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The cellars had only some old straw on the floors, left there by the Prussians. There were six hundred men confined in this place, and the torture they endured from the close air, the filth, and the impossibility of lying down at night was terrible. Count Orsi was ten days in this horrible prison. At last one evening he heard his name called. His release had come.
Lavinia's husband cleared his throat sharply; he was clearly impatiently annoyed. "What foolishness!" he cried. "From the first, Lavinia has been scarcely conscious of his existence." Lavinia avoided her sister's mocking gaze, disturbed and angry. "Certainly Signore Mochales must be asked here," she declared. "I suppose it can't be avoided," Orsi muttered.
As soon as she was at the wharf, Count Orsi, who seems to have been the most business-like man of the party, shipped nine horses, a travelling carriage, and a large van containing seventy rifles and as many uniforms. Proclamations had been printed in advance; they were placed in a large box, together with a little store of gold, which formed the prince's treasure.
It seems to me that such accounts of personal experience in troubled times give a far more vivid picture of events than a mere formal narration. I therefore quote them in this chapter in preference to telling the story in my own words. The first is by Count Joseph Orsi, whose visit to Raoul Rigault's office at the Prefecture of Police has already been told.
The window was deserted, and the women trailed gracefully toward the bubbling minor note of the alcohol lamp. Both Sanviano and Orsi were big men the former, like Bembo, wore English clothes; but Orsi's ungainly body had been tightly garbed by a Southern military tailor, making him Lavinia thought appear absolutely ridiculous.
Suddenly she included Lavinia in her remarks; she put queries to the girl patently intended to draw her out. Gheta grew uneasy and then cross. "I'm sick of sitting here," she declared; "let's walk about. It's cooler, and Pier Mantegazza's place is always worth investigation." She rose and waited for Cesare Orsi, then led the small procession from under the striped tea kiosk down the terrace.
Under Louis Philippe, Napoleon was replaced, but in his cocked hat and his redingote, but Louis Napoleon restored the imperial statue. "On May 16," says Count Orsi, "a crowd collected at the barricades which separated the Place Vendôme from the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione. To the Place Vendôme itself only a few persons had been admitted by tickets.
How easy Orsi had been to mislead! Now she was seized by the desire to show him the actual state of her mind; she wanted, in bitter sentences, to tell him how infinitely superior the Spaniard was to such fat easy grubs as himself. She longed to make clear to him exactly what it was that women admired in men romance and daring and splendid strength.
She wanted desperately to add her praise to Anna Mantegazza's enthusiastic plaudits, Gheta's subtle smile; but only the utmost banalities occurred to her. They descended the stone steps and slowly mounted toward the house. Cesare Orsi resolutely dropped back beside Lavinia. "You are really superb!" he told her in his highly colored Neapolitan manner.
Mochales stood very close to her sister, speaking seriously, while Gheta nervously fingered the short veil hanging from her gay straw hat. A familiar kindly voice sounded suddenly in Lavinia's ears, and Cesare Orsi joined her. He was about to move forward toward Gheta; but, before he could attract her attention, she disappeared in the crowd with the Spaniard. "Who was it?" he inquired.
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