Pride of Race

By Baroness Emmuska Orczy

A romance set in Italy in 1814 from the author of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Classica Libris
• Release date: Oct 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9791220212717

Baroness Emmuska Orczy

Baroness Emma Orczy was a British novelist and artist best known for her Scarlet Pimpernel novels. Educated as an artist, Orczy took on work as a translator and illustrator to supplement the family income before finding success as a playwright and writer. During her career Orczy penned more than 50 literary works including The Scarlet Pimpernel (both the novel and the play), I Will Repay, and Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. An active supporter of the British monarchy, Orczy was a founding member of the Women of England's Active Service League, which focused on the recruitment of female volunteers during the First World War. Orczy died in 1947 at the age of 82.

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Libris

Chapter 1

Among the many fortresses of mediaeval Italy, which have in the past two centuries fallen into ruin and decay there is one which still defies the ravages of time and the destruction caused by revolutions and internecine warfare. It stands on a rocky eminence at the West end of the fishing village of San Francesco and overlooks the picturesque little bay in which one of England’s sweetest singers found a watery grave a hundred and twenty years ago.

There it still stands, grim and solid like a sentinel on the watch over the goddess of Liberty, and by its stern immutability safeguarding as it were the rights and privileges of a people who in this year 1814 was just awakening to a sense of its national independence and its emancipation from the tyranny of alien races.

The fortress has throughout the greater part of its history been used as a State prison. A tall, square tower into which daylight only filtrates through narrow iron-barred loopholes seems like a perpetual reminder to the free millions of today of mediaeval despotism, of reigns of terror, of torture and of death. Around the base of the tower there is on the waterside a wide circular terrace, enclosed by a low stone wall, and down the side of the perpendicular rock there are several stone buildings of various sizes used for military and defence purposes.

On this early autumn morning, when the small world of townships and villages grouped around the bay was still wrapped in slumbers, the portcullis of the great tower swung noiselessly upon its hinges. On the threshold there appeared two men dressed in unrelieved black with their hats upon their heads, and their mantles thrown over their shoulders. Their hands were clasped together in an attitude of prayer. It was mid-September, the morning air in the early dawn was soft and invigorating and gave promise of warm sunshine later, when the night was done.

One of the men who now stepped out on the terrace was old, his white hair below the brim of his hat was gently stirred by the breeze. He was tall and spare and of obvious military bearing. He walked with shoulders squared and head erect. His pale face with its stern chiselled features expressed great moral strength as well as resignation. His companion was shorter of stature and considerably younger, and there was something about his whole appearance which suggested timidity of a man more accustomed to obey than to command. He walked with a slight stoop, and his head fell forward on his breast.

Behind these two there came half-a-dozen men-at-arms. They wore the white tunics and red breeches of an Austrian regiment of guards.

At the moment when the small party came out on the terrace the church clock of San Francesco boomed out the hour of five. The booming was taken up by the neighbouring church clocks, Via Maggiore, Marigola and Sant’Urbino, until all round the air vibrated with the reverberation of their clamorous sounds. And as if they answered to a call, the townships and villages round about appeared to waken suddenly from sleep: cocks crew, dogs barked, and in the bay fishing boats unfurled their yellow and red sails, and the splash of oars, the dragging of nets, the voices of labouring folk heralded the first gleam of approaching day.

Neither of the two prisoners, for such they were, appeared to be conscious of awakening life around them. They came to a halt at a word of command from the guard and stood facing a firing squad of a dozen soldiers under the command of a young officer, a mere boy apparently scarcely out of his teens. A hooded figure, in the garb of a Franciscan monk with sandals on his bare feet, and a rosary of large brown beads descending from his girdle, now came forward from behind the squad and whispered a few words to the young officer:

Their confession, he murmured: May I hear it in private?

The young man gave a slight nod and ordered the squad to stand back up against the containing wall, which they did, and remained there whispering among themselves. He then ordered the Austrian guard to retire. The portcullis once more swung noiselessly on its hinges, and the guard withdrew into the tower, leaving the monk free to approach the prisoners. As soon as he was close to them, he raised his hood slightly. The taller of the two men uttered a short cry of surprise.

You?

