. Court life from within . hed totheir offices. English princesses have the daily dis-traction of opening bazaars, but little happens toenliven the Courts of Turin. When I have stayedthere, the chief excitement of the day has invariablybeen a drive to a park outside the city, where theRoyal personages walked for a little, attended by theinevitable ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting, andafter half an hour of that mild form of exercise,drove back to their homes. These proceedings didnot appear to awaken any great interest in the citi-zens of Turin, for in Italy, as in most other countries,the publ
. Court life from within . hed totheir offices. English princesses have the daily dis-traction of opening bazaars, but little happens toenliven the Courts of Turin. When I have stayedthere, the chief excitement of the day has invariablybeen a drive to a park outside the city, where theRoyal personages walked for a little, attended by theinevitable ladies- and gentlemen-in-waiting, andafter half an hour of that mild form of exercise,drove back to their homes. These proceedings didnot appear to awaken any great interest in the citi-zens of Turin, for in Italy, as in most other countries,the public has ceased to concern itself about the lit-tle doings of princes and princesses. The Dowager Duchess of Aosta sometimes showsher independence by freeing herself from Royalbonds when she is abroad, and I remember her oncearriving in Paris entirely unattended. She wasPrincess Lstitia Bonaparte before her marriage, andenjoys the style of Imperial Highness, while, ratheroddly, the young Duchess of Aosta is a Princess of 218. THE COURTS OF ITALY the House of Bourbon and sister of the Due dOr-leans. She is a somewhat masculine type of woman,and spends a great deal of her time in leaves her husband and two boys and, with nocompanion except an elderly Englishwoman, sets outon a hunting expedition. She is lost in the heart ofAfrica for months, and then suddenly reappears andsettles down to the humdrum life of her soon she hears again the call of the wild, andis away once more. What she does in Abyssinia no-body knows, if one excepts the elderly English-woman. The country seems to have cast a spell onher, and she cannot resist its fascinations. TheDuke of Genoa, Queen Margheritas brother, andhis wife, who is a Bavarian Princess, live in thesame palace as the Dowager Duchess of Aosta, buttheir households are independent and, in point offact, the two duchesses rarely see each other. Theduke is almost a recluse; he spends several hoursin his private chapel every
Size: 1419px × 1760px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectcourtsandcourtiers
