TRUE STORY OF VICTOR EMMANUEL AND HIS MORGANATIC WIFE.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2895, 27 May 1878, Page 4

TRUE STORY OF VICTOR EMMANUEL AND HIS MORGANATIC WIFE.

A late number of the London Financial Opinion has the following: "An exceedingly well informed correspondent at Florence calls our attention to certain statements which appeared in a late number of the World concerning the relations of the late King pf Italy and the Countess Mirafiori. The statements were to the effect that the King and the Countess were never legally married, that the religious ceremony which they went through did not constitute them man and wife, that their connection was a public scandal, and that their son is repudiated by society, sent to Coventry by the army, and blackballed by_ every club into which he seeks admittance. Our correspondent characterises as libellous and untrue. The Sing and Rosin a were married by civil rites, and were therefore man and wife. . The connection, though from some points of view regretable, was far from being a scandal, and their son is neither cut by society nor insulted in the army; and, so far from being blackballed by the Clubs* he is at this moment a member of the only aristocratic Club in Florence. As the young fellow is personally unobjectionable, and has, moreover, a fortune of £30,000 a year, it is too much to ask any one to believe that in Italy, of all places in the world, he would be tabooed by his countrymen as a punishment for. the moral backslidings of his parents. It may not be generally known that the maiden uame of the Countess Mirafiori was Rosina Vercellana, that she was the daughter of a drum major in the Sardinian army, and that Victor Emmanuel fell in love with her while, in the capacity of sutler, she presided over a canteen at some military manoeuvres. After the, death of the Queen, in 1855, he made Eosina his ' unofficial wife.' Three children were born to them, and tbey led a happy life. Their marriage was finally brought about by the anxious desire of the king—after his illness in 1869—t0 be reconverted to the Church. Many difficulties had to be overcome before this desire, so honorable to his Majesty, could be gratified, but the difficulties were overcome, the marriage was both solemnized and legalised, and Victor Emmanuel was absolved of his sins, and remained a true Catholic to the end of his days. His union with the Countess Mirafiori, we may mention, in conclusion, is duly chronicled in the courtly and infallible pages of the Almanach de Gotha."