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It was to the monastery at Vallombrosa that the Brownings travelled in 1848 when Mrs. Browning was ill. But the abbot could not break the rules in regard to women, and after five days they had to return to Florence. Browning used to play the organ in the chapel, as, it is said, Milton had done two centuries earlier.
Browning to Vallombrosa, and the one incident most clearly remembered is that of Browning's seating himself at the organ in the chapel, and playing some Gregorian chant, perhaps, or hymn of Pergolesi's.
"You didn't give them enough details. And they told me they were going to Vallombrosa. And when Miss Cora said good-bye to me she told me you were a dear or something." "Why didn't you say I wasn't?" "Dicky, if you are going to assume that it was my fault " "Only one decent hotel hardly anybody in it foregathered with old lady Portheris told every mortal thing they knew! Oh," groaned Dicky.
It grew very warm; the way, though pleasant, was beginning to seem long when they arrived. The old monastery, now a school of forestry; the Cross of Savoy, where pilgrims rest and dine, gleamed white in the cloudless noon, amid the century-old trees that long ago, before Dante's time even, earned for the spot its beautiful name of Vallombrosa, Umbrageous Vale.
But you can't stop to-day to read mine, so rather I shall tell you of our exploit in the mountains. Only one thing I must say first, one thing which you must forgive me for the vanity of resolving to say at last, having had it in my head very often. And now I am going to tell you of Vallombrosa. Who can make a road up a house?
While he stood deliberating where he should find a messenger, he saw Bradamante approach. That fair warrior had been parted from Rogero on their way to the abbey of Vallombrosa, by an inopportune adventure which had called the knight away. She was now returning to Montalban, having arranged with Rogero to join her there.
The prince learnt from them that the news of his invasion had reached the governor of the province, who was at one of the most considerable cities of the kingdom, with a population exceeding two hundred thousand, and with a military division for its garrison. "They will not wait for our arrival," said Vallombrosa, "but, trusting to their numbers, will come out and attack us."
Amongst our young friends were the two sons of the Duc Des Cars, a strong Legitimist, the Vallombrosa boy's family being Bonapartists. So whilst my brother and I naturally carried "Union Jacks," young Antoine de Mores had a tricolour, but the two Des Cars boys carried white silk flags, with a microscopic border of blue and red ribbon running down either side.
Excepting certain periods of suspense and anxiety, I am as even-tempered a Rogue as you have met with anywhere since the days of Gil Blas. My temperament being opposed to doing anything with regularity, I opened the directory at hazard, and determined to make my first call at the first house that caught my eye. Vallombrosa Vale Cottages. No. 1. Doctor and Miss Dulcifer. Very good.
Their first abode was in the Via delle Belle Donne; but after the return from Vallombrosa, in August, they moved across the river, and took furnished rooms in the Palazzo Guidi, the building which, under the name of 'Casa Guidi, is for ever associated with their memory. To Mrs. Martin Florence: April 24, 1847.
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