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 LETTERS FROM ITALY 
 
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V, 
 
LETTERS 
 
 FROM 
 
 FLORENCE, ITALY, IN 1866 
 
 By 
 
 MRS. HARRIETTK MATTKINI 
 
 PUBLISHED IN 1893 
 
 BY he;r daughter 
 FANNY WINCHESTER HOTCHKISS 
 
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INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The following letters, by Mrs. Harriette Matteini, 
 are published for the sake of her grandchildren, that 
 they may possess something from her gifted pen. 
 They were written at a time of great political excite- 
 ment in Italy, when Victor Emmanuel II. though 
 King of Italy, did not reign over the whole of his 
 kingdom. Venice and Rome were still lacking to his 
 crown. Cavour, the distinguished statesman, had 
 passed away, and Garibaldi, v/ith his red-shirted fol- 
 lowers, was still fighting the battles of the nation. 
 
 This introduction, compiled from different authors, 
 is given in order to throw some light upon the very 
 interesting period in which these letters were written. 
 Mrs. Matteini, long a resident among the people she 
 loved and admired, recognizing their faults, appre- 
 ciating their virtues, heartily sympathized with them 
 during their long and weary struggle for national 
 union and libert5^ To understand the Italy of that 
 period, we must glance back, and trace the causes, 
 which in 1866, led to the events described in the fol- 
 lowing pages. Since the fall of the great Napoleon, 
 the countries of Europe had been in a constant state 
 
 iV!S24.195 
 
of agitation. Previous to this event, the French 
 nation, had through her armies, carried new and rad- 
 ical ideas into the countries she had invaded, and 
 brought under Napoleon's sway. 
 
 The events of 1796 and 1798 had aroused in the 
 Italians new views and hopes in regard to constitu- 
 tional freedom. The principles of the Code Napoleon 
 had been introduced into Italy, and into nearly all 
 the German dependencies of France. Then came the 
 overthrow of the great conqueror, and the restoration 
 of the dispossessed princes. These monarchs, instead 
 of pursuing the liberal policy of the invader, went 
 back to the old regime. They oppressed their sub- 
 jects, allowed them no religious or political freedom, 
 and for a time darkness seemed to hover over the 
 continent, and absolutism reigned .supreme. But the 
 taste for liberty could not be so easily destroyed. The 
 people had found out what freedom meant — the .seed, 
 so freely sown, permeated and vivified the nations of 
 Europe, and though kings and emperors sought to 
 stifle this new and powerful element in the souls of 
 men, it could not be crushed. The germ lay dor- 
 mant for a season, to be quickened from time to time 
 and manifest itself in those frequent uprisings, con- 
 flicts and revolutions, that shook Europe during the 
 first part of the 19th century. The people had been 
 enlightened — the nations of the Eastern Continent 
 could not again relapse for anj' long period, into the 
 
 4 
 
condition of the i8th century. But to turn to Italy — 
 Mettemich regarded that country, as well as Ger- 
 many, as his especial province. Similar conditions 
 existed in both. That country, like Germany, was a 
 conglomerate of numerous separate, mutually inde- 
 pendent states, whose princes had estranged their 
 subjects by their restoration policy. These princes 
 had now as colleague, the Emperor of Austria, the 
 latter having taken possession of Milan and Venice — 
 both valuable parts of the Napoleonic inheritance. 
 Francis Joseph was determined to substitute his influ- 
 ence for that of France, and from upper Italy, to rule 
 the whole peninsula. With this end in view, Austria 
 must spread in Italy the principles of the Holy Alli- 
 ance. She must repress with all her might all aspira- 
 tions after freedom, any attempts at written constitu- 
 tions or liberty of the Press, all longings for national 
 unity. But the question whether the German long- 
 suffering would be imitated by the passionate, impul- 
 sive inhabitants of Italy, whether they would adapt 
 themselves to the old feudal relations again, still 
 remained to be answered. The transition from the 
 French rule to that of the old dynasties, was far 
 sharper in Italy than in Germany. In the latter 
 country, the pre-existing governments had main- 
 tained themselves under Napoleon. In Italy not a 
 single sovereign had remained upon his throne, but 
 a good and wise government had been given to the 
 5 
 
people and under it the country had prospered. Had 
 the returning royal families retained the good of the 
 French institutions, they might have won the love 
 and allegiance of their subjects, but instead, they 
 connected themselves immediately with the old con- 
 ditions, and only allowed such institutions to remain, 
 as lent power and splendor to their authority. Con- 
 sequentl}^ dissatisfaction spread among the people, 
 and soon reached a high point. There was no lack 
 of organization among the different elements of oppo- 
 sition, for the league of the Carbonari (charcoal- 
 burners) had definite political aims. In the year 
 1 8 19 it was estimated that there were about 60,000 
 members in all Italy, their headquarters being at 
 Naples. The independence and unity of Italy were 
 the aims of this society, but whether this object 
 should be attained through a constitutional monarchy 
 or a republic, was still an open question among them. 
 Such was the state of Italy in the early part of the 
 19th centur^^ Revolutions and riots all over the 
 peninsula followed each other in close succession. 
 The Carbonari, lacking the full cooperation of the 
 people, utterly failed in their attempts. Metternich 
 and the Austrians conquered, and their influence 
 became the controlling power in Italy. 
 
 In 1 83 1 revolutions and war broke out again, but 
 the Italians were as yet no match for their enemies, 
 therefore all their hatred was diredted against foreign 
 
rule, as the onlj^ obstacle to the freedom and unity 
 of the peninsula. Joseph Mazzini, then an exile in 
 England, took care that the national spirit should 
 not be buried beneath material interests, but should 
 remain ever wakeful. Then came the years 1848-49, 
 and all the struggles in central and southern Italy 
 stood in close connection with the events of those 
 years in upper Italy. The hopes of the nation were 
 centered on Sardinia, and her King Charles Albert, 
 but they were doomed to disappointment until Victor 
 Emmanuel II. ascended the throne in 1849. He, 
 with Cavour and Garibaldi, became in later years, the 
 upholder of Italian freedom and unity, and under him 
 Italy was united into one powerful kingdom. But 
 this was not accomplished until 1870. Napoleon 
 III., who in 1856 was the recognized arbiter of the 
 destinies of Europe, no longer held in 1866 the 
 balance of power in his hands. His influence was on 
 the wane, but with intrigues and artifices he sought 
 to strengthen his position. On the 28th of May 
 1866, in conjunction with the cabinets of London 
 and St. Petersburg, he extended in Vienna, Florence, 
 Berlin and Frankfort, invitations to a peace confer- 
 ence to take place in Paris. 
 
 This conference was to consider the important ques- 
 tions of the moment, namely the disposition to be 
 made of the Elbe duchies, the Italian claims on 
 Venetia and Trentino, and, in so far as it concerned 
 
the European balance of power, the reorganization 
 of the German Confederation. Prussia, Italy, and 
 the Diet accepted the invitation. Austria would only 
 accept on condition, that every combination looking 
 to the enlargement of the territory, or the increase 
 of the power of any one of the invited states, be 
 excluded from the discussions. England and France 
 declared the conference impossible under such condi- 
 tions, and the plan was abandoned. The diplomatic 
 game which Napoleon was playing, was full of per- 
 fidious double-dealing. He desired a war between 
 Prussia and Austria, hoping that it would be of long 
 duration, greatly weakening both parties, and that it 
 would finally result in forcing Prussia, of whose 
 defeat he felt confident, to accede to his plans of con- 
 quest. It was in this hope that he urged Prussia into 
 war, assuring her of his neutrality, and giving his 
 consent to the Prussian-Italian alliance, concluded 
 April 8th, 1866. By this treaty Italy pledged herself 
 to stand by Prussia, in case, within three months, the 
 latter became involved in war, on account of her 
 reform measures, while in the like event Prussia 
 promised the King of Italy her assistance in the 
 acquisition of Venetia. Bismarck would not consent 
 to the further demand of the Italian minister-presi- 
 dent lya Marmora that the Trentino should be 
 annexed to Italy, since that involved the cession of 
 territory belonging to the German Confederation. 
 
 i 
 
These negotiations were conducted with Napoleon's 
 full cognizance, not a single step being taken without 
 his consent. This alliance was to tear Venetia from 
 Austria, and keep a part of the Austrian army busy 
 on the Mincio. In seeking Prussia's friendship, 
 Napoleon wished to carry out his own plans for the 
 aggrandizement of France, by changes in regard to 
 Belgium and the Rhine frontier, thus gratifying the 
 pride of the French nation and securing his own 
 dynasty upon the throne. As soon however as he 
 perceived that his proposals to Prussia were not 
 favorably entertained, he used every effort to secure 
 her defeat, as a means of rendering her more amen- 
 able to his demands. For this purpose he endeavored 
 to undermine the Italian alliance, confirm Austria in 
 her warlike mood, and obtain from her the most 
 favorable terms possible for France. Thus at the 
 instigation of France, May 5th, 1866, Austria offered 
 the Italian cabinet Venetia, free of compensation, on 
 the sole condition that Italy should remain neutral 
 in the approaching struggle between Austria and 
 Prussia. The temptation was great, but the breach 
 of treaty was too flagrant ; the offer was therefore 
 rejected, and the alliance with Prussia remained 
 unbroken. Then followed the German-Italian war, 
 the most important one which had occurred m 
 Europe since 181 5, on account of the territorial 
 changes which took place in the map of Kurope. 
 
Victor Emmanuel declared war against Austria June 
 2oth, 1866, — then followed the defeat of the Italians 
 at Custoza (Jime 24th) and the naval defeat at Lissa 
 (July 20th) . These disasters might have proved fatal 
 to the cause of Italy, indeed would have delayed for 
 many years, if not destroyed the object of the nation's 
 endeavors, a united Italy, had it not been for the 
 brilliant and continued successes of their allies, the 
 Prussians, whose arms were victorious everywhere. 
 Led by Prince Frederic Charles, Gen. Herwarth von 
 Bittenfeld and the Crown Prince of Prussia, they 
 proved themselves more than a match for commander- 
 in-chief Benedek, and the able generals at the head 
 of the Austrian army, defeating them in every 
 encounter. Finally July 3rd, 1866, occurred the 
 hard-fought battle of Sadowa or Koniggratz, in which 
 the Prussians utterly and completely routed the Aus- 
 trians, and almost annihilated their army. This 
 battle virtually decided the campaign, though the 
 fighting still continued in Italy and Germany. July 
 13th, Archduke Albert assumed the chief command 
 of all the Austrian armies, and Benedek was deprived 
 of his office. The emperor of Austria could think 
 of no more skillful means to check the victorious 
 advance of the enemy towards Vienna, than the ces- 
 sion to Napoleon, before all the world, of the prov- 
 ince of Venetia, which had already been ceded secretly, 
 and the use of his intervention for the restoration of 
 
 10 
 
peace. Accordingly on the 5th of July, the cession 
 of Venetia to France was made public. The emperor 
 was convinced, that if Venetia became a French prov- 
 ince, Victor Emmanuel could only win it by yielding 
 to Napoleon's wishes. Austria would then have her 
 whole southern army to use against the Prussians. 
 Immediately after the emperor of Austria had offered 
 Venetia to lyouis Napoleon, the greater part of the 
 Austrian army in Italy was withdrawn to the Dan- 
 ube, to be employed in fighting Prussia, and the 
 Italians, led by Gen. Cialdini, met vnth but little 
 resistance to- their new advance into Venetia. The 
 volunteers, under Garibaldi, were to cooperate with 
 Cialdini' s army, by invading south-western Tyrol. 
 But Victor Emmanuel would not recognize the ces- 
 sion of Venetia to Napoleon, nor did he wish to 
 accept from that monarch a pro\'ince, the Italians 
 were eager to win at the point of the bayonet. Napo- 
 leon endeavored, by the offer of Venetia, to dissuade 
 Italy from the further prosecution of the war, and 
 hoped to induce both Italy and Prussia to conclude 
 an immediate truce, but neither of the allies would 
 follow his advice. Unable, therefore, on account of 
 the Prussian-Italian alliance, to use the Austrian gift 
 in the way he had intended. Napoleon let matters 
 take their own course. It seemed as if war between 
 Italy and Austria was again imminent, when Victor 
 Emmanuel, finally realizing the great risk of engag- 
 11 
 
ing single-handed in a war with Austria, yielded at 
 length to the counsels of Napoleon and King Wil- 
 liam, and withdrawing his claims upon the Italian- 
 speaking Southern-Tyrol, accepted Venetia from the 
 hands of France. A peace between Austria and Italy 
 was signed in Vienna, October 3rd, 1866, and the iron 
 crown of L,ombardy was at length handed over to Vic- 
 tor Emmanuel. On the i6th of October, Venice was 
 evacuated and on the i8th Napoleon, through Gen. 
 lycboeuf, surrendered the city to a committee of the 
 common council, and the Italian troops marched in. 
 The vote upon the union of Venetia with the King- 
 dom of Italy, took place on the 21st and 22d of Octo- 
 ber, 651,758 persons voting in its favor, while only 
 69 voted against it. November 4th this result was 
 communicated to the King in Turin by a Venetian dep- 
 utation. In reply Victor Emmanuel said : "To-day 
 the foreign rule has come to an end. Italy is created, 
 but not yet completed. The Italians must defend it 
 and make it great." 
 
 November 7th, 1866. Victor Emmanuel entered 
 Venice. The dream of the old Carbonari of a united 
 Italy had almost reached its fulfillment, for isolated 
 Rome could not much longer hold out against the 
 march of the century. To the victors of Sadowa, 
 Italy owed the acquisition of a province without a 
 single victory, her army and her navy having been 
 completely defeated at Custoza and at Lissa ; such 
 
 12 
 
success in disaster has not a second example in the 
 history of war. But in spite of this fact, it must be 
 acknowledged that for years the Italians had been 
 fighting bravely and indefatigably for national union 
 and independence, and though in their last struggle, 
 others had gathered the laurels they longed for, yet 
 through defeat and suffering a nation had been bom, 
 worthy to occupy the new kingdom allotted to them. 
 Three great men stand forth conspicuously at this 
 transition period of Italy's history — Victor Emmanuel, 
 Cavour, Garibaldi. The first for his steadfastness and 
 unwavering faith in the cause he had espoused and 
 the people over whom he reigned, the second, for his 
 remarkable sagacity in the conduct of affairs, the 
 third for his unswerving devotion to the cause of lib- 
 erty, his untiring battle against wrong, and patriotic 
 love of his country. These three men were united in 
 one noble purpose, the deliverance of their country 
 from a foreign yoke, and at last their efforts were 
 crowned with success. They achieved what they 
 had undertaken — United Italy was no longer an idea, 
 it was an accomplished fact, and Metternich's famous 
 saying that ' ' Italy was but a geographical expres- 
 sion ' ' was utterly refuted. Cavour will always 
 stand at the head of Italy's great statesmen — Victor 
 Emmanuel as Italy's wise king — Garibaldi as Italy's 
 patriot warrior — the hero of the present and of the 
 future. All contributed to mould the nation's policy. 
 
 13 
 
Either alone would have failed, but the threefold cord 
 none could resist. At their united call the peopl^ 
 arose, shook off their fetters, and stood noble and 
 free, a nation among men. 
 
 14 
 
LETTERS. 
 
 Florence, Italy, May 25, 1866. 
 
 In spite of all the talk about a Congress, 
 though Italy and Prussia are believed to have 
 consented to its reunion, every one feels and 
 knows that the war is a certainty and will 
 soon be a reality. The wish for the war grows 
 more profound and intense every day, and its 
 demonstrations more enthusiastically ardent. 
 The volunteering fever has become a frenzy, 
 that it is difficult to keep within prudent 
 bounds, and the popular sympathy keeps pace 
 with it. The doors of the various offices of 
 enrollment are surrounded by crowds of young 
 men, hours and hours before they are opened, 
 and in some instances so great has been their 
 impatience to enter, and their eagerness to be 
 comprised in the first hundred who will leave, 
 that the doors themselves have been liter- 
 is 
 
ally forced in, and tlie departure of the detach- 
 ments has been accompanied with such 
 tumultuous, unbridled marks of the popular 
 sympathy, that the government has felt com- 
 pelled to suspend them for a few days ; they 
 are, however, to be resumed to-day. The dis- 
 inclination that the government displayed in 
 the first instance for the aid and cooperation 
 of the volunteers seems to have disappeared, 
 and it is reported that the King has consented 
 to the formation of several new battalions, 
 some say as many as thirty or forty, in order 
 that none who apply may be refused, and it 
 certainly would be a pity to deny the Italian 
 youth the free exercise of the only virtue, that 
 centuries of a bad government and a perverted 
 religion have left them. To those who know 
 the national charadler well, it is evident that 
 the only hope for the future regeneration of 
 Italy, lies in the development and proper 
 direction of her patriotism. It is her one sur- 
 viving virtue, the root, from which the plant 
 of national honor must spring, and God be 
 praised that in one virtue resides such divine 
 
 16 
 
vitality, that it can become the prolific source 
 of every other. But these are too stirring 
 times for moralizing. The war is at our doors ; 
 nor kings, nor emperors, nor cabinets, nor 
 congresses, can prevent its passing their 
 threshold. One only among all these princi- 
 palities and powers could ever have prevented 
 it, but even he is powerless now. Yes ! Napo- 
 oleon III. had once that power, but the will 
 was wanting. He wanted the war, he plotted 
 for it, he meant to have it. He it was who 
 turned a cold ear to the first proposal of a con- 
 gress, thus giving time for warlike prepara- 
 tions and the exasperation of the popular 
 sentiment ; he it was who acquiesced in it only, 
 when too late for any useful purpose, he, 
 whose silence encouraged, whose oracular and 
 mystical words stimulated, and he it is, who, 
 if the truth were known and all the mazes of 
 his tortuous policy revealed, will be found to 
 have instigated and originated the war ! And 
 what wonder? By what other means could 
 his hatred of the treaties of 1815 be gratified ? 
 But what matters it to Italy who originated 
 
 17 
 
the war? Her business is to profit by it. 
 Nor will she be inclined to quarrel with a pol- 
 icy, that affords her an opportunity of vindi- 
 cating the national valor and obtaining her 
 territorial integrity. So VIVE Napoleon III, 
 since his name must, per force, be blended 
 with those of patriots and princes who better 
 deserve the honor. Nor will it be the first 
 time that an unworthy head has been crowned 
 with unmerited laurels. Nevertheless, if Italy 
 and Prussia were wise, they would reject his 
 further interference, and, strong in their 
 union, fight their own battles and win their 
 own victories, without his costly and danger- 
 ous cooperation. But why do I speak of Italy 
 or Prussia or any other nation fighting undis- 
 turbed, unaided and unhindered, their own 
 battles, when new and unexpected events are 
 happening every day, that render such lib- 
 erty of action impossible. The battle of a 
 nation, such is its solidarity now-a-days with 
 every other, is a world's battle ; and even now 
 the news arrives, that in consequence of the 
 unanticipated arrival of Prince Charles de 
 
 18 
 
Holienzollern in the Danubian Principalities, 
 Moldavia has been simultaneously occupied 
 by the Turks and Russians ! Here is a com- 
 bination indeed, little short of portentous, and 
 it looks, too, as if the portent had not been 
 wholly unforeseen, for we know that the con- 
 ference engaged upon the affairs of the Danu- 
 bian Principalities has only thus far reached 
 a purely negative character, seeming thus dis- 
 inclined to settle it independently of the other 
 questions that agitate Europe. 
 
 26th. — One is the sport and the victim of 
 telegrams, and it appears as if their only 
 object was to contradict each other and increase 
 the general confusion. To-day we learn that 
 it was all a mistake — the news of yesterday, 
 that the Turks and Russians had entered the 
 Moldavia ; they haven't entered it at all, 
 though probably will, for sometimes the mis- 
 chievous telegrams are prospectively true, and 
 it will probably be found so in this case, as it 
 is not to be supposed that a sovereign, duly 
 and lawfully elected by the people, would be 
 allowed to take quiet possession of his sceptre 
 
 19 
 
and crown, unmolested by those, who have 
 nothing whatever to do with the matter. Cer- 
 tainly not ! In the meantime, we are threatened 
 anew with a Congress. Still a Congress ! This 
 sword of Damocles is still suspended over our 
 devoted heads, and they do say it really will 
 be ; not to accomplish anything in the way of 
 peace-making, of course, but as a sort of gen- 
 eral-responsibility safety-valve, I suppose. 
 Well, let them talk it out if they like, and 
 what a delightful instance of harmony between 
 war and diplomacy would be afforded if, while 
 the pen ceded Venetia, the sword took it ! 
 
 I have just learned that in consequence 
 of the completion of the twenty battalions 
 decreed by the government, the enrollments 
 will be suspended until all the volunteers 
 have left for their several headquarters at 
 Bari, Barletta, Varesi, and Como. It is greatly 
 regretted by people in general that the gov- 
 ernment persists, in spite of the efforts of the 
 distinguished ex-Garibaldian officers, Mosto, 
 and Misson, in refusing the formation of the 
 Italian Carabineers and a body of Guides. A 
 
manifesto was published yesterday, requiring 
 all those citizens, who owned three horses, to 
 offer one to the government, those who had 
 six, two, and so on, in proportion to the num- 
 ber of horses possessed by each individual. 
 In case of refusal, force will be resorted to. 
 Menotti Garibaldi arrived here last evening. 
 It is reported that the celebrated deputy Brof- 
 ferio is dead. Rumors of Bourbonian and 
 other plots are rife to-day. The reactionary 
 party feel that now or never is the time, and 
 arrests have been made and correspondence 
 discovered, implicating, in some instances, 
 some of the most distinguished names in the 
 kingdom, among others that of Cesare Cantu, 
 the celebrated novelist and deputy. It is 
 pleasant to think that all their efforts will be 
 vain, though aided by a self-styled friendly 
 diplomacy. 
 
 21 
 
Florence, Italy, June i, 1866. 
 
 In spite of the conflicting assertions of let- 
 ters and telegrams, it is even yet uncertain 
 whether the governments to whom the con- 
 ference has been proposed, have or have not 
 accepted it, and in the meantime the three 
 powers, France, England and Russia, con- 
 tinue to act as if persuaded either of its 
 inutility or impracticability, and Austria is 
 amicably occupied in rendering herself every 
 day more odious to the Italians. The forced 
 loan of twelve million florins, just ordered in 
 Venetia, and only in Venetia, the cruel decree 
 of Toggensburg, which punishes with death 
 the Venetian who refuses to fight his country- 
 men, the spoliations of every sort, of which 
 that unhappy province is the victim, have 
 exasperated still more the already burning 
 hatred of the Italians to their oppressors, and 
 increased to such a degree their contempt for 
 a government, that dares thus insult every 
 sentiment of nationality and humanity, that 
 were Austria to-morrow to offer Venice, with- 
 
 22 
 
out compensation or ransom to the Italians, 
 they would not willingl}^ accept it. They 
 want not onlj^ Venice, but revenge^ and conse- 
 quently rejoice over every new instance of 
 the bad faith and impotenc}^ of diplomacy. 
 But it is not alone the Italians who lay little 
 stress upon its pretended efforts. Prussia 
 and Austria and the German States are 
 equally incredulous, equally regardless. Ben- 
 edek has already left Vienna for his new 
 quarters-general at Olmutz, and in one of his 
 orders of the day, he expresses the hope that 
 his army will consider the property of an ene- 
 my's country as sacred, and the Archduke 
 Charles, in one of his, recalls the souvenirs of 
 Custoza and Novara. King William, in spite 
 of his reported disinclination to the war, 
 makes patriotic speeches, proclaiming it his 
 duty to defend Prussia and her sacred soil. 
 Francis Joseph announced his intention of 
 protecting his sacred soil against unjustifiable 
 aggression. The King of Wurtemburg hesi- 
 tates at no sacrifice for the defence of his^ and 
 all together, kings, emperors and princes 
 
 23 
 
invoke God's blessing and protection on the 
 several sacred causes they espouse. Russia 
 looks on, England advises, and France — hates 
 the treaties of i8i^ ! Is anything but war 
 possible, and must not all this sacred soil 
 receive a bloody baptism, ere the plant of a 
 permanent peace can take root ? We at least 
 in Italy think so, and no rumors of congresses 
 or conferences disturb our tranquillity. We 
 hear that Austria will sell, sell for money, 
 Venetia. We do not believe it, we know that 
 she holds it as the apple of her eye, as all 
 stolen fruit is held. It is said that King Wil- 
 liam does not really want the war, only that 
 firebrand Count Bismarck ; it matters not to 
 us, wishing or not wishing, we are sure that 
 he will have to fight ; again, and again we are 
 told that Garibaldi is still at Caprera and the 
 red shirts not yet made ; we know it, and we 
 know too that Garibaldi bides his time, and 
 that with or without red shirts, his volunteers 
 will fight ; it is reported that M. Lazard has 
 had a talk with Napoleon III. and is per- 
 suaded of his pacific intentions ; we laugh at 
 
 24 
 
the pacific intentions, and the talkative goose 
 that proclaimed them, and rely about as much 
 upon his penetration as we should upon that 
 of his illustrious prototypes of Strasbourg. 
 In short, knowing what we know, feeling 
 what we feel, we can afford to be patient and 
 bid Italy go on her way rejoicing. Apropos 
 of Garibaldi, I read in a newspaper the other 
 day, "La Guerra" that Major Frecchi, aide- 
 de-camp of the king, had gone to Caprera, 
 to transmit to Garibaldi his commission of 
 general of the 5th corps d'armee, bearing at 
 the same time a letter from his Majesty, that 
 moved that tender-hearted hero even to tears. 
 It seems that owing either to the sterility of 
 the island or from poverty (the latter prob- 
 ably). Garibaldi had been obliged to sell his 
 battle-horse, and the King hearing of it, 
 ordered it to be bought at any price, and care- 
 fully kept in the royal stables, and the letter 
 that touched Garibaldi says : " General, when 
 you come to the Continent you will find your 
 horse saddled and bridled as he was at Varese 
 and Calatafime." Last week Garibaldi's great 
 
 25 
 
friend and admirer, Alexandre Dumas, was 
 liere on his way to join him, when he shall 
 come upon the Continent to take command 
 of his volunteers. He intends following his 
 army for the purpose of writing a history of 
 his campaigns. As is the case everywhere, 
 the charming novelist is excessively feted in 
 Florence, and a few evenings since, being rec- 
 ognized at the Theatre Pagliano, was obliged 
 to endure a noisy and enthusiastic ovation, 
 that stopped the performance for at least ten 
 minutes. All sorts of amusing stories are 
 told about him, and among other things it is 
 said, that the illustrious writer has, like 
 another Alexander, sighed for a new world to 
 conquer, and more fortunate than his prede- 
 cessor, has found one. His last, and some 
 say, his most brilliant conquest is the kitchen. 
 Alexandre Dumas has turned his attention to 
 cooking, and it is doubtful whether his fame 
 as poet or cook will longest survive ; at all 
 events his salad a la Dumas is destined to 
 immortality, but one should not partake of it, 
 who has not the certainty of living and dying 
 
 26 
 
with its author ! Once and once only tasted, 
 hopeless of future repetition of the enjoy- 
 ment, the salad a la Dumas, becomes an 
 unsatisfied longing, a tantalizing dream, a 
 vain, unsatisfied aspiration that makes the rest 
 of life a blank. " Eat often, or eat never," 
 should be inscribed upon the fatal dish. His 
 other culinary efforts are, I am told, not less 
 marvelous, and last week at Mme. Batazzi's, 
 the wife of the former prime minister, he 
 cooked a dinner of a dozen courses, every bit 
 of it himself. The bill of fare had the name 
 of the illustrious cook upon its reverse, and 
 he left the table between each course, to 
 attend to the proper dishing up of every deli- 
 cacy that composed it. I am told that the 
 result was perfection ; and his friends say, 
 that let the worst come to the worst, the 
 author of " Monte Cristo " has only to set up 
 a trattoria to redeem or make a fortune. 
 Speaking of cooks, reminds me to tell you, 
 that among the sufferers by the prospective 
 war, the cooks of Dresden are not the least to 
 be pitied. Saxony, it seems, has no salt 
 
 27 
 
mines, and obtains that commodity from Prus- 
 sia by a treaty, concluded in 1828 and renewed 
 in 1864, by which the King of Prussia agrees, 
 for a certain price, to furnish sixteen pounds 
 of salt to each Saxon stomach. The salt is 
 delivered en masse to the Saxon government, 
 which has a monopoly of the sale. As soon 
 then, as Baron von Beust's refusal to disarm 
 was known, the commotion in the lower 
 regions became extreme, the different bureaus 
 for salt were besieged by all the servants in 
 Dresden, and though the panic was soon 
 calmed, many of the cooks provisioned them- 
 selves for at the least an eight months' siege, 
 while trusting that Congress would take the 
 matter in hand, and compel Prussia to respect 
 their rights. 
 
 June 2d. — La Marmora's departure for the 
 conference seems certain, consequently that 
 of the other prime ministers. Garibaldi's 
 arrival is expected upon the Continent about 
 the 4th or 5th of the month. Report says 
 that he is impatient to leave Caprera and has 
 written to the King signifying his wishes. 
 
 28 
 
Florence, June 5, 1866. 
 
 The congress, conference, conversation — 
 whatever you will — is not likely to meet. 
 Not because Count Bismarck has to stay in 
 Berlin, to keep King William up to the mark, 
 not because Prince Gortschakoff has the gout, 
 not on account of Austria's bad faith nor 
 Italy's disinclination — but simply because 
 Louis Napoleon has determined that it shall 
 not. The pipe of peace, at which he has been 
 puffing away for the last four weeks, is now 
 about to be broken and thrown away. It has 
 served his purpose long enough. It has 
 filled all Europe with its smoke, and dark- 
 ened the eyes of its diplomatists, while the 
 deadly tomahawk of war, that is to be hurled 
 at the treaties of 18 15, is being sharpened for 
 the conflict. Yet even now, while its lurid 
 gleams are flashing across the horizon, the 
 portent is misunderstood, and many, per- 
 versely or wilfully blind to the events they 
 are witnessing with their own eyes, still 
 believe that Napoleon III. wants peace, and is 
 39 
 
making every efiort to secure it. It is indeed 
 the common opinion that the change in public 
 opinion and the obstacle to an amicable " con- 
 versation " and peaceful solution, are to be 
 found in the susceptibility of Austria to a 
 phrase, a phrase, too, that accommodating 
 diplomacy has already modified to suit its fas- 
 tidious scruples. Austria objected to the 
 expression, "question Italienne," and the 
 more elastic one of " difference Italienne " 
 was substituted, but the concession of twee- 
 dledum for tweedledee was not enough, and 
 at last, she has spoken out. She will only 
 accept the conference on condition that all the 
 powers represented, pledge themselves not to 
 require a modification of frontiers, or territo- 
 rial aggrandizement ; and the Diet, adopting 
 her programme, has sanctioned her preten- 
 sions by declaring that the question of Hol- 
 stein and that of the federal reform is no 
 concern of the neutral powers, and that the 
 Italian question also is the affair of the Ger- 
 manic Confederation. In face of such declar- 
 ations what would a Congress find to do ? 
 
