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Having agreed with a vetturino to carry me to Pianura, set out this morning from Mantua. The country mostly arable, with rows of elm and maple pollard. Dined at Casal Maggiore, in an infamous filthy inn. At dinner was joined by a gentleman who had taken the other seat in the vettura as far as Pianura.
Altogether an agreeable picture of rural prosperity, though I had rather it had been the result of FREE LABOUR than of MONASTIC BOUNTY. The 8th. By appointment, to the Duke's Egeria. This lady, the Signorina F.V., having heard that I was in Pianura, had desired the Signor Andreoni to bring me to her.
I was told in Pianura that but four persons are admitted to his familiarity: his confessor, his mistress, Count Trescorre, who is already comptroller of finance and will soon be prime-minister, and a strange German doctor or astrologer that is lately come to the court.
Much of this was unintelligible to Odo; but he was moved by any mention of Pianura, and in the abate's first pause he risked the question "Do you know the hump-backed boy Brutus?" His companion stared and pursed his soft lips. "Brutus?" says he. "Brutus? Is he about the Duke's person?" "He lives in the palace," said Odo doubtfully. The fat ecclesiastic clapped a hand to his thigh.
The courtyard, when Odo descended, fairly bubbled with the voluble joy of the fat soprano, who was giving directions to the servants, receiving commissions and instructions from the aunts, assuring everybody of his undying devotion to the heir-presumptive of Pianura, and citing impressive instances of the responsibilities with which the great of the earth had formerly entrusted him.
The frieze of ramping and running animals around the ancient baptistery was concealed by heavy green garlands alternating with religious banners; and every church and chapel had draped its doorway with crimson and placed above the image of its patron saint the ducal crown of Pianura. No less sumptuous was the adornment of the private dwellings.
She replied that she was obliged for his warning, but that while he remained in Pianura her place was at his side. It was the answer he had expected he had never doubted her courage but it was essential to his course that she should leave the duchy without delay, and after a moment's reflection he wrote a letter in which he informed her that he must insist on her obedience.
His thoughts returned to the midnight meetings of the Honey Bees, and to the first vision of that face which men had lain down their lives to see. Men had looked on that face since then, and its horror was reflected in their own. Other fugitives to Pianura brought another impression of events that comic note which life, the supreme dramatic artist, never omits from her tragedies.
"Father and son, for four generations, my family have served Pianura with Church candles, and I can tell you that since these new atheistical notions came in, the nobility are not the good patrons they used to be. But as for the friars, I should be sorry to see them meddled with.
Might not his influence make of the undisciplined creature at his side an unconscious instrument in the great work of order and reconstruction? His first appeal to her brought the answer. At his request his ministers had drawn up a plan of financial reorganisation, which should include the two duchies; for Monte Alloro, though wealthier than Pianura, was in even greater need of fiscal reform.
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