st open-handed hospitality. Madame Torlonia had been a beauty in her
day, and she was a very handsome woman even in her later years. Kind and
good-natured, she was like the majority of Italian women of her time--a
curious combination of devotion and gallantry. It is related of her that
she confided to a friend one day that she had taken great care to
prevent her husband's peace of mind from being disturbed by her somewhat
questionable conduct, and then added: "But he will be very much
surprised when the Day of Judgment comes!" The Torlonia palace was
practically the only princely house open to strangers, and it often
sheltered a most distinguished company. Among those who were entertained
there may be included Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, Madame
Recamier, Chateaubriand, Canova, Horace Vernet, the French painter, and
his charming daughter Louise, and the great musician Mendelssohn. The
last, in a letter written from Rome in 1831, makes the following
allusion to the Torlonias, which is not without interest: "Last night a
theatre that Torlonia [the son] has undertaken and organized was opened
with a new opera of Pacini's. The crowd was great and every box filled
with handsome, well-dressed people; young Torlonia appeared in a stage
box, with his mother, the old duchess, and they were immensely
applauded. The audience called out: _Bravo, Torlonia, grazie, grazie!_"

Italy had continued its reputation as the home of music, and now, as in
the eighteenth century, Italian singers, men and women, were wearing the
laurel in all the capitals of Europe. Among the women who were thus
celebrated the best known were Grassini, Catalani, Pasta, and Alboni.
Grassini was the daughter of a Lombardy farmer, and the expenses of her
musical education had been defrayed by General Belgioso, who was much
impressed with her wonderful voice and her charm of manner. Her debut at
La Scala was a wonderful success in spite of the fact that she then sang
in company with the two greatest Italian singers of the time,
Crescentini--one of the last of the male sopranos--and Marchesi. Later,
she attracted the attention of Bonaparte, and soon accompanied him to
Paris, anxious, it has been said, to play the role of Cleopatra to this
modern Caesar. Josephine's jealousy was aroused more than once by this
song bird of Italy, but she continued in the emperor's good graces for a
number of years, in spite of the fact that she was ever ready to follow
the w