 30 
 
wliat could it find to do ? Austria, it is plain, 
 does not believe in one, and the delay that the 
 project imposed, being no longer necessary to 
 her designs, she has thrown off the mask, 
 while sparing Louis Napoleon the necessity 
 of removing his. He can still proclaim, 
 thanks to this hostile and involuntary cat's- 
 paw, his moderation and disinterestedness, 
 and the war may now with propriety begin ; 
 '''' Les convenances'''' have been respected. So 
 admirably indeed, has he played his part, that 
 even at the last supreme moment the game of 
 negotiations and communications has been 
 continued, and many an honest, credulous 
 soul still believes, that Gortschakoff may con- 
 sent to part with his gout, Bismarck with his 
 ambition. La Marmora with his patriotism. 
 Napoleon with his nature, and Aitstria with 
 Venetia ; and that it needs but a friendly 
 " conversation " at Paris to settle everything 
 to the satisfaction of everybody, and trans- 
 form the Garibaldian red-shirts into comfort- 
 able winter petticoats. They don't believe, 
 not they, that Burope is on the eve of a uni- 
 
 31 
 
versal upsetting and overturning, brought 
 about by his Imperial Majesty, Napoleon III, 
 for the purpose of strengthening and aggran- 
 dizing France, or rather himself and his 
 dynasty, at the expense of the Universe, if 
 necessary. Heaven grant that Italy and 
 Russia may not share this incredulity, and 
 that they may have the wit to overreach him, 
 and declining his aid and intervention, suc- 
 ceed in localizing a war that otherwise would 
 be universal. The news of the day is that an 
 Austrian decree of the 28th has proclaimed 
 martial law in Venetia, Istria and the South- 
 ern Tyrol. Another of the 30th authorizes 
 Gen. Benedek to suspend the right of indi- 
 vidual liberty in the fortresses under his com- 
 mand, and to try the citizens before the 
 military tribunals. These tyrannical meas- 
 ures indicate plainly the intentions of the 
 Cabinet at Vienna, and would be even more 
 absurd than wicked on any supposition but 
 that of war. It is generally thought that this 
 state of suspense cannot be prolonged much 
 beyond the 15th, when Italy will probably 
 
 32 
 
take the initiative and attack. A letter 
 from the frontier says : " We are within half 
 a day's march of the Italian territor}^, occu- 
 pied by the Austrians, and while waiting the 
 result of the Congress, the two armies increase 
 their ranks every day. Parks of artillery are 
 formed, the soldiers exercised in shooting and 
 marching, and every preparation is being 
 made for a speedy commencement of the cam- 
 paign." The report is that the Generals Pet- 
 tinego and Angioletti, one the Italian War 
 Minister, the other the Minister of the Navy, 
 will leave their respective portfolios, and 
 take, each of them, the command of a division 
 of the army. Menotti Garibaldi has been 
 appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the Italian 
 volunteers. I hear that a part of the corps 
 d'armee of General Cuchiari has passed the 
 Oglio, though his headquarters are still at 
 Cremona, and that Durando, whose headquar- 
 ters are at Lodi, has traversed the Chiese. 
 The two corps have not yet formed a junc- 
 tion, though near enough to each other to 
 close the passes that lead from Mantua and 
 
 33 
 
Peschiera to Lombardy. The projected Con- 
 gress has given time for the fortifications of 
 Pola and Dalmatia to be greatly strength- 
 ened. The number of Venetian emigrants, 
 that have joined the volunteers, is about 3000. 
 There is talk of a 5th corps d'armee com- 
 posed of four divisions. According to the 
 Journal I'Europe, General Benedek has estab- 
 lished a printing press at his headquarters. 
 Major Junck, one of the most distinguished 
 military writers, has the direction of it, and 
 already several journalists from Vienna and 
 a correspondent of the Times, have been 
 authorized to follow his staff. 
 
 Florence, July 11, 1866. 
 
 To see sights one must go to see them, and 
 though to parody Dr. Johnson's observations 
 about the Hebrides, many are worth seeing, 
 but few worth going to see, yet duty is duty, 
 and having promised to write you about the 
 Pitti Gallery, I felt obliged to start for that 
 
 34 
 
place, even with the thermometer at 90 in the 
 shade. Such being the case, in spite of my 
 profound conviction of what was due to a free- 
 born American woman, I felt that I could 
 hardly expedl a visit from the Madonna della 
 Seggiola^ or a friendly morning call from the 
 Niobe famil}^, had foreign etiquette even per- 
 mitted those residents to pay the first visit, 
 and so resolving magnanimously to waive cer- 
 emony, I put on my bonnet preparatory to an 
 expedition to the Pitti palace, the residence of 
 the first named of these distinguished females. 
 It was near noon w^hen I started, and oh ! how 
 hot it was ! The air was living, glowing 
 flame. The sunbeams beat down upon my 
 devoted head, pierced my parasol, penetrated 
 my bonnet, and darted into my very brain, 
 melting even the few ideas contained in it. I 
 felt them softening, my pet ones, my most 
 fondly cherished, my woman's rights notions, 
 and negro suffrage, and ere long they lost 
 their rocky consistency, their immovable 
 steadfastness, and gradually dissolved into a 
 weak solution of expediency and dastardly 
 35 
 
compromise. I was ready to sell my birth- 
 right for a mess of pottage, and would have 
 sacrificed on the instant my hopes of voting 
 for a President at no far distant day, for the 
 poor shelter of a gourd. Weak, strong-minded 
 woman that I was ! I kept on my way, how- 
 ever, ashamed to be baffled by an enemy mil- 
 lions of miles distant, and who a few hours 
 hence, would not so much as dare to show 
 his face, and crossing the piazza almost at a 
 run, soon found myself in that glorious tem- 
 ple of art, the Pitti Gallery. Do not be 
 alarmed though, I am not going to inflict 
 upon you a description of its treasures. Too 
 much has already been said about what no 
 description can describe, no copj?- represent, 
 no heart feel by the echo of another's beat- 
 ings. Only, if it indeed be true, that " a 
 thing of beauty is a joy forever," then the 
 Pitti Gallery is a perennial fountain of joy, 
 for its beauties are inexhaustible. I wan- 
 dered hours and hours through this wilder- 
 ness of beauty, and if I only ask you to pause 
 with me before one, or at the most two of its 
 
 36 
 
celebrities, I shall expect that lively gratitude, 
 felt only for bores mercifully not inflicted. 
 I might — remember, I might if I pleased — 
 hurl Raphaels, Titians, Guidos, Salvator 
 Rosas, and Murillos by the dozen at your 
 devoted head, but I won't please ; so pay 
 attention, while I onl}^ bestow upon you a 
 small, a very small piece of my mind, con- 
 cerning two Mary Magdalens that particu- 
 larly attracted my attention. To critics more 
 competent I leave the analysis of the glorious 
 coloring, the inimitable grace, the harmony 
 of composition of the one, the sublime contri- 
 tion, the pathetic feeling that characterize the 
 other, and limit myself simply to the moral 
 aspedl of these world-famed pidlures. Ah, 
 Mary Magdalen — Mary Magdalen ! beautiful 
 art thou in thy tears, and lovely in the desola- 
 tion that a Titian and a Domenichino have 
 made immortal ; but will thy tears never cease 
 to flow ? Shall thy nose eternally be red ? and 
 must those golden tresses forever draggle 
 about thy shoulders ? Will the world never, 
 like thy Saviour, pardon thee, and permit thee 
 
 37 
 
to put up thj'' back-hair in a comb, and do it 
 in a waterfall as other decent women do? I 
 am weary and indignant at the woe-begone 
 pose these old-time painters impose upon 
 thee. The sentiment that inspired them was 
 false, and it has perpetuated also an unchar- 
 itable, unchristian spirit. Mary Magdalen, 
 repentant and forgiven, should take her place, 
 not shame-faced and apologetically at the 
 feast of life, but partake as joyfully of the 
 good things God and man have provided, as 
 Mary Madonna herself ! Yes, 'tis time that 
 she should hold up her head in the world 
 with the best, aye, the very best. Are not 
 her sins forgiven, and angels singing halle- 
 lujahs over her redemption ? and, if so, if she 
 be fit company for the celestial hosts, and 
 would be received with open arms into the 
 courts of Heaven, who are you, pray, that 
 exclude her from your drawing-rooms, and 
 draw up your white-washed garments as she 
 passes by? There, I have said it; it has 
 long been on my mind, and I advise coming 
 Titians and coming Domenichinos, especially 
 
 38 
 
if Americans, to adopt the bright idea. Let 
 their immortal Mary Magdalens be clothed in 
 purple and fine linen, — let her wear a cash- 
 mere upon her shoulders, and a tiara of 
 diamonds upon her brow, they will not mis- 
 become her, nor by any means be misplaced. 
 Filled with such reflections, I left the Pitti 
 Palace, and strolling through the Via Guic- 
 ciardini, entered upon the Ponte Vecchio. I 
 generally avoid that famous bridge, for like a 
 true w^oman that I am, I dearly love jewelry, 
 and the sight of all the beautiful and unat- 
 tainable things that beset one on both sides, 
 has made it for many a long year, a very 
 " bridge of sighs " to me. I crossed it there- 
 fore quickly, trying not to look about me, and 
 was only once beguiled into stopping before 
 the loveliest, oh the loveliest cross of ame- 
 thysts and diamonds that eyes ever beheld! 
 a cross fit to be set in the firmament, among 
 the stars, for the conversion of an empress. 
 My eyes watered as I looked upon it, and I 
 was silly enough to enter and ask the price, 
 though I knew it was about as unattainable 
 
 39 
 
to me as the stars it rivalled. " Venti-cmque 
 mila franchi^ SignoraP Five thousand dol- 
 lars ! 07ily that, and to say that there are 
 women who could buy that beautiful gem as 
 easily as I could a pair of gloves ! Oime ! 
 well I suppose that they do, even those same 
 happy women, have their cross to bear. 
 
 Feeling almost insulted by the shopman, I 
 left his shop, and this time did walk straight 
 on, looking neither to the right nor to the 
 left, until I came upon the Lung 'Arno, 
 where to my surprise, I observed that the 
 windows upon the river and those along the 
 length of the Mercato Nuovo, were being rap- 
 idly draped with the national colors, while 
 the national flag was being hoisted in every 
 direction. '' What is the matter, what has 
 happened?" said I to a young lad who had 
 just been engaged in the latter operation, "is 
 there any good news ? " " Good news, indeed, 
 I should think so — Garibaldi has driven the 
 Austrians out of Lodrone. Viva Garibaldi ! " 
 and before I could ask for particulars, he was 
 out of sight. I had only, however, to go to 
 
 40 
 
the next corner, as far as the palace of the 
 Municipality, to have the good tidings con- 
 firmed. A telegram, posted upon the walls, 
 informed me, not only that the volunteers had 
 entered Lodrone, and driven the Austrians at 
 the point of the bayonet across the Dazio, but 
 also that Cialdini's corps d'armee the 4th, 
 had crossed the Po, and compelled them to 
 evacuate Rovigo, which they did after blow- 
 ing up the fortifications that protected the 
 city, burning the bridges and spiking the 
 guns. Well might the boy shout, " Viva 
 Garibaldi ! " without waiting to answer my 
 questions. He might, too, have added, " Viva 
 il Re," and " Viva Cialdini," but he did not ! 
 Those names don't seem to come so naturally 
 to the popular mouth, and let who will win 
 the battles, the red-shirted hero is sure to reap 
 all the laurels. 
 
 41 
 
Florence, August 24, 1866. 
 
 The paramount interest for the moment, 
 even in Florence, is the state of the Emperor 
 Napoleon's health, some hoping, some fear- 
 ing, a fatal termination to the malad}^ from 
 which he is suffering. It is said that he is 
 far more seriously indisposed than the French 
 journals are willing to allow, that his spine 
 is fatally diseased, and his mind in conse- 
 quence so weakened, that from one day to 
 another his policy cannot be predicated by 
 those most conversant with his designs and 
 wishes. In the meantime he makes every 
 effort to hide his situation and keep up appear- 
 ances. A few days since he paid a visit to the 
 Empress Charlotte at the Grand Hotel, where 
 he remained about an hour. He ascended the 
 stairs with difficulty, holding with one hand 
 firmly on to the banisters, and resting heavily 
 with the other upon an ivory-headed cane, 
 and a person who met him as he was going 
 up, said that he looked ten years older than 
 he did two months ago. Returning to St. 
 
 42 
 
Cloud, he got out of his caleche and walked 
 a few steps in the avenue of the Champs 
 Klysees, in the Bois de Boulogne, but for all 
 that, the French correspondent, from whom I 
 learned these details, said it was impossible 
 to look upon his face and not perceive the 
 ravages of deep-seated disease. Report says 
 that in his interview with the Empress, Napo- 
 leon gave her clearly to understand, that 
 France had done all that was possible for 
 Mexico, and was unwilling to make further 
 sacrifices in her behalf, though possibly some 
 understanding might be come to with regard 
 to the last loans — the plan proposed being 
 that of converting Mexican debts into French 
 rentes; all of which, of course, means a 
 renunciation of his proje6l of a Latin Empire 
 on our continent, and a grand political fiasco 
 for this man of colossal abortions. Whether 
 or not he will be more fortunate in obtaining 
 the compensation that he demands, for gra- 
 ciously acquiescing in triumphs he could not 
 prevent, is uncertain, though probable ; at all 
 events the compensation is stoutly insisted 
 
 43 
 
upon, though from a note in the Moniteur of 
 the 2ist, it is not to be taken from the neutral 
 states, and Belgium consequently escapes, 
 while the question of the Rhine remains 
 unsettled. In the meantime while all the 
 world at Paris talks of peace, the eventual- 
 ities of war are not negledled, and the most 
 intense activity is displayed in the fabrication 
 of a new kind of cannon, to which an extreme 
 importance is attached, and so fearful is the 
 war department of the secret of its invention 
 being known, that a foundry has been estab- 
 lished for the express purpose of their con- 
 stru(5lion in the haras of Meiidon^ each work- 
 man having his own specialty, and the work- 
 men of the various parts being forbidden all 
 communication among themselves. These 
 rumors and other similar ones from the capi- 
 tal of France, keep the Italians naturally in a 
 state of disquiet and ferment, for whether it is 
 true or not that when Napoleon III. stamps 
 the earth, all Europe shakes, certain it is that 
 Ital^^ still trembles in her boot when the 
 Imperial foot comes down, and as most of the 
 
 44 
 
officers in the Italian army are boiling with 
 rage at the armistice, and indignant at the 
 bare mention of peace, they rejoice at any- 
 thing that promises a renewal of war, by 
 which, what they fancy their lost honor, may 
 be retrieved. On the contrary the Italian 
 people are now pretty well reconciled to 
 accomplished facts, and desire that the peace, 
 since they must have it, may no longer be 
 deferred. In the meanwhile the absence of 
 their morning drachm of war news is sensibly 
 felt by the excitement-loving Florentines, and 
 were it not for the Pagliano theatre and 
 Ciniselli's equestrian troupe, and one or two 
 other minor open-air theatres, I don't know 
 how they would manage to get rid of the 
 ennui occasioned by the sudden reaction of 
 their overwrought sensibility. 
 
 Pagliano draws crowded houses every even- 
 ing to hear Don Giovanni^ and the fact that 
 a tenth part of the net profits is given to the 
 fund for the wounded in the war, heightens 
 undoubtedly, its attractions. The perform- 
 ance itself is respedlable, nothing more, with 
 
 45 
 
the exception of the baritone Stella. He is 
 charming, to the last degree, and it is a pity 
 that he should not be better sustained. Such 
 as it is, however, we must accept it until 
 the opening of the Pergola, which will not 
 be before Autumn, when we are promised 
 L? Africaine . Of course, nous mitres^ such of 
 us as still find ourselves in Florence, suffer ex- 
 tremely from such a bourgeois state of things, 
 for of course you know that the Pagliano 
 theatre is essentially that of the respect- 
 able middle classes, and our dele(5lation can 
 only properly be taken in " the season " and 
 at fashionable resorts, though I have been 
 assured, that if we could condescend to breathe 
 an atmosphere tempered by vulgar joys and 
 respired by common lungs, we should find it 
 not unwholesome after all, and possibly that 
 it resembled, in all important respe(5ls, the 
 higher if not the purer element that expands 
 our own patrician hearts ; for certain it is 
 that the people who throng the streets of, to 
 us, deserted Florence, seem to have some 
 objedl in living, and to find existence an 
 
 46 
 
agreeable condition, and what it may be, and 
 why it is so, would, perhaps, be worth our 
 investigation. 
 
