'Upon his death, I bade adieu to my cousin, and quitted Sicily for
Italy, where the Chevalier de Menon had for some time expected me. Our
meeting was very affecting. My resentment towards him was done away,
when I observed his pale and altered countenance, and perceived the
melancholy which preyed upon his heart. All the airy vivacity of his
former manner was fled, and he was devoured by unavailing grief and
remorse. He deplored with unceasing sorrow the friend he had murdered,
and my presence seemed to open afresh the wounds which time had begun
to close. His affliction, united with my own, was almost more than I
could support, but I was doomed to suffer, and endure yet more. In a
subsequent engagement my husband, weary of existence, rushed into the
heat of battle, and there obtained an honorable death. In a paper
which he left behind him, he said it was his intention to die in that
battle; that he had long wished for death, and waited for an
opportunity of obtaining it without staining his own character by the
cowardice of suicide, or distressing me by an act of butchery. This
event gave the finishing stroke to my afflictions;--yet let me
retract;--another misfortune awaited me when I least expected one.
The Chevalier de Menon died without a will, and his brothers refused to
give up his estate, unless I could produce a witness of my marriage. I
returned to Sicily, and, to my inexpressible sorrow, found that your
mother had died during my stay abroad, a prey, I fear, to grief. The
priest who performed the ceremony of my marriage, having been
threatened with punishment for some ecclesiastical offences, had
secretly left the country; and thus was I deprived of those proofs
which were necessary to authenticate my claims to the estates of my
husband. His brothers, to whom I was an utter stranger, were either
too prejudiced to believe, or believing, were too dishonorable to
acknowledge the justice of my claims. I was therefore at once
abandoned to sorrow and to poverty; a small legacy from the count de
Bernini being all that now remained to me.
'When the marquis married Maria de Vellorno, which was about this
period, he designed to quit Mazzini for Naples. His son was to
accompany him, but it was his intention to leave you, who were both
very young, to the care of some person qualified to superintend your
education. My circumstances rendered the office acceptable, and my
former friendship for your mother made the duty pleasing to me. The
marquis was, I believe, glad to be spared the trouble of searching
further for what he had hitherto found it difficult to obtain--a
person whom inclination as well as duty would bind to his interest.'