"
She drew him into a corner of the balcony, kissed him on the forehead,
and fled, leaving him in amazement.
Next day Rodolphe heard that the lodgers at the Bergmanns' had left at
daybreak. It then seemed to him intolerable to remain at Gersau, and
he set out for Vevay by the longest route, starting sooner than was
necessary. Attracted to the waters of the lake where the beautiful
Italian awaited him, he reached Geneva by the end of October. To avoid
the discomforts of the town he took rooms in a house at Eaux-Vives,
outside the walls. As soon as he was settled, his first care was to
ask his landlord, a retired jeweler, whether some Italian refugees
from Milan had not lately come to reside at Geneva.
"Not so far as I know," replied the man. "Prince and Princess Colonna
of Rome have taken Monsieur Jeanrenaud's place for three years; it is
one of the finest on the lake. It is situated between the Villa
Diodati and that of Monsieur Lafin-de-Dieu, let to the Vicomtesse de
Beauseant. Prince Colonna has come to see his daughter and his
son-in-law Prince Gandolphini, a Neopolitan, or if you like, a Sicilian,
an old adherent of King Murat's, and a victim of the last revolution.
These are the last arrivals at Geneva, and they are not Milanese.
Serious steps had to be taken, and the Pope's interest in the Colonna
family was invoked, to obtain permission from the foreign powers and
the King of Naples for the Prince and Princess Gandolphini to live
here.
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