Poems came
fluttering down on all sides; the first that fell upon Corilla's head,
Cardinal Albani eagerly seized and unfolded for the purpose of reading
it aloud. But after the first few lines his voice was silenced--it was
an abusive poem, full of mockery and scorn.
But nevertheless she was crowned. She still stood upon the capitol, with
the laurel-crown upon her brow, cheered by her respectable protectors
and friends. But the people joined not in those cheers, and, as the
exulting shouts ceased, there swelled up to the laurel-crowned poetess,
from thousands of voices, a thundering laugh of scorn, and this scornful
laugh, this hissing and howling of the people, accompanied her upon her
return from the capitol, following her through the streets to her own
door. The people had judged her!
Corilla was no poetess by the grace of God, and only by the grace of man
had she been crowned as queen of poesy!
Mortified, crushed, and enraged, she fled from Rome to Florence.
She knew how to flatter the great and win princes. She was a
princess-poetess, and the people rejected her!
But the laurel was hers. She was sought and esteemed, the princes
admired her, and Catharine of Russia fulfilled the promise Orloff had
made the improvisatrice in the name of the empress.
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