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Updated: June 23, 2025
The other Spanish officer, Gaspar Arco de Vaca, Santacilla's closest companion, observed toward Charles an air of profound civility, and his pretence was more galling than Santacilla's morbid threats and exposed contempt.
On the day before yesterday Christoph Madrucci, the Cardinal of Trent, his warlike brother Hildebrand, and the Count of Arco had arrived, bringing news from the Council; but on the morrow Duke Maurice of Saxony was expected, and the most important negotiations were to be carried on not only with him, but also with the former, each individual being dealt with singly and at different hours.
Finer and more ornamental varieties of volcanic stone were introduced from a distance, such as the peperino or grayish-green tufa of the Alban Hills, the Lapis Albanus of the ancients, with its glittering particles of mica interspersed throughout its mass; the hard basaltine lava from a quarry near the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, on the Appian Way, and from the bed of the Lago della Colonna, once the celebrated Lake Regillus, to which the name of Lapis Tusculanus or Selce was given; and the Lapis Gabinus or Sperone, a compact volcanic concrete found in the neighbourhood of the ancient Gabii on the road to Tivoli, extensively used in the construction of the earliest monuments, particularly the Tabularium and the huge Arco de Pantani.
The evening passed quickly, and I must admit very pleasantly. Any one who had pretensions to music played or sang, Henry performed some of his compositions; one officer did some card tricks. They all had an anecdote of their experience from the past months, which they told with great relish. Henry whispered to Count Arco: "My sister-in-law sings. Why don't you ask her for a song?"
I may not invite the reader to penetrate with me by so much as a step the boundless backward reach of history to which the more massive of the Etruscan gates of Volterra, the Porta all' Arco, forms the solidest of thresholds; since I perforce take no step myself, and am even exceptionally condemned here to impressionism unashamed.
And such is the power of a simple and sublime idea, whether the pen or the chisel has given it body, to transmit itself, and retain its hold on the mind, that, though I had only now seen the Arco della Pace for the first time, I felt as if I had been familiar with it all my life; and so, doubtless, does my reader.
At seven o'clock Henry and I dined with the officers. It seemed strange to me to be presiding at my own table surrounded by German officers, Count Arco being my vis-a-vis. Do you want to know what we had for dinner? Bean soup, brought from Germany. Sausages and cabbage, put up in Germany. Coffee and zwiebacks, I suppose also from Germany.
Moulton asked Henry to bring with him some green peas from Petit Val to eke out the chef's meager menu. Besides this, he had a portmanteau with his evening attire, and a package which Count Arco wished to send to Paris.
The hollow disembodied voice of the drill sergeant floated up and then was lost in the beginning afternoon procession of carriages. With a larger boutonnière than he would have cared to wear at home, a tea rose, he was making his way through the El Louvre, when Gaspar Arco de Vaca rose from a gay table and signalled for him.
I hastened to explain my presence among them, saying that I wished to collect the various things I had left in the chateau when I went away last August, and I had taken advantage of the first occasion which offered itself of coming here. Count Arco held a short conversation with Henry, who told him I would like to go to my apartment.
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