the prettiest sight i know in rome is when the royal princesses and the little crown prince, humbert, go driving. i lived for a winter in an apartment adjoining the quirinal palace, so that it frequently fell to me to catch glimpses of the royal family going or coming. like the king and queen, they drive out almost daily during the months the royal family spend in the capital, but it was the little ones who always caught my eye and made me turn to watch so long as they were in view. usually there are the three girls, and a nursemaid holding the prince on her knees. their carriage is an ordinary two-horsed, double-seated coach. immediately behind the carriage always ride two guards, on bicycles, men in plain, dark-blue clothes with knee breeches. a stranger in the city would not even notice them, although if one were observant he might observe many of the passers-by lifting their hats and turning to watch. almost every pleasant afternoon, when the king is in residence in rome, immediately after lunch, or on a saturday forenoon, the children are driven just outside the walls of rome to villa savoy, a playhouse which is all their own. during that portion of{250} the year spent in rome this is practically the only change they have from the palace nursery and the quirinal gardens—the latter by no means a cramped play-ground. when the duke of ascoli, gentleman-in-waiting to queen elena, first showed me these grounds i was quite astounded by their extent and their unique beauty. there are long avenues of boxwood hedges, groves of dark firs and picturesque parasol pines, fields of untended grass and acres of carefully nurtured flowers. and all this behind the dull yellow quirinal walls, fairly in the centre of the city. but any growing kiddies long for more than the yard of a city home, though that yard attain the proportions of a park, and the home be a palace. villa savoy supplies the want, and here the children have their ponies and their pet donkey. here queen elena, too, finds relief and refreshment, for the quiet of the children’s playhouse is never intruded upon by the court or visitors who are not intimates of the royal family.
the italian sovereigns are striving to purify and elevate the atmosphere and tone of their court so that their children may grow up in sweet home surroundings, protected from the careless waywardness of the aristocratic world of europe. some call it a “straight-laced” court. one influence which may be responsible for this may be traced to an incident in the schoolboy days of the king.
when the king was a youth of sixteen he deter{251}mined to change his handwriting from the ordinary sloping hand in universal vogue to the so-called vertical. the formula which he took for his motto was, “writing straight, paper straight, body straight.” this boyhood motto has been before him ever since. one of the first things the present king and queen elena did, upon their accession to the throne, was to attach to their persons only married couples. ladies-in-waiting to the queen could only be married ladies whose husbands were during the same period gentlemen-in-waiting to the king. this was an early step toward elevating the moral standards of the italian court. italian aristocracy had not been renowned for virtuous living, but the present sovereigns holding to a high standard of morality determined to purify the court in so far as in them lay by banishing from active service all ladies and gentlemen whose names had ever been bandied by current gossip. this crusade, if it may be so called, was aided by the existing laws of the country which are still sufficiently under the influence of the roman catholic church to prohibit divorce. no divorced man or woman has standing in queen elena’s court. king victor emmanuel is himself extremely devoted to his queen and this devotion has often led to his being charged with intense jealousy. whether or not this is true, his attitude toward elena has resulted in her more and more withdrawing from the companionship of people of the court and devoting herself to her children. it is{252} a pretty picture, that of the home life of this queen. six months of the year the royal family live at the quirinal palace in rome. the remainder of the year is spent at various palaces and castles in different parts of the kingdom, but chiefly at monza in the north, where the summers are delightful. the long cruises and excursions that they were wont to indulge in previous to their accession—cruises in the mediterranean and the levant, hunting trips to spitzbergen and the far north—are now a thing of the past, and a simple home life is their daily régime.
the marriage took place in 1896. their first child, yolanda, was born june 1st, 1901. royal babies are never permitted to do with only two or three christian names. they must perpetuate the names of grandfathers and grandmothers, and not infrequently of uncles and aunts and grand-uncles and grand-aunts besides. thus the full name of the first little italian princess is yolanda margherita milena elizabeth romana maria! the next little princess, born november 19th, 1902, was christened mafalda maria elizabeth anna romana. on the 15th september, 1904, at the chateau of racconigi the boy was born. this was a momentous day for elena and victor emmanuel, for the boy, if he lives, will eventually occupy the throne of his fathers, and the birth of a crown prince is a matter of utmost importance in the household of a royal family, and indeed in the
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the royal children of italy.
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annals of a nation. queen elena had been married eight years, all but one month, when his royal highness prince humbert arrived. there was some difficulty in finding suitable names for the future king, especially a first name which he would carry as king. the royal household was divided between the name of victor emmanuel, after his father, and charles emmanuel. the choice was finally left to the baby prince’s royal father who said, “it was a good custom which was followed in some families of naming the first girl after the grandmother and the first boy after the grandfather.” so the name umberto, or humbert as we write it in english, was chosen.
since the birth of the crown prince, one more child has been born to queen elena, a princess, who is called giovanna. she is still a wee child, having been born as recently as november 13, 1907.
princess yolanda, the first born, has colouring and features very like her mother, while mafalda and humbert are more like their father.
queen elena herself spends a great share of her time with the children, and while they have the usual nurses and governesses, the latter of whom are already teaching the three older children french and english in addition to italian, queen elena perhaps does more with her own hands than any other queen mother in europe. for example, she always bathes them, she is present at their supper hour and when they are being made ready{254} for bed; each afternoon she tries to spend two hours with them at their play. thus their training is very largely in her hands. the children are all very young still, but the two older girls are beginning to appreciate the love and devotion of their mother, for little mafalda recently remarked to a gentleman of the court: “mamma is the comfort of everyone in trouble.”
the queen’s birthday falls on january 8th. the year of the terrible earthquake at messina her majesty returned to rome from the devastated regions on the eve of her birthday. this year, oppressed by the terrible scenes she had witnessed, she abolished all of the usual festivities in her honour and devoted the forenoon to superintending the making of garments for the messina orphans in one of the quirinal palace rooms which she had made into a temporary workroom. in the afternoon she made a round of the rome hospitals, visiting all of the “earthquake children,” and with her own hands distributing sweets and little gifts, thus endeavouring to bring a gleam of sunshine into their darkened lives, and helping them for the moment to forget their sufferings. when someone spoke to her afterwards of this beautiful way of celebrating her birthday, she replied: “when these children grow up they may remember my birthday.” her own children, too, were encouraged on this occasion to remember the wounded and orphaned victims. instead of purchasing presents for their mother, according to their usual custom,{255} they put the money into the relief fund, to which all the world was contributing. little prince humbert brought his favourite plaything, a set of toy soldiers, to his mother and said: “take this for the poor children.”
