The devil's spawn Author:William Le Queux Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III MY IMPRESSIONS OF KING VICTOB As a resident through many years in Italy, and moving constantly in diplomatic and official circles in Rome, Flor... more »ence, and elsewhere, I have been honoured on several occasions to receive commands to private audience of His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel. My first meeting with him was in 1900, when, as Crown Prince, he came to Florence on an official visit. Anarchy in its worst form was then rife, and in every part of Italy the wide-spread organisation permeating through every phase of the national life had, as its one object, the extermination of the Royal House of Savoy. It will be remembered that it was an Italian Anarchist who struck to the heart the late Empress of Austria. Not long after that episode it was an Italian Anarchist who killed the easy-going King Umberto, near Monza—that deplorable event which brought the Crown Prince Vittorio to the throne. I recall a warm perfumed night in May in Florence—" Firenze la Bella," as the Italians call it. The city had been agog all day, flags had beenstrung across the streets, for the Crown Prince was to drive through the city to the Royal Palazzo. With the chief of secret police, who was an intimate friend of mine, I had sat in a room in the Questura that morning. " Caro mio," he had said, very eagerly, " this is the worst day for me in all my life. I have warned them that His Royal Highness ought never to set foot in Firenze. This city teems with Anarchists—and we, the police, are powerless ! Well, His Highness has laughed at my warnings, and is coming "—and he shrugged his shoulders. " I have a hundred secret agents here to protect him. He knows that—and yet he laughs—and is coming. It is courting death." " Could you not prevent him ? " " I did my very utmost. I saw His ...« less