EMOTION SHOWN IN PARLIAMENT

House the public misfortune. Again 'and again the old man’s speech was interrupted by tears ; and in those painful pauses in which the words seemed to choke him, the deputies were also overpowered with émotion.

If in history there exists a sovereign who has merited the title of Padre délia Pairia, that sovereign is without doubt Victor Emmanuel. Member of his Parliament since he ascended the throne, thrice member of his council, I had rather that my life had not been prolonged to see the dreadful day when the great author of Italian independence disappears in the darkness of the tomb. ... I cannot now speak of the great, the inimitable qualities of the deceased ; but I will say that a death more serene, more confident and manly, it is impossible to imagine. The body succumbed, but the soûl remained, the soûl of patriot and soldier ; the last look he rested on our faces was so calm !

Here the speaker broke down ; and many of the deputies and many occupants of the crowded galleries, were seen to wipe away their tears. In the Senate Chamber a similar scene took place. When the president began to speak ail the senators rose to their feet and remained standing, while he delivered a brief but often interrupted eulogium on the dead, in the midst of a profound émotion. ‘ The lips are mute,’ he said, ‘ but the heart bleeds. On the remains of the father of his country I can but weep as Italy weeps.’

Senators, deputies, and soldiers, who only knew Victor Emmanuel as king, wept his loss : but the grief

felt by his Household and intimate friends was still deeper. It was touching to see the heart-broken faces of the officers who guarded the remains of their dead sovereign when he lay in state in the chapel of the Quirinal ; and General Medici, the king’s aide-de-camp, was so overpowered with grief on the morning of the funeral, that he had to be assisted to his horse, to take his place in the procession. What Victor Emmanuel’s own children experienced may be better imagined than described — and none felt the blow so heavily as the heir to the throne. We never saw a man so broken down by grief as he was when he went to receive the allegiance of the troops and to take the oath to the Constitution, th. only occasions on which he appeared in public for a month after the death of his father.

Great diversity of opinion existed as to the place of interment, the royal family and ministers being much divided on the subject. Most of them, however, were of opinion that the first King of Italy ought to be buried in the capital, and the Romans were clamorous to hâve him sepulchred in the Panthéon. On the other hand King Victor loved Turin, and was loved by his Piedmontese subjects with the romantic loyalty of bygone days ; it was hard to slight them for the Romans. Rome conquered however; and the citizens of the favoured capital sent an address to the citizens of Turin, asking them, for the sake of united Italy, for which they had already made so many sacrifices, to make this sacrifice also, and waive their daims. The Turin people were not softened ; they had been eje-