Explore "Our own Set" by Ossip Schubin on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
At Rome in 1870. Roman society was already divided into "_Le Monde noir_" and "_Le Monde blanc_" which as yet gave no sign of amalgamation into a "_Monde gris_. " His Holiness the Pope had entrenched himself in the Vatican behind his prestige of martyrdom; and the King already held his court at the Quirinal.
Among the distinguished Austrians who were spending the winter in Rome were the Otto Ilsenberghs. Otto Ilsenbergh, one of the leading members of the Austrian feudal aristocracy, was in Rome professedly for his health, but in reality solely in order to avail himself of the resources of the Vatican library in compiling that work on the History of Miracle which he has lately given to the world under a quaint pseudonym. He and his wife with a troup of red-haired Ilsenberghs, big and little, inhabited a straggling, historical palazzo on the Corso, with a glacial stone staircase and vast drawing-rooms which looked more fit for the meetings of conspirators than for innocent tea-drinkings and dances.