Lucia - Andrea Di Robilant [115]
That fateful letter has changed things around completely and my husband now tells me he has already written to Milan giving instructions to send Alvisetto to Paris without delay. I cannot bear the thought of not seeing him for God knows how many years. He will become a stranger to his own parents. I feel deeply wounded by this whole affair.
Alvise and Lucia spent the second half of May and the first half of June looking at schools, from the smallest ones, where six or seven pupils were taught by a master in the old Socratic manner, to the more structured collèges with as many as 500 students, which the emperor strongly supported. They also looked for lodging arrangements at religious establishments and various pensionnats. Lucia complained to Paolina:
This search is killing me, I can’t even imagine how hard it will be to say goodbye to him. Tears are streaming down my face even as I write to you and I’m afraid you will find their trace all over this paper. But you are my sister, and you are a mother, and I know that you understand what I feel.
Lucia wanted to enlist the help of a person who might yet dissuade Alvise. “It is hard to find the right man, though. The French are not going to embrace my cause, while the Italians, who do not share Alvise’s opinion, don’t have enough influence over him. And those who have settled here have by now embraced French culture.” It occurred to her that the one person who had “considerable sway” over Alvise and might yet dissuade him was Joséphine, who had returned from Navarre and was spending a few days at Malmaison before leaving for the waters at Plombières, in Savoy. Lucia went over for lunch and the former empress agreed to talk to Alvise. In the afternoon, they walked in the park and visited the exotic animals that Joséphine had collected in her private zoo. Lucia winced as she caught sight of Joséphine’s two black swans swimming in the pond. She feared they were a bad omen, but kept her mouth shut.
A few days later Lucia told Paolina that “the [former] Empress has spoken to Alvise, and apparently Princess Augusta has also talked to him. But I don’t know what will come of all this. Alvise has not said a word to me about these attempts to dissuade him, and he is not aware that I know about them.”38
In the end, Joséphine’s behind-the-scenes diplomacy helped to find a solution that was more acceptable to Lucia: Alvisetto would not go to boarding school but would lodge in a private house with Monsieur Vérand, and enrol in the prestigious Lycée Napoléon as a day student. “The separation will be painful but I shall be less anxious if Vérand is here,” Lucia conceded.39 Alvise agreed to a two-year trial period instead of the full eight years of secondary education; and he promised Alvisetto would return to Italy if the experiment was not a success. A pleasant room for him and Vérand was found in rue Chanoineuse, near Notre Dame, in the apartment of Monsieur Humbert, a professor at the Lycée, and his Alsatian wife. “She seems like a good woman and Alvisetto will be able to practise his German with her,” Lucia observed, trying to make the best of the situation.40
At the end of June, a dazed and travel-weary Alvisetto arrived in Paris with Vérand. Lucia was overjoyed to have him with her, and did not stop hugging and kissing him even though she already felt the pain of their imminent separation. A few days later, Princess Augusta informed her ladies-in-waiting they were all free to return to Milan. “She wants us to arrive in Italy before her, so it means we must leave right now,” Lucia explained to Paolina.41 As she helped Alvisetto settle in with the Humberts and prepare his school material, she noticed Alvise was growing