Hush! the monk admonished in a hurried whisper. Madame la Duchesse is in Padula on the watch, her eye glued on the telescope. Everything has been arranged. Five hundred of our men stand ready, some in San Francesco, some in Via Maggiore and in Padula, each with a dagger clutched in his hand underneath his coat. At a signal from you they will rush into every house and every cottage; five hundred traitors, men, women and children will be dragged out of their beds and will fall with a knife thrust in their craven hearts. In the turmoil which will ensue…

Silence, man, the prisoner broke in forcefully, under his breath, did you really think that I would lend myself to such business? That I would allow the lives of five hundred loyalists to be sacrificed in a futile effort to save my own?

Futile, Monsieur le Duc? the monk admonished sternly. Futile? It is not the lives of our men that will be sacrificed. It is the blood of five hundred traitors that will redden the earth at a signal from you.

And think you there would be no reprisals after such an outrage?

No one will know whence the blow hath come. They suspect nothing; it will fall on them like a thunderbolt from heaven…

And our cause will be for ever shamed by so foul a deed.

Worse acts have been committed by our enemies. The vassals of Austria have stooped to every outrage man or devil can conceive. And your life is precious to our cause…

A dishonoured life is ten thousand times worse than death.

Madame la Duchesse…

Tell my beloved wife that I die with honour untarnished and leave our cause undefiled, in her hands.

One moment, Monsieur le Duc, I implore you to listen to me.

Go, man. The prisoner broke in sternly: And for God’s sake, let me die in peace.

The monk turned in order to make a final appeal to the younger prisoner.

Signor Magnese, he pleaded earnestly: I beg you to turn Monsieur le Duc from his cruel purpose. It rests with you to save yourself and him.

He sunk his voice lower still, till it became almost inaudible, and went on with great rapidity:

When the handkerchief for bandaging your eyes is offered you by the corporal, take it and at once wave it above your head. It is the signal agreed upon. Five hundred loyalists are ready to strike, remember…

Over in the tower-room of Padula, Madame la Duchesse d’Estaing sat by the window with the telescope glued to her eye. Her old friend Hector Magnese, the rich Genoese merchant, stood behind her chair.

What do you see now, Madame? he asked, bending his head down to the level of her ear.

Your son and the Duc, the old lady replied. Your reverend nephew, she added, is speaking with them.

The soldiers?

Mustering… Two of them step out, each with a handkerchief. Cosmo retires… The Duc and Sandro stand alone…

No other word did she utter, nor did she scream. The telescope fell out of her hand and rolled down on the floor. She remained sitting bolt upright, her eyes fixed on the tower of San Francesco, whereon a black and yellow flag was being slowly hoisted above the roof, whilst a salvo of gunfire came rolling in over mountains and valley, and echoed from peak to peak till the sound expired as a sigh in the bosom of the distant heights.

Chapter 2

This occurred on the 15th day of September, in the year 1814, and the fact is recorded on a stone slab embedded in the flooring of the terrace of the castle of San Francesco, on the very spot where Monseigneur le Duc d’Estaing, peer of France and Sandro, only son of Hector Magnese, the Genoese, were shot by order of Victor Emmanuel I, King of Sardinia, at the command of the Emperor Francis II for conspiracy and incitement to sedition against the suzerainty of Austria.

The downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte, now in exile in the small island of Elba, had already brought about the crushing of Italian liberalism and its rising demand for national independence. Even before the congress of Vienna had promulgated its infamous decrees, the civil and political reforms instituted by the Napoleonic Government were abrogated, and the petty Italian sovereigns were replaced upon their beggarly thrones. Each of these slavish potentates bound himself to receive orders from Vienna, in return for which vassalage Austria guaranteed to him the possession of his pitiful crown and sceptre. They soon proved that neither revolutions nor defeat, nor exile had taught them their lesson. All those political convulsions only seemed to have terrorized them into worse tyranny and hatred against those who, like the Duc d’Estaing, had taken part in the Napoleonic Government and were known to dream dreams of an independent and united kingdom of Italy. They were spied upon and hunted down; trumpery charges of conspiracy were brought against them. Their every action and every word were reported and distorted by the informers who swarmed in the cities and by police agents in the pay of Austria. They were not allowed to carry on any kind of business, or to follow any of the liberal professions. Their relatives and even their friends were dispossessed of their estates and their goods and confined within a limited area beyond which they were not allowed to go.