 Victor Emmanuel is still at Padua, making 
 excursions into various other parts of his new 
 dominions, and enduring with commendable 
 resignation a popularity that increases with 
 every day of his stay. The theatres have 
 been reopened the first time for years in honor 
 of his visit, and when he shows himself at 
 one of them, the applause is enough to drive 
 one frantic. Flowers are flung at him, pocket- 
 handkerchiefs waved, tears shed, with evvivas 
 that storm the heavens. The boxes are gay 
 with the national colors ; the women wear 
 them in their hair, on their dresses, every- 
 where where a bow or a loop or a streamer is 
 possible, and those who pretend to look below 
 the surface of things say, that their patriotism 
 is by no means limited to outward show, but 
 that garters and still more unspeakable arti- 
 cles, are adorned with the irresistible red, 
 white and green. Then there are all sorts of 
 races : Dei Sedioli^ chariot races, steeple- 
 
 47 
 
chases in his honor, and in the evening the 
 race course, il Prato della Valle^ is illuminated 
 with eledlrical lights. Such times, in short, 
 never were seen in Padua before, and our sim- 
 ple, soldierly king, who hates show and noise 
 and the hurrahs of popularity more than any 
 man living, has to put a good face upon the 
 matter, and bear as best he can, the fuss they 
 make about him. After all 'tis not paying 
 very dear for his fine new whistle. 
 
 Florence, August 30, 1866. 
 
 Apropos to music, I went Saturday to the 
 last representation of " Don Giovanni " at the 
 Pagliano, and came away more than ever con- 
 vinced that to the real lover of music words 
 are an abomination. It is like tying leaden 
 weights to a skylark's wings and bidding it 
 soar to the heavens. The opera, as I have 
 said elsewhere, was well enough, and the 
 roles throughout respectably sustained ; but 
 thus to pretend to interpret Mozart's genius 
 
 48 
 
is simply a profanation. Music is the speech 
 of the gods, and with them only can we hold 
 converse in it. Consequently to me an 
 escape from words is indispensable to my 
 enjoyment of it. An escape luckily easily 
 accomplished, thanks to harmonious necessi- 
 ties, that make of every Italian opera only a 
 succession of musical vowels, whose connec- 
 tion with the vitalizing consonants is too 
 slight to trammel the imagination. So I shut 
 my eyes and was soon soaring far above Don 
 Giovanni, Donna Anna, Zerlina and the rest, 
 when an importunate friend at my side, sud- 
 denly arrested my flight and brought me 
 down to earth again. Poor fellow, he was 
 dreadfully tired of the " Grande juusique^'' as 
 it is called, and a little before had availed 
 himself of that freedom, which we women 
 shall have one day, when Mr. John Stuart 
 Mill shall have his way, to take his hat and 
 stroll into the street and into Santa Croce, 
 where he had found amusement far more to 
 his taste than the — well, he didn't call it 
 Grande mustque ; he whispered, too, in my 
 
 49 
 
ear, just as Don Giovanni was making his 
 exit in tlie flaming, fiery vortex, that he had 
 bought such a beauty of a cocomero (water- 
 melon), which he hoped I would allow him 
 to eat and drink with us when we reached 
 home. I nodded assent, and the announce- 
 ment came just in time to reconcile two 
 enthusiastic young girls who were with me, 
 to the end of the performance — that they were 
 regretting had an end — and which they said 
 they would gladly sit up all night to see over 
 again ! Ah seventeen ! sweet seventeen ! 
 
 Speaking of watermelons, that refreshing 
 fruit or vegetable is just now in its perfedlion 
 here, and our streets are literally gay, as with 
 a tapestry, with their rich, red hemispheres, 
 exposed in the evening on temporary stands, 
 each of which, with its lights and its eager, 
 good-natured crowd clustered about it, is as 
 pleasant a spectacle as one would wish to 
 see, and one I always long to make part of. 
 The cocomero at such times is the sherbet, the 
 ice-cream of the poorer classes, but in the 
 morning a slice of it, with a bit of bread, is 
 
 50 
 
often the only breakfast of many a sturdy 
 laborer, wlio works none the less vigorously 
 for his light repast. But the poor people are 
 not the only ones who eat cocomeros ; a dandy 
 ^'' pur sang''^ is occasionally seen at one of 
 these improvised counters, and a lovely lady 
 was once known to descend from her carriage 
 and ate one or two slices, taking them in her 
 own lily fingers, and standing at the table 
 with the others, just as if she had been noth- 
 ing grander or better than the poorest little 
 *' modista " (milliner) who looked on in 
 amazement at the condescension. But to 
 return to ourselves, and how w^e eat our coco- 
 mero ; and en passant^ I will just observe that 
 cocomero^ no matter how eaten, should only be 
 partaken of with intimate friends, who are at 
 the same time gens d^ esprit^ snobs and fools 
 always and everywhere to be excluded from 
 the feast ; and the persons of our party fulfill- 
 ing perfe6lly the indispensable conditions, we 
 set to work to enjoy ourselves. The melon 
 was perfedlion, exceeding expectation even, 
 and though eaten as it always must be under 
 
 51 
 
difficulties — only a pig can unconcernedly 
 overcome swinish example — it did not deter 
 us from a thorough, and consequently prim- 
 itive enjoyment of it. We cut the melon in 
 halves, and having decided to free ourselves 
 from the proprieties of knives and forks (we 
 did have napkins), and each being provided 
 with a great circular morsel, instead of the 
 more equitable conical slice — the fashion here, 
 we betook ourselves to a balcony overlooking 
 a garden, and there, leaning over the parapet, 
 reckless of the dripping juice, our mouths 
 literally overflowing with enjoyment, w^e ate 
 to the last mouthful our watermelon, and so 
 should watermelons be eaten ! 
 
 One thing leading to another, cocoinero 
 leads me to cholera, which some say we shall 
 have here in spite of the advanced season. It 
 has been for some time at Genoa, and I learn 
 from the papers that its ordinary dangers are 
 greatly increased by the opposition of the 
 populace to the measures taken by the munic- 
 ipality for the public safety. They resist and 
 resent every effort to purify and ventilate 
 
 52 
 
tHeir houses, and the most natural and simple 
 precautions are negleAed. As for the phy- 
 sicians, provided for them at the public 
 expense, they look upon them with horror, 
 and it is dangerous for them even to walk the 
 
 streets. About a week since Dr. C , on 
 
 his way to visit a patient, excited a veritable 
 tumult. " Give it to him ! give it to him," 
 was cried out from the infuriated crowd. 
 " He is one of the doctors paid by the munic- 
 ipality to poison the poor people," and had not 
 the carabineers interfered for his protection, 
 he would have been torn in pieces. Poor, 
 misguided creatures, they have had so much 
 to suffer from those above them, that they 
 fancy all their ills must proceed from the 
 same source. I remember a similar state of 
 things during the cholera season of 1854. I 
 was at Via Reggio when it broke out there. 
 The fashionable season was at its height 
 when it made its appearance, and in a twink- 
 ling, as it were, the place was depopulated. 
 All who had the means left the place at once, 
 the visitors, most of them Italians from Lucca, 
 53 
 
making the greatest haste. A carriage, a 
 cart, a baroccino (wagon), could not be got 
 for love or money in two days time after the 
 fatal fa(5l was known, and the poor people 
 streamed off to the mountains with their beds 
 upon their backs. I determined not to leave, 
 I hadn't a particle of fear, my children's 
 vacation had yet a month to run, and they 
 entreated me not to take them back to Flor- 
 ence ; so in spite of the remonstrances of 
 friends, I persisted in my resolution. Physi- 
 cians were sent to Via Reggio from Florence 
 to attend upon the inhabitants gratis, but, as 
 in Genoa now, they would have nothing to do 
 with them, and though one of them, poor fel- 
 low, soon himself fell a vi6lim to the disease, 
 they persisted in their inveterate distrust. 
 They seriously believed that the Grand Duke 
 had sent them there to poison the people. 
 My children and myself continued in the 
 meantime our usual way of living, taking our 
 daily baths, and only varying our regime by 
 eating rather more fruit than usual ; we lived 
 upon peaches that cholera summer, they were 
 
 54 
 
abundant and naturally very cheap, as no one 
 but ourselves in the place touched them. At 
 first, I think we were rather popular with the 
 villagers, they liked our courage in staying, 
 and were amused at our audacity in eating 
 the forbidden fruit. Suddenly, however, all 
 this changed, the women began to turn their 
 backs upon us when we met them, and the 
 men, as they went by us, scowled and muttered 
 " Sty eg he I streghe / " (" witches ! witches.") 
 " They are the ones that do us the mischief, 
 meglio che sene vadano^^ (" you'd better take 
 yourselves off") which we very speedily did, 
 especially as the police advised us to do so, 
 saying they had not force enough to protedl 
 us in case of a popular tumult. The people 
 had got it into their heads, that persons who 
 ate so many peaches unharmed, in the midst 
 of the cholera, must be in some way uncanny. 
 Florence is getting grander and finer and 
 more beautiful every day. We have got the 
 most exquisite bronze lamps in the Piazza 
 dell a Signoria that ever were seen, worthy of 
 Benvenuto himself, and the new post-of&ce 
 
 55 
 
wHich is to be opened on the first of Septem- 
 ber, is about to forsake its old time-honored 
 Pisan roof for a still more distinguished 
 localit}^ under the galleries of the Uf&zi. 
 There is no end to the money that has been 
 spent upon it, and as in this part of the world 
 taste is the usual auxiliary of gold, the new- 
 post-office will by no means misbecome its 
 illustrious neighborhood. I've no time to 
 describe it here, only it is as gorgeously mag- 
 nificent as marble, gilding and glass can 
 make it. Such a post-office should only be 
 the medium of the most delightful communi- 
 cations, it is too charming for almost any- 
 thing but a love-letter, and if I were the king, 
 I would make a law forthwith, prohibiting 
 duns and bores and disagreeables of all sorts 
 from sending their missives through it. A 
 new group of statuary the Ratto di Polissena 
 by Fedi is soon to be put up in the Loggia di 
 Orgagna ; in short the old piazza seems pre- 
 paring to welcome fittingly her newly domes- 
 ticated guest " Liberty," which it is to be 
 hoped will soon feel herself at home there. 
 
 56 
 
The Niccolini opens Saturday evening with 
 a French company under the direction of Mon- 
 sieur Eugene Meynadier. Monsieur Meyna- 
 dier has engaged a pupil of the Consen^atory 
 of Paris for the principal role^ Mademoiselle 
 Kstelle Juillet, who got the great prize for 
 tragedy last year. The theatrical world are 
 all on the alert to see this new star. The 
 other artists are already well and favorably 
 known here. The other theatres are also 
 beginning to open their doors to the public, 
 and nous aiitres will soon be here to give a zest 
 to pleasures that otherwise would be ennui. 
 
 Florence, September 15, 1866. 
 
 Florence is waking up from her midsum- 
 mer doze and preparing to welcome back her 
 runaways, and as the weather is unusually 
 cool everywhere this season, it is probable 
 that lake, land, and seashore, mountain fast- 
 ness and valley will earlier than usual yield 
 up their pilgrims. Florence is going to be 
 57 
 
" awfully " gay this coming winter, and I, for 
 one, am sorry for it. I like Florence as she 
 was^ with a fashion and gaiety of her own, 
 smacking of her mediaeval dignity and tradi- 
 tions, and think she loses immensely by 
 putting on the airs of a modern capital. 
 Improvement and progress do not harmonize 
 wdth Florence, and would do well to go else- 
 where with their benefits. Conservatism is 
 in the very air we breathe here — the stones of 
 her palaces preach it, her churches command 
 it, her people instin6lively cling to it, and so 
 majestic and imposing is her aspe6l even now, 
 that the genius of go-aheadism incarnate 
 would be awed into letting alone, and would 
 never dare propose a railway through her 
 streets ! Nevertheless, and alas ! worse things 
 than even those are, I fear, in store for her, 
 for are not her monks unfrocked, her peas- 
 ants uncostumed, her patricians elsewhere 
 than at the feet of beauty, and worse than all, 
 is not the schoolmaster, on the w4ngs of the 
 wand, abroad ? and can fortress or town, pal- 
 ace or church stay him ? All, however, is not 
 
 58 
 
yet lost, and many signs indicate that the 
 good old times, if past and gone, are suscept- 
 ible of revival, none more so than the atti- 
 tude of the Genoese people at this moment in 
 face of the cholera. That pestilence still con- 
 tinues its ravages at Genoa, and every day 
 accounts reach us of alarming excesses com- 
 mitted by the superstitious populace, whose 
 ferocity seems to increase with every new out- 
 break of the disease. Every one who has the 
 slightest conne6lion with the municipality is 
 the obje6l of special distrust. A few days 
 since a messenger of that body was returning 
 home, carrying a loaf of bread done up in 
 paper to his family. His package excited 
 suspicion — it probably contained poison — and 
 he was soon surrounded by a furious crowd, 
 vociferating at the top of their voices, " Down 
 with him ! down with him ! he has poison ! 
 kill him ! kill him ! " Luckily for him he 
 had only to open his bundle and show the 
 contents, to dispel their suspicions ; the bread 
 fell into the street and their fury was appeased. 
 Another time, a woman having occasion to go 
 
 59 
 
to the Maison de Ville overheard the Syndic 
 and a physician discussing different methods 
 of employing chloride of lime, and suppos- 
 ing of course that they were concerting their 
 plans for the destru6lion of the ^''povera gente " 
 she rushed into the street and imparted her 
 discoveries and conjedlures to the people. 
 An assemblage soon gathered about her, and 
 in less than no time assumed the chara6ler of 
 a formidable disturbance, accompanied by fear- 
 ful threats and imprecations against the pre- 
 tended manipulators of the poison. The 
 Syndic tried in vain to reason with them, and 
 finding the tumult increase and threatening 
 to become dangerous, sent for the carabineers 
 who arrested the woman and finally put an 
 end to the agitation. A day rarely passes 
 without similar scenes in that devoted city, 
 and the cases of cholera do not diminish. 
 The nurses in the hospitals are accused of 
 administering the " acquetta^^'' Catherine de' 
 Medici's favorite poison, to the patients, 
 which accommodating physicians and apoth- 
 ecaries prepare for them. Bven the washer- 
 
 60 
 
women, employed in disinfedling the clothes 
 of choleric patients, and the grave diggers 
 who bury them, are obliged to be protected in 
 the performance of their duties by the mili- 
 tary. As I said before, the poor unfortunate 
 members of the municipality are looked upon, 
 however, as the original conspirators against 
 the life and health of the people. They are 
 called "6^«/<9r/," and are supposed to be at the 
 bottom of all the mischief and to know pre- 
 cisely the day and hour when the pestilence 
 will break out. Those who have read Man- 
 zoni's ^''Promessz SposP^ cannot fail to recall 
 descriptions of similar scenes during the 
 plague of 1630 at Milan, and that then, as 
 now, the epithet ^''Untori^^ that is, literally, 
 " greasers," was applied with equal justice 
 and propriety. It was the common belief, at 
 that time of insane and horrible fear, that 
 enemies of the people, that is all who were 
 not themselves people, went about the city 
 with vases of un6luous poison, composed of 
 wasps, toads, serpents' saliva, and half a 
 dozen other ingredients more absurd and dis- 
 
 61 
 
gusting still, with wHicli they greased the 
 walls of the city, the portals of the churches, 
 the doors and knockers of houses, every place 
 in short with which the public was most likely 
 to come in contadl, in the amiable and philan- 
 thropic intention of destroying as many of 
 their fellow creatures as possible. And who- 
 ever dared to hint a doubt of the reality of 
 these atrocious intentions, was looked upon as 
 an accomplice of the conspirators and had to 
 take the consequences. You perceive that 
 the good old times have a very strong family 
 resemblance with the good new ones, and that 
 the schoolmaster is not going to have a very 
 lazy time of it after all. 
 
