Miscellaneous Prose | Page 8

Sicily, a

nephew of the Marquis del Vasto; and Pescara, a descendant of that
great general of Charles V., to whom the proud Francis I. of France was
obliged to surrender and give up his sword at the battle of Pavia.
Besides these Neapolitan noblemen who have enlisted of late as
privates, the Italian army now encamped on the banks of the Po and of
the Mincio may boast of two Colonnas, a prince of Somma, two Barons
Renzi, an Acquaviva, of the Duke of Atri, two Capece, two Princes
Buttera, etc. To return to the mission of Colonel Bariola and the Duke
of Sant' Arpino, I will add some details which were told me this
morning by a gentleman who left Cremona yesterday evening, and who
had them from a reliable source. The messenger of General Lamarmora
had been directed to proceed from Cremona to the small village of Le
Grazie, which, on the line of the Mincio, marks the Austrian and Italian
frontier.
On the right bank of the Lake of Mantua, in the year 1340, stood a
small chapel containing a miraculous painting of the Madonna, called
by the people of the locality 'Santa Maria delle Grazie.' The boatmen
and fishermen of the Mincio, who had been, as they said, often saved
from certain death by the Madonna--as famous in those days as the
modern Lady of Rimini, celebrated for the startling feat of winking her
eyes-- determined to erect for her a more worthy abode.
Hence arose the Santuario delle Grazie. Here, as at Loretto and other
holy localities of Italy, a fair is held, in which, amongst a great number
of worldly things, rosaries, holy images, and other miraculous objects
are sold, and astounding boons are said to be secured at the most
trifling expense. The Santuario della Madonna delle Grazie enjoying a
far-spread reputation, the dumb, deaf, blind, and halt-in short, people
afflicted with all sorts of infirmities--flock thither during the fair, and
are not wanting even on the other days of the year. The church of Le
Grazie is one of the most curious of Italy. Not that there is anything
remarkable in its architecture, for it is an Italian Gothic structure of the
simplest style. But the ornamental part of the interior is most peculiar.
The walls of the building are covered with a double row of wax statues,
of life size, representing a host of warriors, cardinals, bishops, kings,
and popes, who--as the story runs--pretended to have received some
wonderful grace during their earthly existence. Amongst the grand
array of illustrious personages, there are not a few humbler individuals

whose history is faithfully told (if you choose to credit it) by the
painted inscriptions below. There is even a convict, who, at the moment
of being hanged, implored succour of the all-powerful Madonna,
whereupon the beam of the gibbet instantly broke, and the worthy
individual was restored to society--a very doubtful benefit after all. On
Colonel Bariola and the Duke of Sant' Arpino arriving at this place,
which is only five miles distant from Mantua, their carriage was
naturally stopped by the commissaire of the Austrian police, whose
duty was to watch the frontier. Having told him that they had a
despatch to deliver either to the military governor of Mantua or to some
officer sent by him to receive it, the commissaire at once despatched a
mounted gendarme to Mantua. Two hours had scarcely elapsed when a
carriage drove into the village of Le Grazie, from which an Austrian
major of infantry alighted and hastened to a wooden hut where the two
Italian officers were waiting. Colonel Bariola, who was trained in the
Austrian military school of Viller Nashstad, and regularly left the
Austrian service in 1848, acquainted the newly-arrived major with his
mission, which was that of delivering the sealed despatch to the general
in command of Mantua and receiving for it a regular receipt. The
despatch was addressed to the Archduke Albert, commander-in-chief of
the Austrian army of the South, care of the governor of Mantua. After
the major had delivered the receipt, the three messengers entered into a
courteous conversation, during which Colonel Bariola seized an
opportunity of presenting the duke, purposely laying stress on the fact
of his belonging to one of the most illustrious families of Naples. It
happened that the Austrian major had also been trained in the same
school where Colonel Bariola was brought up--a circumstance of which
he was reminded by the Austrian officer himself. Three hours had
scarcely elapsed from the arrival of the two Italian messengers of war
at Le Grazie, on the Austrian frontier, when they were already on their
way back to the headquarters of Cremona, where during the night the
rumour was current that a telegram had been received