This rich heiress was at first intended for the cloister, being the
fourth child of Prince and Princess Colonna; but the death of her two
brothers, and of her elder sister, suddenly brought her out of her
retirement, and made her one of the most brilliant matches in the
Papal States. Her elder sister had been betrothed to Prince
Gandolphini, one of the richest landowners in Sicily; and Francesca
was married to him instead, so that nothing might be changed in the
position of the family. The Colonnas and Gandolphinis had always
intermarried.
From the age of nine till she was sixteen, Francesca, under the
direction of a Cardinal of the family, had read all through the
library of the Colonnas, to make weight against her ardent imagination
by studying science, art, and letters. But in these studies she
acquired the taste for independence and liberal ideas, which threw
her, with her husband, into the ranks of the revolution. Rodolphe had
not yet learned that, besides five living languages, Francesca knew
Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The charming creature perfectly understood
that, for a woman, the first condition of being learned is to keep it
deeply hidden.
Rodolphe spent the whole winter at Geneva. This winter passed like a
day. When spring returned, notwithstanding the infinite delights of
the society of a clever woman, wonderfully well informed, young and
lovely, the lover went through cruel sufferings, endured indeed with
courage, but which were sometimes legible in his countenance, and
betrayed themselves in his manners or speech, perhaps because he
believed that Francesca shared them.
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