priest, came to the palace to make a last and supreme effort to obtain pardon.  His mother clung to my knees and wept her soul out:  ’He is my only child and only nineteen years old—­too young to die.  Take me instead. Sono vecchia, egli tanto giovine!’ [’I am old, and he so young!’] The priest added that the boy had always been such a good son—­kind and gentle to his mother—­and begged that he should be pardoned.”  The King repeated all this with tears in his good eyes.

“I am sure that your Majesty did pardon him.  Did you not?”

“No,” he said, “though it broke my heart to refuse.  In military affairs one must not interfere with the discipline.”

“But this one,” I urged, tearfully; “could there not be extenuating circumstances?  Do pardon him, your Majesty.  Just think what that would mean for the poor mother.”

But the King, true to his ideas of military discipline, said:  “No!  He is condemned to die.  He must die.”

The King could not shake off the impression this interview had made on him, and J., who passed the evening in the smoking-room with his Majesty, said that he never saw the King so depressed as he was this evening.

The Queen came up to me directly after dinner, saying:  “What were you and the King talking about?  You both looked so serious and sad.”

I told her.

She said, “The King has such a good heart.”

The thought of the poor young fellow who was to be shot kept me awake, and I thought at five o’clock that I heard the report of guns, but I was not sure.  My imagination was so keen that I could have pictured anything to myself.

The first thing the King said to me at luncheon was, “Did you hear this morning?”

I told him I heard something, but I dreaded to think what it might have meant.

“Alas!” he said, as his eyes filled with tears, “it is too true, I hate to think of it.”

We left Monza at three o’clock this afternoon, I cannot tell you how kind their Majesties were to me!  The Queen kissed me good-by and said, “Au revoir a Rome.”

The King gave me his arm and went down the steps of the grand staircase of the principal entrance with me and put me himself in the landau.  “You do not know what an honor this is,” said Signor Peruzzi—­as if I did not appreciate it!

We drove to the station in state and traveled in the royal compartment to Milan....  We intended to leave for Rome and home this evening, but I feel too tired to do anything but send to you these few lines and go to bed.

To-morrow night will find us in the Palazzo Tittoni, where the children already have arrived.

ROME, January, 1885.

Dear Aunt Maria,—­Just now we are reveling in Liszt.  Rome is wild over him, and one leaves no stone unturned in order to meet him.  Fortunate are those who have even a glimpse of him, and thrice blessed are those who know and hear him.  He is the prince of musicians—­in fact, he is treated like a prince.  He always has the precedence over every one; even Ambassadors—­so tenacious of their rights—­give them up without hesitation.  Every one is happy to pay this homage to genius.