Small wonder that, in the wake of so much injustice and tyranny, a reign of secret societies and revolutionary propaganda came into being. The execution of the Duc d’Estaing aroused indignation throughout the length and breadth of Italy. Marshal of France under the Emperor Napoleon, he had been made by the latter military Governor of the province of Genova. His rule as such had been both liberal and benevolent. His wife, the Duchesse, was Italian by birth, related to the great Piedmontese families of Montecorano and Sansovino. Her patriotism had always been ardent; and since the murder of her husband, for such his execution really was, it bordered on fanaticism. Hitherto, her personality, her age, and, above all, her high connections with the cream of Italian aristocracy had rendered her immune against extreme measures. She was spied upon and watched, and she knew it, but she treated all such petty pinpricks with contempt, knowing well that the preponderance of Austrian suzerainty in Italy was still in its infancy, and that the vassals of the Emperor were not yet in a position to antagonize openly the powerful princely families in the land.

And thus Madame la Duchesse d’Estaing remained what her husband had been before her, the centre of a group of zealous patriots, whose one aim in life was the restoration of Italian independence from the thrall of Austria, and the restoration of the liberal government with all its social and political reforms under the rule of the one man who had understood Italian aspirations and had given them those rights and privileges for which they craved, and for which they were ready now to shed the last drop of their blood.

That man was the fallen Emperor, the vanquished master of Europe, the exile, Napoleon Bonaparte.

No better than a prisoner within the narrow confines of a small island in the Mediterranean, watched over with affrighted eyes by all the allied powers, he still inspired dread in those who knew that the peace of Europe could only last while he was kept in bondage. Communication between the mainland and the Isle of Elba was strictly forbidden. Disobedience to this arbitrary rule was punishable by death, without trial. That had been the fate of Monsieur le Duc d’Estaing, Marshal of France, caught, according to the denunciation of paid informers, in the act of sending a postal packet across to the island through the hands of one Sandro, only son of the well-known Genoese merchant, Hector Magnese. Sandro had hired a fishing boat one morning in September for the purpose, so he said of visiting some English friends lately come to reside on the opposite shore of the bay. He had been seen, so the spies averred, in close conversation with Monsieur le Duc d’Estaing, who had surreptitiously handed him a sealed packet. The boat had been chased and intercepted by the Austrian coastguards and Sandro Magnese and the Duc d’Estaing were summarily arrested. The alleged sealed packet, however, was never found, the coastguards declaring that Sandro had, with criminal intent, thrown it into the sea.

Chapter 3

Close on three months had gone by since the tragedy enacted on that early autumn day on the terrace of San Francesco. Madame la Duchesse had spent those months in strict retirement and unrelieved mourning, seeing no one but her attendant maids and her grandchild, Veronica, the orphaned daughter of her only son killed in the hour of Napoleon’s great victory of Austerlitz. Veronica’s mother died a year later of a broken heart, and the Duchesse took the little girl, then aged eleven, under her care and protection. Inwardly, she loved the child as she had loved her son with that outward sternness and repression which effectually concealed the affection of which she was half-ashamed. He loveth well who chastiseth well was one of the dictates of her life. And she chastised the little orphan whom she really loved with the lash of her sarcastic tongue as she had once chastised the son whom she had never ceased to mourn.

Her rule over Veronica, as indeed it was over her household, her relatives, and even her friends, was arbitrary; her attitude towards all those who approached her was that of an inflexible dictator, of a queen who demanded implicit obedience, and who strangely enough, got it, for the power of her personality was very great. Figuratively speaking, every member of the secret society of patriots which had its headquarters in Porto Vecchio, and over which she presided, bowed the knee before her. Her word for them was law, her decisions irrevocable, and accepted with a humility which was akin to veneration. It is a little difficult for an English mind to grasp the importance in an Italian household of a century ago of the head of one of the great princely houses; the authority which emanated from him (the head of the house was seldom a woman) never had its counterpart in the family life of any other country in Europe. No one in his house, neither his wife nor his children, nor his guests would be allowed to sit while he was standing, nor could they walk in front of him from one room to another or pass him on the stairs. His children would never speak in his presence unless directly addressed by him, and any request, however trivial, they might wish to make to him could only be proffered by special permission and were invariably couched in a form that was akin to a prayer. Any infraction to these rules even by a friend or a guest would be denounced as serious disrespect and sternly censured; in the children, it would be severely punished.