 I think I mentioned in a former letter an 
 extraordinary outbreak of the cholera in a 
 conventual establishment for the education of 
 young girls at Torre Annunziata, that carried 
 ofi twenty-eight or twenty-nine of their num- 
 ber in about forty-eight hours, and was simul- 
 taneous with the reappearance of the disease 
 in the city of Naples. The suddenness and 
 number of the deaths excited a great deal of 
 
 62 
 
comment and conje(9:ure at the time, and 
 why the matter was not properly looked into 
 then, no one knows. It was not, however. 
 But a recent development of the malady has 
 at last induced the authorities to order an 
 examination of the premises, the result of 
 which has proved that the btton Padi^e Ludo- 
 vico was in the habit of burying all persons 
 who died in the establishment, in the grounds 
 belonging to the building, often, indeed, 
 without taking the trouble of announcing 
 their decease at the office of the Stato Civile. 
 Six bodies had quite recently been interred, 
 and their graves were found close to a cistern, 
 the water of which was said to be only used 
 for washing. Two coffins were also discov- 
 ered in the convent itself, containing two 
 skeletons, destined to be sent to Rome for 
 beatification — so the padre asserted — and the 
 story of these two blessed, or rather to be 
 blessed skeletons, forms an odd episode to all 
 this tissue of absurdities and horrors. It 
 seems that last year Padre Ludovico was com- 
 missioned by the authorities at Rome to seek 
 
 63 
 
for the body of a monk, who died about a cen- 
 tur}?- since, in the odor of san(5lity, and was 
 buried in the church of Santa Maria degli 
 Angioli. The holy father, as you may sup- 
 pose, lost no time in undertaking the flatter- 
 ing commission. To hunt up even a saint's 
 bones was no mean honor, and only san6lified 
 flesh and blood could be allowed the privilege. 
 Consequently, imagine his joy, his exultation, 
 when, instead of one saint's body he found 
 three ! Yes, adlually three ! By what signs 
 he distinguished them I do not know, but 
 probably from the " odor of san6lity " being a 
 material fa6l, and not, as is generall}^ sup- 
 posed, a figure of speech — in which case, of 
 course, there could be no difiiculty, especially 
 as 2. padre's nose is proverbially a pretty long 
 one. However that may be, there they were 
 — three saints, ready for canonization, one of 
 whom was instantly forwarded to Rome, while 
 the other two bided their time in the Convent 
 of the Stimmattine — where, alas, they have 
 just been exposed to the profane gaze and 
 comments of the vulgar. Heartbreaking as 
 
 64 
 
it is to relate, Padre Ludovico^ tlie pious dis- 
 coverer of dead saints' bones — the intelligent, 
 generous and prudent head of an educational 
 establishment for young ladies, has been 
 arrested ; and contrary to what would have 
 probably happened in the good old times, will 
 be severely fined, if not otherwise punished, 
 for his culpable negledl of the common pre- 
 cautions of hygienic laws. I forgot to add 
 that in his defence Padre Ludovico said that 
 he was authorized by the former government 
 to bury his dead within the convent walls. 
 Another proof, if one were needed, of the vast 
 superiority of old times over new ! 
 
 The most exciting topic of the moment is a 
 "Ladies' Fair" to be opened Sunday in aid 
 of the fund for the wounded of the war. 
 Prince Strozzi has offered his magnificent pal- 
 ace for the occasion, and the Princess Strozzi, 
 to whom is confided the direction of the affair, 
 is almost buried in the beautiful things, sent 
 for sale, and has lived for the last month in 
 the bosom of female committees. To-morrow 
 the finishing touches are to be given to the 
 
 65 
 
arrangements, and the day after, at twelve 
 o'clock, the halls of the palace are to be 
 opened gratis to the public. I think a mistake 
 has been made in not exadling an entrance 
 fee, as delicacy will not restrain the non-buy- 
 ing public from entering, nor could a franc 
 paid for their admission, have excluded them. 
 The French Theatre at the Niccolini is 
 playing, I hear, to poor houses, partly, of 
 course, from the absence of the Court and 
 " nous autres^^ but principally because the 
 public are tired of the Meynadier company, 
 that has now been playing there for four con- 
 secutive years. The new a6lress too, Mdlle. 
 Estelle Juillet, has rather disappointed expec- 
 tations. Her talents seem rather undevel- 
 oped and she isn't beautiful enough to make a 
 furore whether or no. In short, for one rea- 
 son or another, the ^'^ Lion Amoureux'''' hasn't 
 gone down with a Florentine public. Nobody 
 cares here for the social questions of the day, 
 for anything in short but forbidden love-mak- 
 ing and political clap-trap on the stage, so the 
 crowd gladly forsake the Niccolini for the 
 
 66 
 
Pagliano and the Rossini^ formerly the Solle- 
 cite. This latter, especially, offers attractions, 
 with which even the larger theatres just now 
 can hardly compete ; for, hasn't it, besides 
 that charming opera La Cenerentola^ a showy, 
 flourishing ballet, with ballerme with the 
 shortest of short petticoats, with costumes 
 and decorations, mirrors, galleries, colonnades 
 in the most bewildering confusion and impos- 
 sible perspe(5live ? And all that for a franc ; 
 not to say that what with the opera and the 
 ballet you make almost a night of it, and 
 have the satisfaction of feeling that you have 
 got more than your money's worth, and over- 
 reached the tmpresarw, a satisfadlion as keenly 
 enjoyed by an Italian, as by any thrifty native 
 of Conne6licut itself. 
 
 I regret that I have not time to give you an 
 account of an interesting meeting of the Delia 
 Crusca Academy that took place last Satur- 
 day in their new hall on the ground floor of 
 the palace of the Belle Arti. The Accademia 
 del la Crusca was founded under Francesco de' 
 Medici in 1582 — revised again on its original 
 
 67 
 
plan in 1814 by Napoleon ist. All tlie world 
 of course has read of this famous academy, 
 instituted for the purpose of preserving the 
 purity of the Italian language, to which end 
 it has been engaged all these long years upon 
 a didlionary, that twenty years hence will 
 hardly be completed. The word crusca means 
 bran, and the society's emblem is a sieve with 
 this device, ^'' II piu bel fiore ne coglie'^'' (It 
 gathers the finest flour — the finest flour is 
 here called fior di fa7'ind) in allusion to its 
 fun6lions with regard to the Italian tongue. 
 The decisions of the Academy admit of no 
 appeal ; its authority is supreme and unques- 
 tioned. The members are composed of the 
 first literary and scientific men in the king- 
 dom — the siiie qua no7i of whose election is a 
 fixed residence at Florence. Would to Heaven 
 that we in America had a similar institution ! 
 Our national tendency to slang, that in one 
 way or another, out of the mouths of the vul- 
 gar, forces itself up through the newspapers, 
 even into our popular literature, making a dyke 
 of the sort, an almost imperious necessity. 
 
 68 
 
Florence, September 25, 1866. 
 
 The visiting season has fairly commenced 
 and cards are being distributed far and near 
 with unusual a6livity. Friends from summer 
 resorts are dropping in with faces and figures 
 joyously rosy and plump, with a capital of 
 health and strength, sufficient even for a 
 Florentine winter campaign — Carnival and 
 Lent included — and it is with a sort of self- 
 pity, mingled with remorse, that those whom 
 circumstances have confined within the city 
 walls, look back upon their lost, misused sum- 
 mer. The " sommites " of the great world are 
 bestirring themselves, and have already begun 
 to sift and examine their various social ma- 
 terials, and to be or not to be admitted to 
 certain houses and reunions, is a question of 
 tantalizing solicitude to many a fair aspirant 
 of fashion. '=' * * '•'' * * 
 I have been glad to learn that the fair at the 
 Strozzi palace, although not a complete suc- 
 cess, resulted in giving a sum of over five 
 thousand francs to the fund for the destitute 
 
 69 
 
and wounded soldiers, only about one-half 
 that the lady patronesses expedled to raise. 
 The fa6t is, the organization of such enter- 
 prises is not well understood here, and inde- 
 pendent of their novelty, two or three other 
 reasons combined to render this bazaar less 
 brilliantly fortunate than was hoped. In the 
 first place the public was a little indignant, a 
 little resentful, that the Princess Antonia 
 Strozzi, whom a " sublime benevolence," so 
 one of the morning papers here termed it, had 
 inspired to offer the use of her palace on this 
 occasion, had not been more generously in- 
 spired to proffer one of her many magnificent 
 and vast saloons, instead of a comparatively 
 bare and unfurnished ante-chamber, as the 
 theatre of her charity. Then again, this same 
 carping public was dissatisfied with the toi- 
 lettes of the ladies presiding at the tables, 
 which really were far from elegant. Some 
 said, too, that the ladies themselves were not 
 half so handsome as they should have been, 
 that beauty, not rank, was the sine qua non on 
 these occasions, while others, and these mostly 
 
 70 
 
foreigners, Americans and English, com- 
 plained bitterly of ttie absence of that indis- 
 pensable element of success in our fairs ^ 
 young and pretty girls, and this last com- 
 plaint was the most unreasonable of all, as 
 everybody knows that young girls, whether 
 pretty or ugl}^, are not a Florentine institu- 
 tion. 
 
 In the meantime, while fair ladies are pre- 
 siding at bazaars and fine ladies are settling 
 social preliminaries, all the world, fair and 
 fine ladies included, are rushing to the dif- 
 ferent theatres now opened, and nightl}^ filled 
 to overflowing, and the artistes of the aristo- 
 cratic Pergola, being still engaged in rehears- 
 ing L^ Africa me ^ which is to be put upon the 
 stage next month, it is permissible to amuse 
 one's self at the smaller and less fashionable 
 places of public amusement. Among them 
 all, none perhaps offers just at this moment, 
 greater attradlions than the little Rossini 
 theatre in the Borgognisanti. I think I told 
 you in one of m}^ former letters, that this 
 miniature theatre, which has just been re- 
 
painted, regilt, reornamented, transformed in 
 short into a veritable bijou ^ has recently, with 
 the permission of the great maestro^ changed 
 its name from the SoUecite to that of Rossini^ 
 and is devoted exclusively to the performance 
 of the operas of its immortal namesake. Last 
 Thursday the impresario, who has had the 
 good taste in these times of forced loans and 
 domestic disturbances, to give to the public a 
 music, joyous and enlivening enough to make 
 one forget the annoyances of the day, com- 
 menced his season with a spe6lacle composed 
 oi La Ceiierentola and // Diavolo Zoppo (the 
 Lame Devil.) Heavens ! what delicious mu- 
 sic it is — that of the Cenerentola, what variety ! 
 what charm ! what grace ! but to hear it you 
 must bring your ears to Italy, for no where 
 else will the self-same performers before the 
 self-same audiences produce the same effe6l, 
 and less than anywhere else in America. It 
 is all nonsense for us Americans to pretend 
 that we like Italian music in New York, 
 Boston and Philadelphia. We do not. We 
 endure it in those places as we do other enjoy- 
 
ments that fashionable tyranny imposes upon 
 us, but here and in Milan and Naples even, 
 we take pleasure in it, and the reason is that 
 our souls are ^'' en rapporV with the country 
 and the people. We are Italianized for the 
 moment, and, forgetting to be Americans, can 
 relish something that is not the mart, the ex- 
 change, and the tribune. But to return to 
 the enchanting music of the Cenerentola^ 
 which I have rarely heard more charmingly 
 performed than on that evening, owing greatly 
 to the perfeA ensemble of the piece. All the 
 roles ^ the most insignificant even, those that 
 are usually given to poor devils termed com- 
 priniarie here, were performed by veritable 
 artists, and the pretensions of vanity and 
 self-love for once did not interfere to spoil 
 the general effe6l. Madame Ferardi, the 
 very handsome prima-donna, was wonderfully 
 chaste and sympathetic in her rendering of 
 the Cenerentola^ and with true artistic tadl 
 neither added nor took away anything from 
 her role. Her success with the intelligent 
 audience was perfect, and her final rondo was 
 
 73 
 
twice encored. Nor was the success of the 
 young tenor, Piazza, who made his debiit only- 
 last winter, I think, less brilliant. His 
 method is that of the pure, old Italian school, 
 which has produced Fraschini and Boccolini, 
 and connoisseurs are already predicating of this 
 young tenorino^ that he will succeed, ere long, 
 Gardoni and Giuglini at the theatres of Lon- 
 don, Paris and St. Petersburg. I wish to 
 Heaven some American impresario would get 
 the start of them all and, for once, secure a 
 talent in its dawn and freshness, to opera- 
 lovers at home ; but that I suppose can never 
 be. We would not dare to be the first to 
 admire and encourage, for what if Europe 
 should refuse to follovv' our lead ? Better its 
 worn-out, used-up leavings than such a catas- 
 trophe ! Better those waning stars, Grisi and 
 Ristori, than morning brightness, whose sun 
 may be arrested ere it reach its noon-tide 
 glory, by potent Joshuas on this side of the 
 water. Oh, j^es, by all means, let us continue 
 to be humble, especiall}'- as it is a virtue we 
 Americans are not often called upon to prac- 
 
 74 
 
tice. But to return to charming, negle(5led 
 Cenerentola. Giacomelli (Don Magnilico), a 
 great favorite with the Florentine public, in 
 the cavatina ^'' Miei ranipolli femmini^'' sang 
 in a style of the purest comic, without descend- 
 ing to those vulgar buffooneries that make no 
 one, not even " the gamins " laugh now-a- 
 days, was applauded to the skies, and in the 
 duet " U7i segreto (T importanza " he was 
 superb. In short nothing could have gone off 
 better than the whole opera, and when one 
 refle6ls that with it all there was a ballet, 
 such as it was, I must confess, but still a bal- 
 let, and that the entrance to the theatre was 
 only a franc, one will probably exclaim, as I 
 did returning home, how in Heaven's name 
 can it be done for the money, and yet it is, 
 and profitably too. 
 
 Apropos to music, her sister art sculpture, 
 is just now offering to her admirers, an occa- 
 sion for going into ecstasies, if they like. A 
 bronze copy of the famous David of Michael- 
 Angelo by Professor Papi, is being exhibited 
 in the royal foundry in Via Cavour^ and yes- 
 
terday witli a friend I went to visit it — 
 though to tell the truth and shame — my 
 family, my country, my friends, the traveling 
 public generally, and the newest, freshest 
 arrivals especially, I can't, I never could 
 endure the original, a great stuck-up figure 
 in a braggadocio attitude, reminding one of 
 heroes of the ring, that nothing but the ge- 
 nius of Michael-Angelo could keep upon his 
 legs, but of course, that would sustain even a 
 worse man upright ! But all that has noth- 
 ing to do with the copy, whose merit is incon- 
 testible. At least I don't contest it. It is 
 cast in that inimitable Florentine bronze, of 
 which Florence is so justly proud, of a 
 smooth, even tint, except in the hair, where, 
 whether accidentally or not, the reliefs are 
 of a sort of reddish tint, which improve 
 extremely the general effe6l. The copy is 
 rigorously exa6l, even to a reprodu6lion of 
 the defe6ls of the original, for which Mr. Papi 
 has been greatly applauded, though a meaner 
 model would probably have undergone im- 
 provements. Such as it is, it is far more 
 
agreeable to the eye than the original, owing 
 to its subdued and harmonious coloring, and 
 it will soon take the place in the Piazza della 
 Signoria^ hitherto occupied by the celebrated 
 original, which illustrious bit of stone-work 
 is, if I am not mistaken, to be removed to the 
 halls of the Academy of the Belle A^'ti^ safe 
 from the caprice and severity of the elements. 
 The story of the statue is as follows : Towards 
 the end of the 15 th century the Florentine 
 Republic, desirous of possessing a fine statue 
 of David for one of the piazzas — that of the 
 Duomo, I believe — procured an immense block 
 of Carrara marble for the purpose and offered 
 the job to the competition of the most cele- 
 brated sculptors of the day. Many of them 
 of course were anxious to obtain such an 
 opportunity of distinguishing themselves, 
 among others, Leonardo da Vinci, to whom 
 the gotifaloniei'e^ Pier Soderini, was anxious 
 to give it. But the friends of Michael- 
 Angelo, then at Rome, successfully exerted 
 their influence and obtained the preference, 
 and wrote to him that the block, the obje6l of 
 77 
 
so mucli ambition, was at his disposition. 
 He returned at once to Florence and began 
 the work the 13th of September 1501, which 
 was completed three years after, in 1504. He 
 labored, it is said, with passion and in soli- 
 tude, and the result was the statue that all the 
 world raves about, and which puts me in mind 
 of a prize-fighter. 
 
