"You can't be brave if you've only had wonderful things
happen to you."
―Mary Tyler Moore
"Who can know the life of a hummingbird in a jeweled cage?"
―HRH Princess Adelaide of
Bourbon-Parma and Hapsburg-Lorraine
People often think that women like me were raised liked orchids in
hothouses, that we don't have any understanding of the world
outside the carved and inlaid doors of our palaces and villas.
They see us in the newsreels and magazines and they envy us, firm
in their belief that real life has never touched us. They consider
that the world of High Society is rarified, protected, cocooned in
a luxury that protects its denizens from all ugliness and
hardship.
But they've never thought of War―the
way the phantoms of Chaos and Destruction can pass through the
French windows, mount the marble stairs and stride unnoticed into
the salons beyond filled with Old Masters and the finest antique
furniture, and take up watchful poses in the shadows just beyond
the silver candelabra. Those people never heard the voices of the
hoi polloi raised in a hatred fired by the propaganda of
Communists and Occupation forces alike. And they never saw the
self-elected politicians walking towards us and calculating the
value of our centuries-old homes, drawing a double line beneath
the mental total as they faced us across the silver Louis XV table
in the Blue Receiving Room. And those same people never heard the
ultimatums, the threats, the demands made of us.
Perhaps that's how it should have been. Perhaps History needs
these things to happen behind closed doors and shutters on a
bright sunny day in early summer. Maybe that is the sort of
Justice that the triumphant gods of the Others demand―a
Justice that is not seen in process, in conferenza pubblica.
We bowed our heads to the inevitable, but we refused to recognize
the legitimacy of those demands. We stood firm as we made our own
futile requests for clemency, for understanding, for a
consideration of the facts that we, despite our affiliations, had
lived in our self-imposed exile under the ancien régime,
had never supported the crimes against our own people, had never
supported the desires of our subjects to take part in crimes
against other innocents just across the Adriatic Sea. Unwillingly
we partook of the blame and we swallowed the bitter pill, for the
Word had been spoken and we were to go. The new Goddess of
Democracy had cast her ballot and the scales had been tipped
against us, the horny thumb of Corruption weighing heavily against
us.
And we left our homes and possessions with our heads held high,
our jewels gleaming, and the black limousines incandescent in the
afternoon sunshine. We bade farewell to those who had so loyally
served us in both our presence and our absence, not knowing if
we'd meet again. And the children wore their finest white dresses:
like lambs to the slaughter or First Communion they passed through
the doors and down the steps to the waiting cars, while the people
watched, silent now and perhaps cognizant of the enormity of their
ill-directed actions. Or maybe not. Who shall understand the mind
of that creature known as Mob? Does it even have a mind, or is its
thinking shaped from elsewhere?
La Dolce Vita was invented for us. We shaped it over the years,
fitted it to our desires and dreams and then waved the scepters
that would make it real. And it was so real for such a long time
that we truly couldn't imagine any other way of passing from the
canopied cradle to the marble sepulcher. But we always kept a
vigilant eye on that grey and brutish existence just the other
side of the firelight, and the sounds it made sometimes kept us
awake at night, although it never kept us from our duties and
obligations, our gaming and our pleasures.
No one saw the tears forming silently behind our veils or heard
the frail echo of our hearts breaking as we left our homes for the
last time on that magnificently cloudless day in 1946. The clouds
were inside us, bottled up, ready to pour forth their rain only
after we had passed the border at Fréjus. Only then did we give
way to our grief, after the last sentinels of the New Order spat
upon our passports. And no one saw us, and all remembered our
forbearance and we were proud of ourselves, for we hadn't brought
shame upon our Dynasty or our ancestors. We kept the Name intact,
untarnished and uncorroded, to shine again far away and serve as a
lighthouse for those who would seek us out when the New Order
stumbles and falls and the people start to search for the Truth of
the past. And we shall be waiting for them. We shall wait forever,
if needs be. And when the time comes, we shall return in those
same ancient motorcars, the same brittle veils hiding our faces as
we weep on entering that Renaissance City of Light, our beloved
Florence. And we shall stand there on the balcony and we shall not
remember the 'whys' and the 'hows'. We shall remember only the
'here' and the 'now' and our heads will be held high as they
always have been.
Nobody will call us 'brave', for no one will realize the fear and
pain we felt. And the people will continue to believe that we
breathe only the most purified air free of any taint of reality,
like hummingbirds in bejeweled and gilded cages. And we shall
allow them to believe that, for the Truth helps no one but the
priests and their worthless incantations to a blind and deaf God
who cares not a damn―neither about the fall of a sparrow, nor a House that has withstood for centuries on
end.