It was seldom, however, that this family dictatorship was vested in a woman. The widowed Duchesse d’Estaing was one of these few exceptions. While her husband lived, she had been as submissive to him as she now expected her relatives, her adherents and her household to be to her. As far as her grand-daughter was concerned it had never entered her head that the child might have ideals and feelings of her own. Let alone an independent will; and since the age of twelve Veronica had seen all her girlish hopes and all her desires, the promptings of her heart and the aspirations of her soul, made subservient to the attainment of those ideals which constituted the life of those placed in authority over her; the independence of Italy and the freedom of its people. It was Madame la Duchesse rather than the Duc who moulded the girl’s character until she became as wax in her hands, passive and obedient, willing to believe in the love that underlay the old lady’s fanaticism, yet not daring to rebel against the bonds that enslaved her thoughts and smothered all individuality in her.

After the comparatively mild days at the beginning of December, the middle of the month brought back the winter with all its usual rigour. Genova itself, always a victim to the tramontane with its train of icy rain, and sometimes of snow, had shivered for the past week or ten days in a temperature that never rose above freezing point. In the villages the poor were huddled in their stuffy cottages and kept themselves as warm as they could with mulled sour wine and scanty feeds of pasta. The well-to-do kept indoors and sat around their hearths wrapped in fur coats and mantles, their love for their province marred by their hatred of its abominable climate.

But despite the inclement weather and difficulty of travel over hard and stony roads, meetings were held in the Castle of Porto Vecchio, distant some eight kilometres from Genova, meetings at which a hundred and more enthusiastic patriots assembled in the great hall, under the presidency of the widowed Duchesse d’Estaing. Here they formed plans and discussed the various aspects of the great subject which absorbed the minds of every thoughtful Genoese, the liberation of their country from the suzerainty of Austria and the unification of a free kingdom of Italy. Napoleon Bonaparte had attempted to establish such a kingdom, had himself, in fact, crowned King of Italy in Turin, but schemes more ambitious soon absorbed his mind, and in the end the whole project ended in smoke with his defeat and exile in Elba. They came in their dozens and their scores these patriots, rich men, influential patricians most of them. They came riding and driving up the heights to Porto Vecchio through wind and rain storms, journeying by day and resting o’nights in outlying farms or wayside inns, enduring fatigue and every kind of privation as stoically as they would the strain and stress of a hapless campaign.

The castle of Porto Vecchio was the goal of their pilgrimage. Here Madame la Duchesse d’Estaing entertained her guests with lavish hospitality. Her establishment was run on an almost regal scale. She had her chamberlain and her major-domo, her master of the horse and her almoner. She dined and supped with a privileged few in the huge dining hall on a raised platform under a dais upholstered in rich Genoese velvet interwoven with gold and silver threads. The remainder of the household, most of the gentlemen and ladies of quality, had their meals on the floor of the hall, a foot and a half lower than the ducal table. The meals were served with mediaeval splendour and lavishness. Madame la Duchesse and her special guests and the higher officials of her household ate off silver and gold plates. They drank out of priceless crystal glasses.

Madame la Duchesse d’Estaing was rich and spent her money with a prodigality which she felt was worthy of the traditions of her house, and of her high position in the social world. The deference that was paid to her because of that position and because of her wealth, was as the breath of life to her, and she imbibed the flattery of sycophants as well as that of her genuine friends with equal satisfaction. Far be it for any biographer to suggest that this display of splendour was mere vulgar ostentation. In England nowadays, with our democratic ideals we certainly would call it so. But Madame la Duchesse d’Estaing was not ostentatious and anything but vulgar. She was a great lady with lofty, if already rather antiquated notions of what was due to rank; and her Italian friends understood those notions and appreciated her point of view, for the seeds of democracy had not yet been sown among them, either by self-seekers or high-minded humanitarians.

On this cold December evening the great hall of the castle was brilliantly lighted with a hundred candles in crystal sconces and silver candelabra. A huge fire of olive wood blazed up gaily in the monumental hearth. Some hundred or so guests of Madame la Duchesse were here assembled: The men stood about talking in subdued tones and the ladies sat in small, isolated groups whispering to one another. The chief subject of conversation with everyone there was the tragedy which had been enacted in the castle of San Francesco. Everyone here was in possession of the real facts connected with the execution of the Duc d’Estaing and of Sandro Magnese. They all knew that the alleged sealed packet had never existed, that the spies had been suborned, and that the charge of conspiracy had been founded on perjured evidence. The execution of those two men was in fact nothing short of a foul murder. They knew all that, these great gentlemen and ladies here assembled tonight. They knew that perjured evidence was equally likely to be sworn against them, and that death lay in wait for them on the most trumpery charge. They knew it and yet here they were, planning, scheming, conspiring, swearing to give up their lives and their fortunes for the welfare of their country and for her freedom.