 Yesterday morning Garibaldi arrived in the 
 city. I was aroused from sleep by the noise 
 of joyous evvivas^ and, on asking the cause, 
 was told that Garibaldi was come and was 
 then, at that very moment, passing our door 
 on his way out of the Porta Romana to 
 Madonna Mario's (Jessie White's). I rushed 
 to the window, but he was no longer in sight, 
 only the joyous, shouting crowd, and I almost 
 cried with vexation to think that I could have 
 slept while a hero was passing, and that hero 
 Garibaldi. I will see him yet, though, if I sit 
 up all night for it another time. In the 
 meantime I feel that Florence and every one 
 in it is ennobled by his presence. 
 
 78 
 
Florence, October 5, 1866. 
 
 I've seen Garibaldi ! ! Seen him ! I've 
 pressed his stainless hand and looked into his 
 heroic eyes — heroic, but tender and gentle as 
 a woman's. It was an unexpected pleasure at 
 last, for though I had said that chains and 
 bolts and bars should not keep me from seeing 
 Garibaldi, if ever he came within a hundred 
 miles of my neighborhood, yet now, when he 
 was within ten minutes' walk of my very 
 house, I hesitated about paying him a visit. 
 It is all very well saying what you would do, 
 such and such a case occurring. I've known 
 people, whom the devil himself, tail, horns, 
 hoofs and all, were not going to frighten, re- 
 treat pretty rapidly before a pugnacious cat, 
 and after all Garibaldi is Garibaldi, and 
 stronger-minded women than I, have hesitated 
 before paying him a visit. I knew too, that 
 he abhorred being made a show of, and was 
 well aware that half the people who wished to 
 see him, would rush just as eagerly to look 
 upon Ching-Chung, or the woman with a 
 
beard, and how was lie to know, that I be- 
 longed to the other, the better half? how, 
 indeed ! Better stay away than be confounded 
 with the sight-seers, and so I resolved that I 
 would stay away, and should have stuck to 
 my resolution, had not a friend, whose official 
 position made it a duty to call, and insured his 
 reception, invited me to accompany him. He 
 didn't have to invite twice you may be sure ; 
 I flew to my room to get ready ; with what a 
 beating heart I put on my bonnet, how hard 
 I tried to look my prettiest, in which, by the 
 way, I didn't succeed. It is only to very 
 young women that emotion is becoming. To 
 us " well preserved " ones it is utter undoing. 
 How happens it, by the way, that these " well 
 preserved " women are always preserved so 
 late ? Why not put them sooner into pickle ? 
 But I must not digress, to settle even the most 
 important questions, especiall}^ while on my 
 way to see Garibaldi. Crispis Villa, where 
 he was staying (he went first to Mario's) is 
 just outside of the Porta Romana, not ten 
 minutes walk from our house in the Via dei 
 
 80 
 
Serragli, so we soon found ourselves there 
 and though one of the two red-shirted senti- 
 nels, ignoring my friend's official chara(5ler, 
 said he thought we should not be received, 
 M — 's card procured us instant admission, 
 and we were so fortunate as to find him alone. 
 Or rather almost so, for though two gentlemen 
 were standing at the window of the drawing- 
 room into which we were shown, I only learnt 
 after we left, that one of them was Ricciotti 
 Garibaldi, and on the whole I was not sorry 
 that I had not known it sooner. As it was, I 
 had only just enough eyes for the Garibaldi ! 
 Not yours, dear public, nor mine, nor any- 
 body's Garibaldi, but a being as unlike and 
 superior to them all as Heaven is to Earth. 
 In a twinkling, the hero of my imagination 
 had disappeared forever before the grander 
 reality, and with my whole heart I paid wil- 
 ling homage to the man, whom hitherto I had 
 worshipped as a demi-god. Need I say that 
 his mortal aspe6l was by far the noblest? 
 Externally, however, he was the Garibaldi of 
 the photographs and the print-shops. He 
 
 81 
 
wore tlie historical red sliirt, and the almost 
 equally historical red cap, and I was very 
 glad of it, for mortal or demi-god, 'tis the cos- 
 tume that becomes him best, and even Gari- 
 baldi in my eyes — remember I am but a 
 woman — would lose a portion of his prestige 
 in any other. Fancy him, if you can, in a 
 dress-coat and choker. He rose as we entered 
 and saluted us with a simple friendly courtesy, 
 that put me at once at my ease, or rather 
 would have done so if anything in manner 
 could, but my heart was beating ready to 
 break, and I just didn't burst into tears. I 
 was seeing Garibaldi! I did not, though, 
 make a fool of myself, I am happy to say. 
 Cold-hearted, or rather no-hearted Mrs. Blank 
 herself could not have behaved with more 
 propriety, and here perhaps it will not be mal- 
 apropos to say something of Garibaldi's man- 
 ners, which are just simply perfedion, too 
 perfe6l for description even, but as I hold that 
 manners are the man, I will try to give some 
 faint idea of them, especially as Garibaldi, the 
 hero, the patriot, the soldier, is better known 
 
 82 
 
to the world than Garibaldi the gentleman — 
 the gentleman of an entirely new school, 
 though it was founded nearly two thousand 
 years ago ! No airs about Garibaldi, no 
 assumption, above all, no condescension ! 
 nothing to make you lose an inch of your 
 stature, or stand less upright than usual in 
 his presence, and yet never in any other pres- 
 ence have I been so impressed with the vast 
 distance that separates man from his fellow- 
 man. His own unconsciousness of the distance 
 makes humility anything but humiliating. 
 One uplooks willingly to him who never yet 
 looked down upon living mortal. Our visit 
 lasted about ten minutes. Delicacy and savoir- 
 vivre forbade a longer intrusion, and of course 
 there was little opportunity for conversation. 
 I did not even ascertain what Garibaldi 
 thought of some of my favorite crotchets, 
 though I had gone prepared with one or two 
 searching questions. I am sorry to say that 
 I am still in the dark as to his opinion of 
 female doctors, orators, and notaries public, 
 and do not even know whether he thinks 
 
 83 
 
" bloomers " becoming. I managed, However, 
 to tell him bow glad everybody would be in 
 America to see him, and how much we had all 
 regretted that he had not taken part in our 
 glorious struggle and illustrated our vi(5lory 
 with his name. " You did not need my ser- 
 vices," he replied with a smile, " moreover 
 my heart was always with you, I looked upon 
 your cause, as not so much the cause of America 
 as that of the universe entire ; it was the battle 
 of freedom the world over." A few more words 
 were then said, the usual compliments of leave- 
 taking exchanged, and my friend and myself 
 left, and I saw him no more, but the glow that 
 his words and presence illumined in my heart, 
 warms and brightens it still. 
 
 Garibaldi left in the twelve o'clock train 
 Saturday for Leghorn, on his way to his Isle 
 of Caprera, where he must so long to find 
 himself, though even there he cannot escape 
 his popularity ; 'tis a spe6lre that haunts 
 even his fireside, and will only cease to be 
 importunate when it keeps its vigil beside his 
 grave. Never was anything seen like the 
 
 84 
 
wild passion of enthusiasm and grief that 
 accompanied his departure. Dear Garibaldi ! 
 it is love even more than admiration that he 
 inspires ! and sobs burst even from manly 
 hearts as the train bore him away. He 
 made no speech, but silently bowed his addio^ 
 while ''''Viva GaribaldP ''''Viva Garibaldi ! '''' 
 rang through the air in a shout that pierced 
 the skies. 
 
 For the last three or four days the streets 
 leading from the Via dei Serragli to the 
 " Piazza delta Signoria " have been encum- 
 bered with an enormous truck, sliding upon 
 iron rails, that are taken up and put down as 
 fast as it passes over them, employed in trans- 
 porting the marble group of the Ratio di 
 Polissena — " The rape of Polyxana," by the 
 Chevalier Pio Fedi, which is to take its place, 
 beside many another illustrious marble, in the 
 Loggia di Orgagna. It is a colossal affair 
 and it is the fashion to admire it. I doubt, 
 though, if the crowds that flocked to see and 
 admire the other "r^^/6>" that has so long 
 graced the same locality, would confirm the 
 
 85 
 
general tribute. But whether they would or 
 not, the time has gone by for the commemo- 
 ration of a fable, that Homer's genius pre- 
 serves quite sufficiently from oblivion, and 
 since there is no dearth of subjedls of a higher 
 character and purer interest, " en rapport " too, 
 with the manners and sentiments of the age, 
 the artist has no excuse to justify his pagan- 
 ism. Enough of the Rape of the Sabines for 
 the Loggia, and that is only tolerable on the 
 ground that it had the plea of necessity and 
 the scope of utility. The Romans needed 
 wives, and as commercial science was in its 
 infancy, and philanthropy not even in its bud, 
 neither public nor private enterprise had con- 
 tracted by ship-loads to supply the market, 
 and they had just to get them as they could ; 
 but from a half-consenting captive to the 
 struggling vi6lim of a ruf&an, who has just 
 slain her brother, and resists a mother's 
 agony, there is a world of difference that it 
 needs no Columbus to discover. 
 
 Professor Fedi has certainly erred in his 
 subject, and as his error is colossal, it will 
 
force itself on public attention and help to 
 correal a very general mistake. 
 
 The treaty of peace is finally signed, the 
 French have left Rome, the Empress Charlotte 
 is visiting the Pope, Venice is preparing to 
 receive her King, and our good clergyman 
 Mr. Van Nest has returned to Florence. 
 
 Florence, Odlober 8, 1866. 
 
 Florence is in a state of collapse since 
 Garibaldi left it. A cold hearthstone, a 
 squeezed lemon, a theatre by dajdight, a wed- 
 ding breakfast, the bride departed, are faint 
 images of its dreary flatness and desolation. 
 Heroes alas ! are fatal to the common-places 
 of life, above all to its common-place people, 
 the moral of which is, that all men should be 
 heroes, and my belief is that so they might be 
 if they liked, for to that effe6l it is not 
 necessary to storm citadels or to conquer 
 kingdoms. Every man has his Sicily to sub- 
 due and hero-worshippers, as we women all 
 
 87 
 
are, need not ered altars to strange gods, if 
 our domestic divinities would deign to be 
 aught but hewers of wood and drawers of 
 water. As it is, while men are what they are, 
 the incense, that should with steady, constant 
 flame, burn during a life-time, blazes upward 
 now and then in one all-consuming, passionate 
 flash, to leave the temple dark and desolate, 
 until another demi-god descends to rekindle 
 the fire. And it serves you right, too, ye 
 lords of creation. Be Garibaldis yourselves 
 if you would prefer it otherwise. In the 
 meantime we who adore that hero, " sans peur 
 et sans reproche^^^ will bless our stars that such 
 beings do appear now and then to dissipate our 
 growing misanthropy and revive our failing 
 devotion. 
 
 A report reached Florence a few days since, 
 that, at first doubted or disbelieved, has since 
 unfortunately^ been confirmed. The Empress 
 Charlotte of Mexico is mad, and the Pope is 
 said to be the cause of it. A letter in this 
 morning's Italie says, she reached Rome in 
 perfeA health, but that the day following her 
 
 83 
 
arrival, having gone to the Vatican to pay 
 His Holiness a visit, she left his presence in 
 great agitation and dissolved in tears. The 
 Pope returned her visit the next day and left 
 her weeping, and it was afterwards known 
 that he had blamed with great severity, cer- 
 tain adls of her husband relative to the church 
 property in Mexico. Hoping to soften his 
 rigor, the unfortunate Empress returned again 
 soon after to the Vatican, but far from obtain- 
 ing comfort or consolation, the harshness of 
 Pio Nono seemed to redouble. He reproached 
 her with Maximilian's irreligious condudl, 
 which her influence, he said, ought to have 
 prevented, threatened them both with divine 
 vengeance, and finall}^ had the rudeness to 
 turn his back upon her, a woman and an 
 Empress, and leave her alone in the hall of 
 reception. The effect was terrible. The 
 Empress, a woman of intense sensibility and 
 ardent piety, appalled by the wrath and men- 
 aces of His Holiness, left the Vatican com- 
 pletely out of her head, and had hardly 
 reached her hotel, when she insisted upon 
 
 89 
 
returning, and once there, no persuasions 
 could induce her to leave during the whole 
 night. The papal court, as you may well 
 imagine, is in a state of the greatest excite- 
 ment, and the Pope's friends have already 
 spread the report that she has been poisoned. 
 But ho one is deceived for an instant as to the 
 cause of her misfortune, and the Pope's per- 
 sonal popularity will suffer greatly in conse- 
 quence. People are surprised, too, as those 
 who differed the most from the Pope in politics 
 and religion, always gave him the credit of 
 being a perfedl gentleman and particularly 
 courteous and well-bred. For my part, I 
 begin to think that he himself must be mad. 
 Nor would it be wonderful if he were. 
 
 The weather is getting decidedly cool — cold 
 even. The ^^ al fresco ^^ theatres are shutting 
 up and a woolen shawl over one's shoulders 
 is a comfortable thing. The flowers, however, 
 continue to bloom in the most, I should say 
 unblushing way, were I speaking of anything 
 but roses and pinks, in spite of the tempera- 
 ture, but that they always do here. Nothing 
 
 90 
 
can be more hardy and robust than Italian 
 blossoms, and "fragile as a flower" would 
 never have become a common and favorite 
 figure of speech, had they only bloomed in 
 these enchanted regions. Last Friday was 
 the Festa di Fie sole ^ in honor of San Francesco, 
 and I joined the gay throng that took their 
 way to this pidluresque village, the cradle of 
 Florence. We dined in the open air upon 
 chickens, cooked before our eyes by the dozen, 
 on four or five spits ranged one over the other, 
 drank the wine of the country, growing liter- 
 ally before our eyes on the neighboring hills, 
 of that sparkling, pungent flavor that the 
 Italians call ^''frizzantino'''' (whip stroke), 
 visited the Capuchin Convent situated upon 
 the very spot, formerly occupied by the ancient 
 Acropolis, looked with astonishment upon 
 Etruscan remains of the old walls that once 
 surrounded the city, bought the little straw 
 trumpets with which children, who have fond 
 papas, madden you all the time you stay, and 
 returned home quietly along the road by the 
 Arno, entered the Porta San Gallo, satisfied 
 
 91 
 
with a day pleasantly if not usefully spent, 
 yet, on the whole, glad that a year must 
 elapse ere I could enjoy a similar satisfadlion. 
 
 I hear that now that the peace is signed, the 
 legations of France to Florence and of Florence 
 to Paris are simultaneously to be elevated to 
 the rank of embassies, and that the future 
 Italian and Austrian legations will receive 
 the same designations, in which case, unless 
 we follow suit, Mr. Marsh's superiority of 
 time will have to yield le pas to that of of&cial 
 rank. Mr. Marsh has hitherto been the 
 senior of the diplomatic body, and of course 
 takes precedence of all the other ministers. 
 
