What I Remember, Volume 2 by Thomas Adolphus Trollope
page 119 of 379 (31%)
page 119 of 379 (31%)
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nor anybody else ever heard him called King of the Baths!--in an
old-fashioned, very shabby and very high-hung phaeton, sometimes with her niece Charlotte--an excellent creature and universal favourite--by her side, and the colonel on the seat behind, ready to offer the hospitality of the place by his side to any mortal so favoured by the queen as to have received such an invitation. The poor dear old colonel used to play the violoncello, and did at least draw some more or less exquisite sounds from it. But one winter they paid a visit to Rome, and the old man died there. She wished, in accordance doubtless with his desire, to bring back his body to be buried in the place they had inhabited for so many years, and with which their names were so indissolubly entwined in the memory of all who knew them--which means all the generations of nomad frequenters of the Baths for many, many years. The Protestant burial-ground also was recognised as _quasi_ hers, for it is attached to the church which she was mainly instrumental in building. The colonel's body therefore was to be brought back from Rome to be buried at Lucca Baths. But such an enterprise was not the simplest or easiest thing in the world. There were official difficulties in the way, ecclesiastical difficulties and custom-house difficulties of all sorts. Where there is a will, however, there is a way. But the way which the determined will of the Queen of the Baths discovered for itself upon this occasion was one which would probably have occurred to few people in the world save herself. She hired a _vetturino_, and told him that he was to convey a servant of hers to the baths of Lucca, who would be in charge of goods which would occupy the entire interior of the carriage. She then obtained, what was often accorded without much difficulty in those days, from both the Pontifical and the Tuscan |
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