imposed on her, I 

 fancy, by poverty and her bitter pen. ' The world,' she said, ' takes 

 its revenge on us for having despised it.' We both left her with feel- 

 ings of respect, almost of affection, certainly of sympathy and pity." 

 [With Cockerell Ouida corresponded to the day of her death, though 

 I believe they never met again.] 



Yet another visit in Italy was to Princess Helene, now Duchess of 

 Aosta, at her palace in Turin, where I had luncheon with her and her 

 husband, who struck me as a kind of understudy of the Emperor 

 William, a good talker but somewhat brusque. As fourth at luncheon 

 there was his stepmother, the Dowager Duchess Letitia Bonaparte, 

 daughter of old Plon Plon, who is much with them. I was introduced 

 to 'both as a revolutionary character in connection with my adventures 

 in Ireland. There was talk also of the Transvaal War, which they, 

 in common with all foreigners, consider an unfortunate, not to say 

 ridiculous, affair for England. The meal was a pleasant one, and in 

 the afternoon Cockerell and I went on by the night train to Paris. My 

 companion in the sleeping car was Colonel Needham, military secre- 

 tary at the Rome Embassy, who told me that Kitchener, who had 