 The last moments of Austrian dominion at 
 Venice have finally arrived. Bvery sign of 
 its past empire is fast disappearing, and this 
 sepulchre of a few months ago, is now filled 
 with the living, raised from the dead, at the 
 trumpet voice of liberty. At length Italy is 
 free, from the Alps to the Adriatic. The tri- 
 color waves before the church of San Marco, 
 and ere long will float above the Capitol. 
 
 93 
 
Florence, OAober 23, 1866. 
 
 All Florence has been in a state of the most 
 extravagant excitement for the last week 
 about Meyerbeer's opera " Afncana^'*'' which 
 came off on Saturday evening. The talk of 
 cafes, boudoirs, and tea-tables has been of 
 nothing else, and " Are you going Saturday 
 to the Pergola?" was the vital question — the 
 one that for the moment took precedence of 
 every other. Every other amusement was 
 voted an impertinence and a bore. Balls 
 became routs, concerts were disconcerted, tea- 
 tables upset, and society in general was com- 
 pletely unhinged. Many a long-indulged 
 and well-arranged scheme of pleasure was 
 nipped in the bud by this full-blown colossal 
 enjoyment, and among its many vi6lims my 
 own little tea-party, to my thinking, was not 
 the least important. It is true, that I might 
 by taking thought, have avoided the catas- 
 trophe, but who can be always taking thought ? 
 and having, in spite of the great coming event, 
 which for more than a month had cast not 
 93 
 
only its shadow, but its ecHoes before, Heed- 
 lessly invited a few friends, twenty in all, to 
 a sociable tea-drinking, eight only surrounded 
 the alas ! no longer festal board. My tea- 
 table had come into collision with the vessel 
 of the " Africaiia " and gone hopelessly down, 
 and of its eight survivors, six were ladies and 
 the others, two superannuated beaux, one as 
 deaf as fate, and the other, as I discovered 
 afterwards, an unsuccessful applicant for a 
 stall at the Pergola. I bore my disappoint- 
 ment as well as I could, but it was no great 
 consolation to me, to learn the next day, that 
 all the world had been in raptures, surpassing 
 all former musical raptures, and that never, 
 perhaps, had expeAation and enthusiasm been 
 more fully satisfied. The representation had 
 been a perfect unqualified success, and well 
 had the impresario^ Signor Monare-Rocca, 
 deserved it, for independent of the incontes- 
 tible merit of the work, no pains, no expense, 
 no intelligence had been spared by him in its 
 interpretation, and I am told that even in Paris, 
 it was not represented with greater magnifi- 
 
 94 
 
cence. The orchestra was numerous and 
 admirably drilled ; the costumes made at 
 Paris at a fabulous expense, after designs 
 approved by Meyerbeer himself; and the ves- 
 sel, construdled at a cost of 20,000 francs by a 
 Venetian artist of great merit, though encoun- 
 tering difficulties, owing to the small size of 
 the stage, and the almost impossibility of 
 producing nautical illusion, surpassed public 
 expedlation. The public expeAation of artists, 
 not sailors, luckily. In short, the success of 
 the piece was as great as even an impresario 
 could wish, and Signor Monare-Rocca's wishes 
 must have been more than usually ardent on 
 this occasion, owing to the enormous outlay of 
 money upon its getting up, and still more to 
 the fa6l that all the second row of boxes, the 
 " Ordine Mobile^'' as it is called, belongs to 
 private individuals, most of them Florentine 
 nobles, who pay only the entrance fee, and is 
 consequently wholly lost to the manager. 
 This loss on Saturday evening was attempted 
 to be compensated by raising the price of 
 admission from three francs to five, and set- 
 95 
 
ting apart a number of seats in the pit, for 
 which ten francs were demanded, besides aug- 
 menting the price of the posti distinti (reserved 
 seats) to fifteen francs, which measures, I am 
 told, succeeded in indemnifying the impresario 
 for the money laid out and produced a very 
 good net profit, as the theatre was crammed 
 from floor to ceiling, and crammed it remained, 
 too, up to the last moment of the performance ; 
 six long, mortal hours of musical rapture, 
 unmitigated by the light fantastic toes of 
 ballerine^ or their still lighter and more fan- 
 tastic petticoats, by aught, in fad, but the 
 magic variety of sound and sentiment, that 
 would have made of any other mitigation a 
 profanation. The prima-donna, la Signora 
 Ferni^ I am told, was rapturously applauded, 
 and seemed made expressly for the role of 
 Selika. Full of power and passion, she 
 idealized and sublimized her part, which was 
 nobly dramatic, besides being divinely lovely 
 in both her costumes, though most so in that 
 of the slave. All the roles were unusually 
 well sustained and the harmony of the com- 
 
 96 
 
position was not disturbed, as it is witli us so 
 frequently, by a great inferiority in the minor 
 parts, fatal to dramatic illusion and efifedl. 
 The great singer of the evening, however, 
 was the baritone, // Signor Giraldoni^ in the 
 character of Nelusko, a true and great artist 
 in every sense of the term, and to him the 
 opera owes its greatest success. Again and 
 again he was called upon the stage to respond 
 to the frantic acclamations of the excited 
 crowd, though evidently desirous of escaping 
 a distincftion he would have preferred to share. 
 But I refrain from a longer analysis of a 
 performance of whose merits I am personally 
 ignorant, until I can be something more than 
 an echo of the public rapture, and return con- 
 tentedly to my deserted tea-table, an account 
 of which will initiate you into some of the 
 difficulties, to which a disposition for hospi- 
 tality exposes us birds on the wing, while 
 temporarily perching in foreign lodging- 
 houses. My friends, as I told you before, 
 were invited for Saturday evening, and early 
 on the morning of that day I commenced my 
 
 97 
 
preparations for tlieir reception, thinking, 
 naturally enough, that they would be made 
 in a twinkling ; only twenty people were com- 
 ing. But I had reckoned without my land- 
 lord, and was soon dismayed at the immensity 
 of the task I had undertaken. Task ! it was 
 an enterprise ! and courageous as I am (mor- 
 all}^, I mean), I positively trembled when I 
 found what was before me. I found there 
 was nothing, just nothing in the house for 
 my party. Few spoons, fewer cups and sau- 
 cers, no chairs to speak of, table-cloths and 
 napkins dilapidated and in tatters, and all the 
 rest to match. Small prevision take lodging- 
 house keepers of hospitable intentions. I was 
 in despair, and would have postponed on the 
 instant my tea-drinking to a more propitious 
 occasion on the other side of the Atlantic, had 
 it not been too late ! Come my friends must 
 and would, and with or without the needful, 
 they must be received. No time was to be 
 lost, help must be obtained, and the aid of 
 friendly compatriots — they being lodging- 
 house birds of the same feather as myself, 
 
 98 
 
witli nothing but their plumage that they 
 could call their own, not to be thought of. 
 So taking courage from desperation, I resolved 
 to apply to my landlord, with what feelings 
 you may imagine, when I tell you that one or 
 two recent skirmishes with him on the subjedl 
 of porters' fees and rights, and the amount of 
 water necessary for the family use, questions 
 on which we differed greatly, he believing 
 firmly in limited and partial bathing, and my 
 ideas taking a more comprehensive range, had 
 somewhat acidulated our usually friendly 
 relations. Nevertheless, it was no time to 
 think of all that now. So I sent for him and 
 laid the case before him. I told him that we 
 Americans were a social, tea-drinking, agglom- 
 erating race, seizing on every pretext to grat- 
 ify our national propensities, not doing at 
 Rome as the Romans, but as the Bostonians 
 do ; and that it was a landlord's duty, with an 
 American lodger in view, to take into consid- 
 eration the national character and needs, and 
 prepare his house accordingly, that is, supply 
 it with an unlimited amount of cups, tea- 
 
 99 
 
spoons, chairs, etc., all things indispensable 
 to hospitable rites. I added, too, that were I 
 speaking to any one but an Italian, I should 
 demand a cradle and a rocking-chair. My 
 eloquence succeeded. Awed either by the fire 
 and force of audacity, that resides in the 
 female American eye, or by compunction for 
 past negle6l, he succumbed at once, and 
 though, when I asked for a table-cloth he 
 gave me a sheet, it was not a bad substitute 
 after all, and if I had only had guests, if the 
 mzpresario of the Pergola had only the com- 
 plaisance to defer for one evening his ill-timed 
 performance, my twenty friends would have 
 had a cup and a teaspoon apiece, and my tea- 
 fight would have been the most brilliant 
 reunion of the season. 
 
 Speaking of American receptions, I must 
 tell you that last Monday evening I attended 
 one at our clergyman's, the first of a series to 
 be continued every Monday. The invitations 
 were given from the pulpit, and extended 
 indiscriminately to all the Americans in Flor- 
 ence, a surprising proceeding in one of our 
 
 IfJO 
 
compatriots, as of all people on the face of the 
 earth, we are the most exclusive in our social 
 relations, and to such a degree is this the 
 case, that foreigners are constantly expres- 
 sing their surprise at the rigor, with which 
 what are called aristocratic distin(5lions, are 
 maintained among us republicans ! They 
 know, of course, that with us as with others, 
 social differences exist, but imposed upon by 
 our pretended scorn of the grapes that refuse 
 to grow in our climate, sincerely think that 
 they are based upon a recognition of real 
 superiority, intrinsic merit of some sort, inde- 
 pendent of wealth, rank and position, and are 
 excessively amused to find that the first care 
 of an American abroad is to hunt up a gene- 
 alogy ! Good Heavens ! say they, why does 
 
 Mr. M , whose father was a respe6lable oil 
 
 merchant in Philadelphia, trouble himself to 
 discover, on the strength of his very common 
 name, that he is of Welsh origin and related 
 to Lord Y 's family. Why not be satis- 
 fied with his Quaker extraction, since we do 
 not ask or expe6l Americans to be earls' 
 
 101 
 
remotest cousins. And why, above all, will 
 
 Mr. Z , a man born in your American 
 
 purple, a verj^ different and superior stuff to 
 our article, you pretend, wear it so humbly, 
 so cringingly in presence of those clothed in 
 the European fabric ? Is it, then, in spite of 
 Mr. Bright and Mr. Mill, a baser, coarser 
 fabric after all ? But, alas ! digression, my 
 besetting sin, "that fatal Cleopatra," has led 
 me a weary length away from the limits of 
 Mr. V. N's drawing-room, to which I am glad 
 to get back, though it offered nothing to dis- 
 tinguish it from similar American reunions — 
 the usual tea and cake, with the prettiest 
 and best dressed women, the most sensible, 
 thoughtful and earnest men, and over all a 
 rather unusual degree of sociability and 
 friendship, emanating probably from the 
 warm, kind heart of our pastor, who recog- 
 nizes in every man a brother, in every woman 
 a sort of angel. Among those who seemed 
 particularly to enjoy the cordiality of our 
 welcome, I remarked an old gentleman, the 
 striking and pi6luresque beauty of whose 
 
 103 
 
head would have made a beautiful study for 
 an artist. I learned, on enquiry, that he was 
 the venerable Amos Kendall, to whom I 
 obtained the honor of an introduclion. He 
 was traveling, he told me, partly for his 
 health, which had been greatly benefited by 
 the voyage, and his cough had wholly left 
 him in Ireland. God grant that elsewhere he 
 may leave his other complaints, and long may 
 his precious life be preserved to those who 
 love him. The party, being at a clergyman's, 
 broke up early, as prolonged and godly enjoy- 
 ments are generally thought incompatible, 
 though what is to break the monotony of 
 eternal blessedness, our pastors forget to tell 
 us, and everlasting happiness hereafter has 
 always been urged, as an argument for an 
 early renunciation of the joys of time. 
 
 103 
 
Florence, October 28, 1866. 
 
 I walked to churcli this morning under the 
 gay shadows of floating flags and waving 
 tapestry — carpets, counterpanes, petticoats, 
 every article, in short, that united the " red, 
 white and green," were dangling from the 
 windows to festeggiare the " kSz " of the 
 plebiscite that yesterday confirmed the union 
 of Venetia with Italy. The bells rang out 
 gaily at intervals and the people everywhere 
 were in ecstasies of joy, translated, as usual, 
 Italian fashion, into color, noise and move- 
 ment ; and by the end of next week half of 
 Florence will betake itself with her King to 
 Venice, where the old palace of the Doges is 
 rapidly preparing for his reception. The 
 King will be accompanied by a numerous and 
 brilliant suite, the greater part of the foreign 
 ministers of the number, and on Wednesday, 
 the 7th, will make his public entry into the 
 city of gondolas, where, if he can only con- 
 tinue to transmute " its stones " into gold, the 
 joy with which all are preparing to welcome 
 
 104 
 
him, will probably prove as durable as it is 
 sincere and enthusiastic. As it is, however, 
 the croakers already begin to predi6l a speedy 
 reaction, when the unthinking people shall 
 perceive that Vi(5lor Emmanuel is a man and 
 not a magician. 
 
 Meanwhile the heart, head and soul of Italy 
 being for the nonce in Venetia, the Florentine 
 gossiping ^'' pot-au-feu^^ less richly supplied 
 than usual with savory ingredients for a cor- 
 respondent's letter, simmers quietly over a 
 fire kindled at too great a distance to set it 
 boiling, and awaits the return of her sovereign, 
 ere deigning to furnish forth a table fit to set 
 before a king. Other '''' pots-mi-feu^'^ however, 
 are not wanting in Florence, for the season of 
 the Scaldini^ the people's pot-ati-feu^ has set 
 in, and as you may not know what scaldini 
 are, I will tell you, that they are small earth- 
 ern pots, filled with fine, ignited charcoal, 
 called brace^ with which Florentines keep soul 
 and body together through the winter, in 
 spite of carpetless rooms and few fire-places. 
 'Tis a convenience especially adapted to this 
 
 105 
 
do Ice far 7iie7ite people, for having to be held in 
 the hands, those members cannot be otherwise 
 more usefully emploj^ed, and that they con- 
 tribute to promote the national indolence with 
 which I so heartily sympathize, believing as 
 I firmly do, that with nations as with individ- 
 uals, there are those, whose mission is simply 
 "to be " not "to do," and foremost among 
 these favored people I place the Italians. 
 However that may be, certain it is that 
 whether deserving or not all the merit I 
 claim for them, the Italians couldn't get 
 through the cold weather without their scal- 
 dini^ and they are to be seen in every- 
 body's hands and under everybody's feet, 
 the women of the low^er classes carrying them 
 about with them everywhere, to market and 
 in the churches even, cozil}'- hidden under 
 their shawls and aprons, and whether in a 
 shop, an artist's studio, or a countess' draw- 
 ing-room, the first thing offered you is a scal- 
 dino. Occasionally too, they are desecrated 
 to more apparently useful purposes, and 
 enclosed in a sort of hen-coop, they serve as 
 
 100 
 
bed-warmers, while, covered with a small wire 
 net-work, a scaldino becomes an ingenious 
 little cooking stove, on which a bistecca of 
 lamb, mutton or pork, can be cooked, and 
 deliciously too, in a twinkling. {Bistecca, 
 by the wa}^, is the Italian for beefsteak, 
 and it also means a cutlet of any sort or 
 description.) Here, however, truth compels 
 me to add, ends the list of the scaldind's 
 merits, for as a domestic institution, I ques- 
 tion greatly its utility, and fancy the home 
 virtues flourish best beside a stationary chim- 
 ney-corner ; indeed I am often compelled to 
 attribute a great deal of the out-of-door rov- 
 ing cafe-habits of the Italian husbands, to this 
 will-o'-the-wisp, wandering, vagabond fireside, 
 though it seems ungrateful in me to say it, 
 as from September to June, no Italian of them 
 all hugs this precious little convenience more 
 closely to her bosom than my shivering self, 
 and so indispensable has it become to my 
 comfort, that in spite of my many hair-breadth 
 escapes, (for I upset one on an average two or 
 three times a day,) my friends predidl that I 
 
 107 
 
shall come to a fiery end at last, and " Not 
 burnt to death yet," is the common form of 
 salutation of several of them. So profound 
 indeed is their convidlion, that finally it has 
 infected me, and wishing to be prepared for 
 every emergency, I sat down the other day 
 and wrote my epitaph, and hope, the case 
 occurring, that it may serve as a warning to 
 other devotees of the pot-au-feu. 
 
