4435. EBB to Mary Ann Bruen
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 26, 199.
Casa Guidi
Sunday– [26 June 1859] [1]
My dear Mrs Bruen
I must venture to go to you to ask for a word about those on whom this heavy affliction has fallen. [2] A heavy affliction,—even when so certainly & obviously falling from a merciful Hand!. I hear reports, when I would fain have knowledge. Do write a word. We are unwilling to intrude with enquiries at Mr Edward Perkins’s—& I am so anxious to learn that poor Mrs Cleveland [3] in particular is not too painfully affected, that I turn round, you see, and intrude upon you–
May God bless all of you!– Is Mrs Charles Perkins [4] quite well?
With truest regards,
believe me affectionately yours
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Publication: None traced.
Manuscript: University of Texas.
1. Dated by EBB’s reference to the “heavy affliction” that befell the Perkinses (see note 2 below).
2. Edward Newton Perkins and his family (see letter 4388, note 2) had left Rome on 9 June to spend the summer in Perugia, the principal city in the Papal State of Umbria. On 14 June 1859, following the withdrawal of Austrian troops, the citizens of Perugia ousted the papal authorities and installed a provincial government. It lasted little more than a week before Pope Pius IX ordered his Swiss soldiers to retake the city. On 20 June “the Papal soldiers after entering the town acted with cruel ferocity. They shot everyone they could find and entering private houses pillaged and murdered their peaceful inmates including old men and helpless women, nine of whom were mothers. A highly respectable American family (Mr Perkins of Boston with his wife, mother, sister and niece) were dining at the Hotel de France in Perugia at the time of the invasion and saw the innkeeper and a waiter murdered under their own eyes. The innkeeper’s wife was able to escape with the American ladies and concealed them in a remote part of the building where they remained for fourteen hours, but, meanwhile, the whole of their property was pillaged by the Swiss soldiers” (The Roman Question, ed. Noel Blakiston, 1962, p. 28). On 22 June the family left Perugia for Florence, where they were joined on 24 June by Edward’s brother, Charles, and his family, which included Mrs. Bruen, who were at Bagni di Lucca for the summer. The Edward Perkins family eventually received full compensation for their losses; however, Elizabeth Doane never recovered from the shock of the events, and she died on 10 November.
3. Mrs. Cleveland’s account of the incident appeared in The Times of 2 July 1859 (p. 12).
4. Frances Davenport Perkins, Mrs. Bruen’s daughter.
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