Flower-Strewn Streets

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 866, 9 January 1930, Page 9

Flower-Strewn Streets

ROYAL MARRIAGE UNITES NATIONS Homage of the People FOUR SOVEREIGNS AT CEREMONY United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Received 10 a.m. ROME, Wednesday." AljJj roads led to Rome, wliere unprecedented scenes of Royal splendour characterised the marriage of Prince Lmberto of Italy to Princess Marie Jose of Belgium, which began at 9 o’clock in the morning in the Quirinal Chapel. Later the Royal couple drove in triumph through flowerstrewn and confetti-strewn streets.

Four Kings and Queens, 60 Princes and Princesses witnessed the ceremony. Cardinal Maffi and Archbishop Pisa officiated. Vast multitudes before dawn thronged the approaches. Thousands of troops were stationed in the streets controlling the assemblage. An hour before the ceremony, the guests began to arrive. Among the earliest was the Duke of York, who was attired in his naval full-dress uniform. Then came King Amauullah and his wife. This was the first Royal marriage according to the Lateran treaty rules. Princess Marie Jose presented a charming figure in a white velvet gown and a magnificent eight-yards ermine embroidered train. Crown Prince Umberto was handsomely uniformed as an infantry colonel. After the Cardinal's address the Prince and Princess exchanged wedding rings. Immediately the ceremony was completed the bells pealed in happy unison over the Eternal City, while thunderous salutes from guns boomed. The newly-weds were greeted with deafening cheering in their triumphal drive over the flower and confettistrewn streets. Cardinal Merry Del Val welcomed them at the Vatican City. The couple returned to the Quirinal, where the wedding breakfast was held. The Pope’s gift to Prince Umberto was a magnificent tapestry depicting the wedding of the Holy Virgin, and to Princess Marie Jose a gold rosary of pearls. BRILLIANT PAGEANT

were relaxed. She stayed with British aristocrats at intervals in her convent school life, many wanting to give Royal exile a good time. She was accompanied in her exile and on these visits by an English governess, who was practically the only person at the Court who understood and loved the princess. She took over her education when the Princess was seven years of age, and gradually got used to a child

“that was all over the place,” to use the words of shocked Belgian nurses. Used to something much quieter, the French and Belgian governesses were amazed at the vitality of the child, able to climb anywhere, just as enterprising as her bothers, the Princes Leopold and Charles, who are great athletes.

This ability to get anywhere, to go up any tree, over any wall, has stood the Princess in good stead in her mountain expeditions, when she accompanied her father, the King, in Switzerland and In the Tyrol. Summer and winter, on foot or on ski, father and daughter love great, empty spaces. The heir to the throne of Italy also loves mountaineering and ski-ing, in particular, and in the matter of similarity of tastes the young pair are well fitted. For their future residence they have chosen the palace at Turin, on the Po, in Northern Italy, at the foot of the Alps. Turin is a beautiful city, among a number of others, and is seldom singled out because it does not compare with Venice or Rome, for instance, with their historic interest, great beyond that of most European cities. It is, however, bright and gay, quite different from Belgium and Brussels, the land and city of rain, mist, and fog—for part of the year, at least. Leaving the summer palace of Laeken, where the Belgian Royal family usually resides, Princess Marie Jose is going to a great, cool stone structure, rather an immense villa than a palace. Laeken is always well warmed, while the wooden chalet at Ostend. given by Queen Victoria of England to Leopold 11. of Belgium, is also warm. There will be no running out of doors bareheaded to a game of tennis before breakfast at Turin. For the shortest stroll ladies-in-waiting will be summoned, whereas in Belgium Marie Jose went to college—she has not finished her studies even now—in the same car as her elder brother, Prince Leopold, who went to the military college. No one thought of sending a lady-in-waiting with the Princess, who usually dropped her brother, he being afraid of reaching school late, and proceeded to her own establishment alone, excepting for the chauffeur. The Belgians are glad that their Princess will occupy a throne. She has been bred and educated for the position, but they are somewhat uncertain of how long either Spain or Italy will remain stable, and this is the only dark point on the horizon of their satisfaction at the wedding.

The preliminary festivities in Rome in connection with the marriage were marked today by a pageant in which 500 peasants took part. The spectacle provided was of such magnificence as has not been seen in the Eternal City since the paimy days of the Renaissance.

A grandstand, covered with scarlet and gold velvet, had been erected in front of the Quirinal Palace. There Prince Umberto and his fiancee were seated. The Kings and Queens of Belgium and Italy watched the pageant from the balcony of the palace. The square was crowded with spectators who stood behind a triple row of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Starting from the Piazza Indipendenza a procession representative of IS Italian regions moved along the crowded streets. As they marched, their IS heralds with golden and silver trumpets sounded a fanfare composed by Mascagni. The Sardinian peasants wore their native costumes and had the place of honour after the trumpeters. When these peasants reached the Quirinal they sang the Sardinian National Anthem. LOVE SONGS TO PRINCESS The Piedmontese, In Alpine costumes. followed. As each group approached the Prince and Princess it presented them with a bouquet of flowers and also a present. Princess Marie Jose was introduced to peasants from each Italian province from the Alps to the sea. The Tuscan group included hare-back riders who previously had taken part in a famous race called the Palio of Siena. Shepherds from the Alban hills, wearing sheepskins, played folk music on bagpipes. A nuptial touch was given to the proceedings by singers or the Orsogna who sang marriage songs. A group of Roman girls also sang love songs to the accompaniment of tambourines. Then a party of sturdy Ethiopians passed. Cowboys of tile Campagna and Somali chiefs on camels were other features of the pageant. which eclipsed every expectation. CARE FREE PRINCESS ECHOES OF CHILDHOOD QUARRELS LOVE OF OUT-OF-DOORS Both Princess Marie Jose and Prince Umberto have been brought up in the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith; probably the Belgian Court and people are even more intensely Roman Catholic than the Italian Court and people, if it is possible. In both countries it is practically speaking, the only faith, and in this particular the marriage is very popular, both in Belgium and ill Italy. . _ Princess Marie Jose spent the war .-ears in exile. Some part of that exile was spent in a convent near Florence. Italy while the little princess, .hardly more than a child, visited Venice during the war. Venice was the front for the Austrians frequently bombed tho beautiful city. In spite of this, Princess Mane Jose went about in Venice through the winding canals in gondolas, as if there were no war. She quarrelled with her future husband, the Prince, in the grondolas, played with him in the Venice Palace, that stands out in the canal where it opens into the sea, joked with her future sisters-in-law, and generally pot to know her way about in her new country. Already speaking French, one of her native languages, she acquired Italian without trouble, learning to speak it without accent. Princess Marie Jose spent several war vears in England. Her natural independence was fostered there, especially in that during the war many rules