The Cruise of the Branwen

NAPLES passed into ancient history, but there is one other episode in it which I must record. The Italian royal family behaved magnificently throughout the long-drawn sorrows of that terrible catastrophe. One of them stayed by her husband through the worst of it, so as not to give any encouragement for the richer inha,bitants of Naples to leave the stricken city to its fate, though the dust-laden air cannot have been comfortable, or even healthy for the young. Nearly every night, when the heavy volcanic debris was steadily falling and no one knew which roof would break down next, she must have said good-bye to her children wit!iout knowing whether they would meet agam. The King of Italy was soon on the spot himself, doing everything in his power to organise relief or to console his sorrow-stricken subjects. It was one of his later visits that was concerned with the dramatic incident to which I have referred. He sent for the priest of the church in which so many worshippers had been buried by the ruins of the fallen roof, and asked whether it were true that the congregation had been specially summoned by their pastor to prayer at that hour, and whether he had been with them when the disaster had begun. The priest said yes. Then the King in one short sentence bade him leave the country. There was, of course, much commotion caused by this at first among those politicians in Rome who resented any royal interference in ecclesias– tical concerns. But when the Pope heard of it . 35