The Rising Storm

in the world, and here they were met by arrangement by Hernando. They had sent him on ahead with careful instructions that he was not to get them accommodation at the Aquila Nera, Vanin’s or Mr. Meggot's famous English-run hotel, but to seek out some smaller place where French was spoken, and there book rooms for them as Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc and his sister-in-law, Madame Jules de Breuc. Hernando told them that he had taken lodgings for them with a Signor Pisani at the del Sarte Inglesi, in the via dei Fossi; and when they arrived there they found it to be just the sort of quiet, respectable place that they had had. in mind.

An excellent meal was sent in for them from a cook-shop near by, and to Roger's surprise the charge, including a litre of sound Chianti, was only three pauls a head. As breakfasts and light suppers cost proportionately less and their rooms only two pauls each, it transpired that one could live well and comfortably in Florence for the modest sum of 35. 6d. per person per day.

After they had dined Roger left Isabella to amuse herself with Quetzal, went downstairs and got in conversation with the landlord. His habitual secrecy in everything to do with State affairs caused him to refrain from saying outright that he wished to secure an audience with the Grand Duke, so he opened the conversation by remarking on the beauty of Florence and the obviously happy state of the Tuscan people.

Signor Pisani was a fat, elderly man with enormous ears and small, wrinkled-up, humorous eyes. 'The first, Monsieur, is incontestable,' he replied; 'the second an opinion expressed by the majority of our foreign visitors; yet comparatively few of my compatriots would agree with it.'

'Why so, Signor?' Roger enquired. 'I have heard it said that in His Highness the Grand Duke Leopold you have the most enlightened ruler in Europe, and the country through which I passed today showed every evidence of prosperity.'

The fat man nodded. ‘I judge you right, Monsieur; but that is because when I was younger I travelled much. I have earned my living as an agent for Tuscan wines and olive oil, in France, England, the Austrian Netherlands, Cologne and Hanover; so I know how the peoples of other countries live. But the average Tuscan is conservative by habit, and resents all innovations. During his twenty-four years as our sovereign His Highness has made many, and instead of being grateful to him, as they should be, nearly every class thinks it has some reason for complaint.'

Roger saw at once that his broad-minded landlord was a man well worth cultivating, so he said: 'Having never before visited Italy I know nothing of Tuscan affairs, and would much like to learn of them. If you can spare the time to join me in a bottle of wine I should consider it a favour.'

'Willingly, Monsieur,' was the prompt reply, and five minutes later they were comfortably installed in Signor Pisani's parlour with a wicker-covered bottle of Chianti between them.

'We are at least more fortunate than our neighbours in the Duchy of Milan,' began the fat Italian. 'As you must know, for many years most of northern Italy has been subject to Austria, but in 1765 we succeeded in inducing the Emperor to give us a sovereign of our own. So in that year, when Joseph II succeeded his father as Emperor, his younger brother, Peter Leopold, became our ruler; although he was only then eighteen. Both brothers are men of advanced ideas and great reformers; but whereas Joseph is a hothead whose innovations have brought only disaster to the Milanese and his other subject peoples, Leopold is possessed of a more balanced mind, and his have brought great benefits to Tuscany.'

'Why, then, these complaints you speak of?' Roger asked.

' 'Tis largely owing to the hatred borne him by the Church.'

'Yet I have heard that he was educated for it, and is a most religious man.'

'He was, and is. He became a sovereign only owing to the death of his elder brother, Charles; but his views on religion are far from orthodox. He considers it his business not only to censure the morals of his priesthood but also to reform the rituals of the Church itself.'

'Does he incline to Protestantism, then?'

'By no means; although he expresses great repugnance to all customs bordering on the superstitious and the habit of making religious ceremonies into gaudy parades. For instance, one edict of his which has given almost universal offence is that concerning burials. By it all corpses are removed the night following death in a plain shroud to the nearest church. There they receive simple benediction, after which they are taken to a common mortuary. No candles or singing are allowed. The following day the bodies are taken in a wooden cart to the cemetery outside the city, and there buried without further ceremony, as they come, two in a grave; and at that lacking coffins. The law applies to high and low alike, so a noble lady may find herself buried side by side with a scrofulous pauper, or a priest next to a harlot.'

'What an extraordinary idea!' Roger exclaimed. 'And 'tis harsh indeed that families should be debarred from ordering suitably the last rites for their loved ones. I wonder that such an outrageous interference with liberty is not openly defied, and His Highness forced to withdraw so monstrous an edict.'

The Tuscan shrugged. 'We are by nature a law-abiding people, and have no means of forcing him to do anything. He is an absolute Monarch, and does not even make a pretence of consulting a Senate, as did the Medici. 'Tis fortunate for us that he is, generally speaking, a beneficent autocrat; yet his absolutism is another factor which makes for his unpopularity, as the demand for popular government in France is not without its repercussions here.'

'In what other ways has he set Holy Church by the ears?'

'He and his principal adviser, Scipione Ricci, the Bishop of Pistoria and Prato, have encouraged the conducting of church services in Tuscan instead of Latin.'

'I see no great harm in that.'

'Nor I; but the old-fashioned resent it. However, 'tis the priesthood that bears him the most bitter grudge, owing to his having despoiled it of the wealth and power that it has enjoyed for centuries. Twenty years ago Tuscany was entirely priest-ridden. Thousands of begging friars blackmailed their way from door to door, and many thousands of monks idled their lives away in monastries battening on the labours of the peasants. Social custom, too, decreed that every girl lacking a dowry should take the veil; and you can imagine the state of things which followed the unnatural segregation of so many healthy young women. The father confessors and visiting prelates had by long custom come to regard the convents as seraglios, and as a result infanticide in one or other of them had become a daily occurrence. But Peter Leopold put an end to all that. He raised the age for taking the veil and made it in many other ways more difficult to do so, thus greatly reducing the number of young nuns; and in order to give the others something to think about, apart from lechery, he turned all the convents into schools for the education of the local children.'

'That seems an admirable measure.'

'True; but you cannot expect the priests to regard it in that light. Imagine, too, the wailing of the hosts of begging friars when a law was passed reducing their numbers by four-fifths, so that the majority of them were forced to return to the land and do an honest day's work upon it; and the outcry that was made by the monastic orders when certain of them were suppressed and their revenues taken from them.'

'Then the Grand Duke has followed the examples of other monarchs, and enriched himself at the expense of the Church.'

'On the contrary, Monsieur. He funded the money so obtained to abolish tithes, and provide better stipends for the poorer clergy.'

'In that case both his peasantry and village priests should be grateful to him.'

Signor Pisani shook his head. 'Had the country folk any sense they would be, but they are ignorant and superstitious; so an easy prey to the multitude of monks and friars he has deprived of an easy living, who go about poisoning the people's minds against him.'

'Yet surely in these measures he has had the support of the better educated among the laity?'

'To some extent; but they have their own complaints against other reforms he has introduced. He has deprived the nobility of nearly all their old privileges. In Tuscany now no one is exempt from taxation. All must pay according to their means. In that His Highness does not even spare himself. He even has the value of his art collections assessed each year and pays revenue upon them.'

Roger raised his eyebrows. 'That is indeed an altruistic gesture. Apart from his strange ordinance about burials he seems to me a model Monarch.'

'He is certainly far better than most, for in a score of years he has doubled the wealth of Tuscany. By making all classes subject to taxation he has reduced the average to eighteen pauls per annum per head, which must be considerably lighter than anywhere else in Europe. I am told that even in England it is in