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Updated: May 13, 2025
To an irreverent eye, the ex-Duke of Milan would perhaps appear as an unpleasantly crusty personage, in whom a twelve years' monopoly of the conversation had developed an inordinate propensity for talking.
Not only has he the direction of three hotels at the Ponte, two of them off-shoots from the parent Europa, but he undertakes the herculean task of daily sending forth thirty-six dinners to different families; the whole requiring a combination of artistic resource and fertility of intellect that fully justifies his right to the appellation bestowed on him by the ex-duke that of 'the Napoleon of inn-keepers. These repasts are conveyed in large tin boxes, containing warm embers, on which are placed the various dishes of which the dinner is composed; and they are carried to their destinations on the heads of divers active, nimble-footed marmitons.
This preponderance of small children at the Villa, is as much its characteristic distinction, as whatever relates to gaiety, or novelty, or scandal, may be considered the peculiar attribute of the Ponte. A distinct race inhabit the Bagni alla Villa a group of houses inaccessible to carriages, rising on a hill behind the palace belonging to the ex-duke of Lucca.
Others of the Roman nobility, sovereigns and princes, at the time in the city, were present. Among these were the ex-King of Naples, the Empress of Austria, the ex-Duke and Duchess of Tuscany, the ex-Duke and Duchess of Parma, together with the Doria and Borghese families.
"Madame de Chaulieu has just had dreadful news; her son-in-law, the Baron de Macumer, ex-duke of Soria, is just dead. The young Duc de Soria and his wife, who had gone to Chantepleurs to nurse their brother, have written this sad intelligence. Louise is heart-broken." "A women is not loved twice in her life as Louise was loved by her husband," said Madeleine de Mortsauf.
The ex-duke has, since this period, wandered over England, France, and Spain, sometimes engaged in intrigues with Carlists, at others with republicans. In 1836, he accompanied a celebrated female aeronaut in one of her excursions from London. The balloon accidentally upset and the duke and his companion fell to the ground. He was, however, as in his other adventures, more frightened than hurt.
She died, 1582, at the age of sixty-seven, after twenty years of successful labors in the convent she had founded; revered by everybody; the friend of some of the most eminent men in Spain, including the celebrated Borgia, ex-Duke of Candia, and General of the Jesuits, who took the same interest in Theresa that Fénelon did in Madame Guyon.
The general complaint is, that the place is rather dull; and, indeed, it must be owned, that formerly there were more facilities for spending a gay season than at present. Some years ago, when the ex-duke came with his little court, weekly balls were given at his residence, as well as at the Casino. But all these scenes of pleasure have now passed away.
She, however, is calm; her look, cold and indifferent, runs over the crowd; only once it flames up with a last angry flash as she passes by the Palais Royal, where Philippe Egalite, the ex-Duke d'Orleans, resides, as she reads the inscription which he had placed at the gate of his palace. At noon the chariot reaches at last its destination.
"She had made herself in Paradise an entirely spiritual family, selected from among the saints who had been the greatest sinners. Her father was St. Augustin; her mother St. Mary the Egyptian; her brother St. William the Hermit, ex-Duke of Aquitaine; her sister St. Margaret of Cortona; her uncle St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; her nephews the three children of the furnace of Babylon."
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