old him by Mme. de Prie (the niece of Alfieri's famous Turin mistress,
and the lady who took it upon herself to send him a priest without
consulting the Countess), to the effect that she had watched Fabre
making eyes, kissing his fingers, and generally exchanging signals with
Mme. d'Albany at a party where Alfieri was present. Let those who are
amused by this piece of gossip believe it implicitly; it does not appear
to me either amusing, or credible, or creditable to the man who retailed
it. The Florentine society of the early years of this century was, if we
may trust the keen observation of Stendhal, almost as naively and
openly profligate as that of a South Sea Island village; and such a
society, which could talk of the things and in the way which it did,
which could permit certain poetical compositions (found highly
characteristic by Stendhal) to be publicly performed before the ladies
and gentlemen celebrated therein, such a society naturally enjoyed and
believed a story like that retailed by d'Azeglio. But surely we may put
it behind us, we who are not Florentines of the year 1800, and who can
actually conceive that a woman who had exchanged irreproachable
submission to a drunken husband, for legally unsanctioned, but open and
faithful attachment for a man like Alfieri, might at the age of fifty
take a liking to a man of thirty-five without that liking requiring a
disgusting explanation. The clean explanation seems so much simpler and
more consonant. Fabre had become an intimate of the house during
Alfieri's last years. He was French, he was a painter; two high
recommendations to Mme. d'Albany. He was, if we may trust Paul Louis
Courier, who made him the hero of a famous imaginary dialogue, clever
with a peculiarly French sort of cleverness; he gave the Countess
lessons in painting while Alfieri was poring over his work. The sudden
death of Alfieri would bring Fabre into still closer relations with Mme.
d'Albany, as a friend of the deceased, the brother of his physician, and
the virtual fellow-countryman of the Countess; he would naturally be
called upon to help in a hundred and one melancholy arrangements: he
received visitors, answered letters, gave orders; he probably laid
Alfieri in his coffin. When all the bustle incident upon death had
subsided, Fabre would remain Mme. d'Albany's most constant visitor. He,
who had seen Alfieri at the very last, might be admitted when the door
was closed to all others; he could