Evening star., 1901-07-20

local costumes Of the district they hap.
fssS ,G Re the PSs1ns Eosf oaba maf a
e9 K eS Aass sa Ssss fnsaFss eeaDs sss tafse
married "Contadini" from some femotef
village. When, as was inevitable, It was
discovered that the supposed peasant-bride,
for all her local sarb. could speak but very
pleasure in spinning the widest yarns to
mystify the honest villagers. The simple
peasants were quite willing to believe that
the princess was a waif thrown on land
by the sea, after having voyaged in
cradle from some unknown eastern country,
II they had been told the simple truth, that
the "Contadini' were the future King and
Queen of Italy, they probably would have
bounded them out of the village in derision
at the clumsiness of the supposed false
hood.
A Source of Trouble.
This language question, by the way, is a
source of trouble between the new king
and queen. She has not succeeded in mas
tering Italian perfectly, and she does not
like displaying her imperfect skill before
court audience. On state occasions and at
court dinners the queen sticks to French.
The king objects: THE Queen of Italy
should talk Italian" and the queen re-
torts: THE Queen of Italy should not pub
ltcly make mistakes in grammar So the
matter rests for the moment, though her
with an old professor of Padua. Apart
from the language the young queen studies
great deal. AS girl she was just as
good at her books. as skillful with her
rifle or her oars. Probably she is one of the
best read women Of her day; she Is a, claS
sical scholar, like Queen Carmen Sylvia"
of Roumania, and, they say, a really pro-
found historian, though she has never writ
ten line. Her choice of the curious name
"Yolande'' for the little princess, just born
to her, is the result of long delving in the
annals of the House Of Savoy, where she
was fascinated by the heroic figure of the
deep dent on the history Of northern Italy
in the fifteenth century. Philosophy also
is one Of her passions. She loves to engage
in metaphysical discussions with her pro-
feSSor, and is reported frequently to floor
the poor old gentleman by her display of
minute knowledge and by her subtle orig
inal speculations in these tenuous matters.
Her Love of Children.
Probably the safe arrival of the Princess
Yolande will drive these lofty problems
out of the Queen Helenas head. She had
ever passionate love Of children. In
Naples she was noted for her incurable
habit of making sudden descents upon the
black-eyed little bambini playing in the
streets and tossing the bewildered urchins
in the air to make them crow.
1t is characteristic of Queen Helena that
she should have decided to celebrate her
own babys birth by presenting every baby
born in Rome or Naples on the same day
with a handsome cradle or 100 lire &20).
Characteristic also, by the way, of the
highly intelligent citizens of Naples, that
some 400 local families put in a demand for
the cradle or the cash; the figures would
mean a birth rate that if long continued
would rapidly make the old town the most
populous center in the world. Despite the
manifest trickery the royal present is to
be handed over to the happy babies. There
could not be too many of them to please
the kindly hearted Queen of Italy. And
this though she pays the bill out of her
own pocket-she insists on that.
3 She is not very rich, by the way, scarcely
even well off, for a queen. Her private
fortune received from the Prince Nikita is
naturally very little-for he is probably the
very poorest Of royal personages. Old
Humbert left her property in Piedmont,
but it is more picturesque than productive
The money she receives from the nation all
goes back whence it came, in the maintain
ing of her queenly state. She is really
poor and she has the misfortune to be very
charitable, very soft-hearted, utterly un-
able to shut her purse when poverty holds
out it's hand in a land stricken with dire
lack of pence and prosperity, that is an
awkward combination for a person SO much
in the public eye.