Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: September 19, 2025
"Count Antonio the Seventeenth, the last of our tyrants. The Signori will be aware that we were tyrants of Sampaolo for many centuries," said the old man, not without a touch of pride. Then, bowing to Anthony, "One would think properly the portrait of your Excellency." Indeed, the face of the last of the tyrants and his grandson's face were surprisingly alike.
Under the old régime, for example," she illustrated, "Vallanza was a free port, now we have to pay both a national duty and a municipal duty on exports as well as imports; nothing was taxed but land, and that very lightly now nearly everything is taxed, even salt, even a working-man's tools, even a peasant's necessary donkey, so that out of every lira earned the government takes from forty to sixty centimes; the fisheries of Sampaolo, which are very valuable, were reserved for the Sampaolesi, now they are open to all Italy, and Sampaolo, an island, cannot compete with Ancona, on the railway.
"There is the way of marriage." She completed a circle, and began to draw a star within it. "You should go to Sampaolo, and marry your cousin.
Before 1850 the people of Sampaolo were prosperous, now they are miserably poor; were pious, now they are horribly irreligious; were governed by honest gentlemen, now they form part of a nation that is governed by its criminal classes." "And what became of the honest gentlemen?" Anthony enquired.
"At your service unless I was changed at nurse," she assented, dropping a curtsey; and an imp laughed in her eyes. "And are you aware," the Commendatore pursued, with the tremor of restrained passion in his voice, "that the Countess of Sampaolo, a countess in her own right, is a public personage?
"Yes," agreed Susanna; "but it is not so good as Antonio Francesco Guido Maria Valdeschi della Spina, Conte di Sampaolo." "It is not so long, at any rate," said he. "Nor so full of colour," supplemented she. "As I hinted before, a name like a herald's tabard might be something of an inconvenience in work-a-day England," he returned. Then he smiled, rather sorrily.
And then," her eyes brightened, "when we met your perfectly irresistible Mr. Willes, hesitation was impossible. He even permitted me to play some of his accompaniments." Anthony chuckled. "I 'm sure he did I see my Adrian," he said. "Well, I owe him more than he 's aware of." "Your Excellency is the legitimate Count of Sampaolo," said Susanna.
But the heir to such a name, to such a tradition, is heir also to great duties, to great obligations. He has no right to be passive, or to think only of himself. The thirty-fourth Count of Sampaolo owes it to his thirty-three predecessors the descendant of San Guido owes it to San Guido to bestir himself, to do the very utmost in his power to revive and maintain the tradition.
As they were crossing the bridge, "Look," she said, and pointed to a flagstaff that sprang from the highest pinnacle of the building. A flag was being hoisted there; and now it fluttered forth and flew in the breeze, a red flag with a design in gold upon it. "The flag of the Count of Sampaolo: gules, a spine or," said Susanna. "Of course you know why they are flying it now?"
"Then" her voice had modulated "then the idea of Italian unity was preached to them, and in 1850 they had a revolution; and foolish, foolish Sampaolo voluntarily submitted itself to the reign of Victor Emmanuel. And ever since," her eyes darkened, "what with the impossible taxes, the military conscription, the corrupt officials, the Camorra, Sampaolo has been in a very wretched plight indeed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking