Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

Documenti americani sul conflitto italo-austriaco del 1859 5
francese di poca rispettabilità a un ballo diplomatico,') nei suoi dispacci al Segretario di Stato si dimostrava più severo e meno equo nelle sue osservazioni. Ecco il testo dei dispacci dei due diplomatici durante questo periodo.
HOWARD R. MARRARO
world ' and * polite society '. I bave dined with dukes, jabbered bad grommar to coun-tesses, and ani sponged-on for seats in my operabox by counts, who stink of garlick as does the wholc country. I receive visits fri)tn other diplomata with titles as long as a flagstaff, and heads as empty as their bearla, and find the whole concerò mucb more traaby tban I ever imagined. I must, bowever, keep up their miscrablc acquaintance, for this is the way to see the Elephani of European lite... The pictures, the operas, the ballcts, of Europe, are good tbings; the people, the governments, the society, more con-temptible tban can he iniagined .
H fratello del ministro, Frederick M. Daniel, il quale era segretario della Legazione americana a Torino, dichiara che John M. Daniel indirizzò questa famosa lettera al dott. A. E. Petticolas, medico di Richmond, Virginia. FREDERICK. M. DANIEL, The Richmond Examiner During the War, New York, privntely pnblished, 1868. Lo stesso giornale, il Richmond SemiWeekly Examiner (14 aprile 1854, VII, no. 47, p. 2) scriveva così:
It is untrue that the resìgnation of Mr. Daniel, chargé at Sardinia, has been received in Washington. Nor has any intimation been made to the State Department of any thing of the sort. Mr. Daniel'a friends in this city know nothing confirmatory of the minora afloat on the subject, and do not credit these rumors in the least... .
') In una tesina di laurea intitolata John M. Daniel and the Confederacy per il Ma­ster of Arti, presentata nel 1928 all'Università di Chicago, la studentessa Emeline Lee Stearns accenna all'incidente diplomatico in questo paragrafo (pp. 1213): A * tenderfoot diplomat *, Daniel was the cause of at least one court scandal at Turin. On the night of January 24, 1859, a magnificent ball was given by His Majesty, Victor Emmanuel XI, to celebrate the bethrothal of his only daughter, the Princess Clotilde, to Prince Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, cousin of Napoleon HI of France, whose good will was essential to the success of Cavonr's plans for Italian uuity and independence. Daniel, along with the other diplomats of the corps, received an officiai invitation. It happened that a cousin of Napoleon III, Marie de Solms, exiled from France for ber repubUcan ideas, was living in Savoy surrounded by a group of French writers of kindred politicai views and literary aspirations. Beautiful and intelhgent, she had been, it appears, notoriouly unsuccessful * in preserving her pristine virtue or even the memory of it. * Evidently, ber presence was not desired at the rovai ball for she was not invited to come. The occasion appeared to her and her friends a golden opportunity for effecting a reconcili ation with her powerful relativcs and Daniel, a charmed visitor at her salon, was called upon for assistance. He escorted her to the ball, the lack of invitation notwithstanding. Severa! high officials were exceedingly displeascd with this breach of etiquette, and Cavour instructed his re­presentati ve in Washington to rcport Daniei's offensc to the State Department. Informed by friends of this action, Daniel wrotc an account of the incident to Washington, which was accepted as satisfactory by President Buchanan. À number of years later, the lady in the case married signor Battezzi, future prime rninister of the Kingdom of Italy, and became prominent in Fiorentine society. FREDERICK M. DANIEL, The Richmond Examiner during the Wart the Writings of John M. Daniel,, with a Memoir of His Life, New York, 1868. There may bave been a more nrgent zeaaon for Daniei's action tban his sympathy with Marie1 s republiean ideas and his enjoymcnt of her charming salon. Moncure Conway, writing yoars aftcrwards of a trip to Rome, said: One of the band-somest women I saw in Rome, was Madame Battazzi, of the Baltimore Bonapartes whom my cousin John M. Daniel Ioved, hut left for a Confederate graverà Virginia). Moncure D. CONWAY, Autobiography, Memoirs and Experiences, Cambridge, 1904, II, p. 259.