How was this going to be done? Who was going to rid Italy of the hated Austrian domination?

But every murmuring and conversation ceased when presently Madame la Duchesse preceded by her major-domo entered the great hall and took her stand at the further end of the room, in front of the monumental hearth. Everyone remarked that she had laid aside her mourning this evening. Her dress, fashioned after the latest Parisian mode, with the high waist just below her firm breasts, caused her to appear taller even than she was. Made entirely of the finest Mechlin lace, interwoven with gold threads, it clung to her figure, accentuating its statuesque lines, down to her feet, where peeped out the points of her white satin shoes. A gorgeous train of emerald green velvet, heavily embroidered in gold and silver, hung from her shoulders, its folds spread out behind her in sculptural lines. Though a grandmother, Madame la Duchesse appeared that evening extraordinarily young.

Satisfied that she held the fervid attention of all her guests, she now began to speak.

You will agree with me, my friends, she said, after a few conventional preliminaries, that there is only one man who can rid our beloved country from those abominable tyrants. That man is Napoleon Bonaparte. We have gathered an army together! our soldiers are the bravest of the brave and are full of enthusiasm. But they need a leader, a man whom they can trust and in whom they can believe. Bonaparte is that man. His military genius is second to none. His prestige still stands high, whatever his enemies might say or do. He can lead our army to victory, to another glorious Austerlitz, to Iena, Eckmühl and Wagram. He understands Italy as no other statesman has ever done. He created a free kingdom of Italy, which the Allies have destroyed as they have tried to destroy him. But he will recreate it, let no one doubt it, a kingdom more free, more united than it ever was before.

Her impassioned words and hard, authoritative voice, found an echo in the heart of all those here present. A murmur of enthusiastic approval rose as soon as she had finished speaking. They were all of one mind over that. Bonaparte was their hero. He would be their deliverer. A message across a narrow sea to that lonely island where the whilom master of the world sat eating out his heart in exile and loneliness, and he would come to them. He would fire their army with the enthusiasm which burned in his own soul. And they would follow him as his own great army followed him, certain that victory awaited them in the end.

And as Madame la Duchesse now turned to welcome a group of new arrivals, saying gracious words to all they formed themselves into groups once more and discussed the great project from every possible point of view. A message over to Elba with all its attendant risks, dodging the spies, the informers, the coastguard. Young and old, they were all ready to take the risk, to follow on if one or more did fail.

There was Hector Magnese, the rich Genoese merchant, the friend and financial adviser of Madame la Duchesse, the father of Sandro Magnese, the martyr of San Francesco: a tall, handsome Piedmontese of almost herculean build, who stood for patriotism in its most heroic aspect, who was ready to sacrifice his fortune, his estate, his business for the country which he loved. There was the young Prince Carnovaro, the Marchese di Montefiasconi, the brothers Bisenzone, all thirsting for an adventure which might mean death for them, but triumph to their cause.

Nor were they all Italian, those who were here tonight, nor all of them patricians. There were two protestant ministers, a Franciscan monk and a Jewish rabbi. French was freely spoken in different parts of the hall, and three or four men who sat in a window embrasure were talking together in English.

I am going to do that job, you know, one of the latter said, nodding his head in the direction of the rest of the company. He was a young man, with unruly brown hair and deep-set blue eyes, in which humour appeared to be at constant war with a kind of passionate intensity. He spoke with the soft voice and attractive brogue of the born Irishman.

You? one of the others retorted, with a slight shrug and a laugh.

Yes, sir, the Irishman countered: Michael Delany at your service. They are all jabbering over there about which of them is going to risk a firing squad by sending a gracious invitation to Napoleon Bonaparte to lead an Italian army against the Austrians. Well! As I have had the honour to remark before, I, Michael Delany, am going to do that job.

But by what right? You, an Irishman? What have you to do with all these Italian intrigues?

Delany threw back his head and laughed loudly, though not altogether heartily:

You have said it, my dear sir, he responded: "I am an Irishman, and I hate England and