 I wonder, by the way, why people do not 
 oftener take eternity by the forelock and write 
 their own epitaphs ! Fewer lies would, I am 
 sure, be told, and the monotony of praise 
 would at least occasionally be diversified by 
 wholesome confession, as few people care 
 much for posthumous reputation, and no one 
 is bound to tread lightly over his own ashes ! 
 My epitaph runs thus, if you like to read it : 
 
 Here lies poor H , her age pray how should we 
 
 know, 
 The vicflim of an overturned scaldino. 
 "When warned of what she might expecft, she jeered, 
 Nor flames above, nor flames below she feared ; 
 Heedless of counsel friends were always giving, 
 
 108 
 
Hot water was her element while living, 
 And dying by the cruel, ruthless blaze, 
 In one more hot, we fear, she dwells alwa5^s. 
 From mortal rushing to immortal ire. 
 Out of the frjdng-pan straight into the fire. 
 
 I don't pretend to give this as a model 
 epitaph, though my friends think it pretty 
 fair. An equal amount of sincerity on the 
 part of the world in general would soon make 
 of a graveyard an entertaining and instruc- 
 tive place, where '' sermons in stones " could 
 not be listened to with careless ears. 
 
 One thing naturally leading to another, I 
 am glad to find that other people occasionally 
 get into hot water as well as myself, and 
 among them our prefedl. Count Cantelli, who 
 has just now got himself involved in a stupid, 
 unreasonable quarrel with the proprietors of 
 the Niccolini Theatre, about a box, that he 
 insists upon having elsewhere than where they 
 choose to give it to him. The affair is simply 
 this : The present prefecfl, and his predecessors 
 as well, have always had a box placed by the 
 proprietors of the theatre at their disposition 
 
 109 
 
on the third tier, and as it was in no case 
 obligatory upon them to give ajiy box, the 
 former prefedls have accepted it wherever they 
 conld get it, and been thankful enough to get 
 it at all. Not so Count Cantelli ; he insists 
 upon having a loge on the first tier, and his 
 pretensions being resisted, has actually refused 
 to authorize the reopening of the theatre, 
 though the bills of the company have adlually 
 been placarded all over the city for a perform- 
 ance next week. As both parties keep firm, 
 and show no symptoms of yielding, the affair 
 is getting serious, and will soon, I am told, be 
 carried before the tribunals. But this is not 
 all. Not content with one theatrical quarrel, 
 our prefedl has another on his hands, origina- 
 ting in similar pretensions with regard to the 
 Alfieri Theatre, which will have to be settled 
 in the same way, if his prepotenza does not 
 succumb, as sooner or later they say he must. 
 These theatrical brawls, by the way, are no 
 novelty in Italy. Not long since an analogous 
 event took place in Venice, when the Governor, 
 Cavalier Toggembourg, made an indentical 
 
 no 
 
demand of the Malibran Theatre, and, like 
 our prefe6l, refused to allow it to open. The 
 impresario declined to make any concession 
 and the theatre remained closed, the Austrian 
 Governor fulfilling his threat. But in the 
 mean time he telegraphed to Vienna for in- 
 structions. They came, and he was ordered 
 to open the theatre, but at the same time to 
 take the affair before the tribunal, and the 
 result was that he had to give in, the court 
 deciding against him. While writing this 
 last paragraph a friend has come in, who 
 informs me that the difficulty between the 
 prefedlure and the proprietors of the two 
 theatres has been amicably settled. Count 
 Cantelli has admitted that his pretensions 
 were unfounded and removed his veto from 
 the " Niccolini " and the " Alfieri ;" — " tant 
 mieux pour lui P'' 
 
 This is now " la belle saison " for theatres 
 of every description, and there is not one of 
 them that is not filled to overflowing every 
 evening. The impresario of the Pergola how- 
 ever, though the Africaine is as popular as 
 111 
 
ever, has been compelled to reduce to tiie 
 usual prices, as, after the first night it was 
 performed to empty boxes. The Italians love 
 music but only at a fair price. Catch them 
 paying too dear for their whistles of any sort. 
 Ristori's success in New York and elsewhere 
 raises a smile on the faces of the real connois- 
 seurs of the drama here. They think it 
 strange that what, at its best, long, long years 
 ago, was never genius, should excite such en- 
 thusiasm in its decline, and the transports of 
 the critic of the New York Herald, who from 
 various admiration points — now in the dress 
 circle, now in the parterre, and anon armed 
 with a promenade ticket, vented his delight in 
 frantic bravos of a fe77iale performer, filled 
 them with intense amazement. As if forsooth 
 one could not be enraptured in spite of gram- 
 matical harmony and ignorance of the lan- 
 guage. For my part I think nothing could 
 have been more gratifying than this tribute to 
 the woman, independent of the author she 
 interpreted. 
 
 The desolating work of improvement still 
 
 112 
 
goes on here with cniel celerity, and on emerg- 
 ing after a week's seclusion in the house, you 
 discover architectural marvels equal to those 
 accomplished in the same space of time in 
 Chicago or St. Louis. Kverywhere churches, 
 palaces and cloisters in demolition, fill your 
 nostrils and put your eyes out with the sacred 
 dust of ages, and no one but the lonely lover 
 of the past like myself, seems to heed the ruin. 
 The Italians of to-day have no reverence for 
 anything, and turn up as lightly the soil that 
 contains the ashes of heroes and saints, as we 
 do a potato field. 
 
 Dr. V. N 's tea-parties still continue, 
 
 theatres excepted, the only gayety we Ameri- 
 cans just now indulge in. His wife has just 
 returned and his reunions will probably be 
 even more delightful than heretofore, as the 
 most agreeable drawing-room in the world, 
 without a lady in it to do the honors, is a 
 setting without its gem. 
 
 Mr. Fox, the hero of the St. Petersburg and 
 Moscow fetes, arrived here yesterday, and the 
 Legation and Consulate are in a state of 
 
 U3 
 
friendly and patriotic adlivity very pleasant to 
 witness, and I hope it is agreeable to the objed 
 of it. I shouldn't like, though to have such a 
 fuss made about me, and when I get famous I 
 mean to retire to the desert. 
 
 Florence, November 6, 1866. 
 
 Last Friday being the festival of the dead, 
 la festa di tutti morti^ in spite of a gloomy, 
 sullen sky, threatening rain at every instant, 
 I started for a visit to San Miniato al Monte, 
 whose church and surrounding cemetery are 
 at present the most fashionable receptacles 
 for the dead in the neighborhood of Florence. 
 Everybody who has visited this cit}'- will 
 recall the view of San Miniato as seen from 
 the center of Ponte Vecchio, and few trav- 
 elers, however short their stay in the capital, 
 fail to visit it. It is a beautiful church, of a 
 simple and noble style of architecture, situ- 
 ated upon a hill on the east of Florence, and 
 did it possess no other attradion than the 
 
 114 
 
beautiful view from its terrace of the valley of 
 the Arno, with its encircling mountains, it 
 would be well worth visiting. But of course 
 no Italian church can be so comparatively- 
 barren of interest, and that of San Miniato, 
 like every other in this enchanted land, pos- 
 sesses its treasures of art, its legends, and its 
 miracles, besides being especially famous for 
 having been a military post, fortified by 
 Michael-Angelo, in a vain attempt to defend 
 Florence from the power of the Medici, in the 
 last siege of the city. Truly, the dead should 
 sleep contentedly in such illustrious dust, and 
 were aught wanting to their sweet repose, 
 methinks the tears, that so often moisten it, 
 telling of living, undying affe6lion, should 
 satisfy the most exadling spirit. Thinking 
 thus, I took my way out of the Porta San- 
 Miniato, and soon found myself in the 
 cypress-bordered avenue, the Via Crucis that 
 leads to the church. The road was thronged 
 with people, most of them in deep mourn- 
 ing garments, all wending their way to the 
 church, carrying in their hands nosegays and 
 
 115 
 
wreaths of flowers, witli whicli to adorn 
 graves, whose tenants, this beautiful custom 
 of yearly commemoration, helps to keep fresh 
 and vivid in their hearts. Many were the sad 
 faces that I saw as I went on, many more, 
 composed to a decent conventional gravity, 
 and in all, the consciousness of mortality and 
 its woes were more or less visible. Death at 
 such times asserts his supremacy, and even a 
 transient recognition of his might is beneficial 
 in a community like this. Moreover a seed 
 sown upon a grave occasionally blossoms into 
 a plant of eternal life. 
 
 Hurrying rapidly on in spite of my reflec- 
 tions, for the rain drops already began to fall, 
 I soon reached the church and, regardless of 
 the lovely view to be seen from its terrace, 
 entered its doors. The scene that met my 
 eyes suffused them instantly with tears ; the 
 dead, the unforgotten dead were there ; their 
 shadows filled the church and seemed more 
 real than the living mourners. The floor and 
 walls of the church were covered with sepul- 
 chral slabs, and beside each taper-lighted, 
 
 116 
 
flower-strewn grave, one or more dark-robed 
 figures sat or knelt and prayed in a silence 
 unbroken except by an occasional sigh or 
 sob. Never have I witnessed a scene more 
 impressive, though many a grand and strik- 
 ing pageant has passed before m}^ ej'-es, and 
 overcome by its sad and strange solemnity, I, 
 too, flung myself upon my knees and mourned, 
 ah how bitterly, my dead — father, sister, 
 brother. They all came back to me, there in 
 that strange church, in a foreign land ! and 
 amid the passionate weeping that the memory 
 of their loss occasioned, they bade me hope ! 
 Ah ! beautiful, blessed custom that thus keeps 
 alive all that is holiest and best within us ! 
 Why canst thou not be transplanted to my 
 own dear land, where mammon and mate- 
 riality reign, alas, supreme? Why cannot 
 we, too, occasionally steal a da}^ from the 
 market and exchange, to pass it with the 
 angels ? Vain wish, perhaps, and yet I 
 cherish it. Lingering long amid the sacred 
 precindls, and leaving them at last unwil- 
 lingly, warned by the gathering gloom, I 
 
 117 
 
turned at last my face to the city, and taking 
 tlie same cypress-bordered path, paused for a 
 moment on my way down at the Franciscan 
 Convent of San Salvatore del Monte, about 
 half-way between San Miniato and Florence, 
 where similar mournful ceremonies were tak- 
 ing place. This convent, like the church 
 higher up, is rich in historical and poetical 
 reminiscences, and its neighborhood is famous 
 as the scene of the Call of San Giovanni 
 Gualberto, one of those charming legends, 
 that make almost every foot of Italian soil, a 
 scene of romantic, haunting interest, beside 
 which mere historical fa(51s are poor and 
 sterile. The story runs thus : The San Gio- 
 vanni in question, the founder of the Bene- 
 didline Convent at Vallombrosa, was not, 
 alas ! always a saint ; far from it, indeed, he 
 was a noted sinner, and without a miracle, a 
 sinner probably would have remained to his 
 dying day. The son of a high and mighty 
 baron, in riotous living he passed his time, 
 disregarding alike the tears and entreaties of 
 a pious mother, and the angry threats of a 
 
 118 
 
stern father, till finally so completely did lie 
 abandon himself to vicious courses, that even 
 among the dissolute he became renowned for 
 the profligacy and infamy of his condudl. 
 
 Hopeless of any change, his father at last 
 ceased to menace, his mother almost to pray, 
 when Heaven took the prodigal in hand, and 
 by means of a terrible domestic calamity, suc- 
 ceeded in bringing him to repentance. His 
 brother, his only brother Hugh, was killed in 
 a brawl, and so greatly was he a£fe6led by his 
 loss, that renouncing on the instant every 
 other pursuit, he swore to live for nothing but 
 to punish his murderer and avenge his death. 
 His gay companions, his beautiful mistresses, 
 were sacrificed without a regret to the deadly 
 passion that consumed him, and Providence, 
 doubtless, assisting to bring about an event, 
 that was destined to end in his conversion, soon 
 placed the homicide within his reach. Return- 
 ing one Good-Friday from San Miniato, accom- 
 panied, as usual, by a band of armed followers, 
 he met the murderer in a narrow road from 
 which there was no escape, and prepared to 
 
 U9 
 
put His terrible vow in execution, and would 
 surely have done so had not his apparently 
 doomed vi6lim sunk upon his knees, and 
 extending his arms towards him in the form 
 of the Holy Cross, adjured him by the sacred 
 symbol and the solemn memories of that 
 blessed day, to have mercy upon him. His 
 appeal was not made in vain. Gualberto 
 relented, forgave his enemy, and more than 
 that, taking him by the hand, he conducted 
 him to the church of San Miniato, when upon 
 coming before the crucifix above the altar, the 
 head of our Saviour bowed to Gualberto in 
 token of approval of his magnanimous a6l, 
 which miracle so moved Gualberto, that on 
 the instant he vowed to devote the rest of his 
 life to God, and forthwith became a monk in 
 the neighboring monastery. He did not 
 remain there long however, for his piety, like 
 that of so many others, making him critical 
 and intolerant, he soon took umbrage at the 
 free and jovial character of the Abbot, a 
 philosopher in his way, who, from the gloom, 
 even of a cloister, contrived to extraA a few 
 
 130 
 
sunbeams, and having particularly set his 
 face against sunbeams, and looking upon the 
 sun itself as an interloper and vagabond in 
 Creation, San Giovanni Gualberto, in com- 
 pany with another monk of similar sourness 
 of sentiment, shook the dust off his feet 
 against the jolly abbot, and betook himself to 
 the shades of Vallombrosa, where he estab- 
 lished the BenediAine convent, that all the 
 world goes to see, and set himself seriously to 
 work at the extirpation of sunbeams, a task a 
 good many of his Protestant brethren have 
 like himself, undertaken, alas ! too often suc- 
 cessfully ! too, too often ! I have lingered so 
 long among convents and tombs that I have 
 hardly time for an account of a visit I paid 
 yesterday morning to an establishment of a 
 very different description, but very interesting 
 also in its way. Furnished with a permit, I 
 found my way yesterday morning to the 
 royal manufacftory of the pietre dure or 
 Mosaics, in the via del Ciliegio, which is at 
 this moment very busily occupied in the prep- 
 aration of objects for the coming exhibition of 
 
 121 
 
Paris. Everybody lias of course seen and 
 probably possessed specimens of Florentine 
 Mosaics, but to see them in perfedlion, to 
 know what is possible in a combination of 
 stones of different colors, one should visit this 
 establishment, where a judicious choice can be 
 made of several different stones, whose varied 
 shades, arranged with patient and minute 
 attention, produce an effeS: that only the 
 finest painting can equal. The tables they 
 are making for the exhibition are just simply 
 marvelous, and the price of one of them, one 
 hundred and seventeen thousand francs, seems 
 anything but astonishing — one especially of 
 porphyry, in the middle of which were all 
 sorts of bacchanal attributes, surrounded by a 
 border of flowers that were positively fra- 
 grant. I spent two hours looking at the 
 beautiful things, my eyes growing brighter 
 and wider open as I looked, and I only 
 regretted, as I came away, that I was not a 
 Stewart or a Rothschild. As I hear that the 
 former is going to Paris on the occasion of the 
 exhibition, I hope he will purchase some of 
 
 132 
 
these exquisite objedls of art, for sucH they 
 are, attaining the beau-ideal, art's proper 
 objedl. 
 
 Yesterday morning our minister, Mr. 
 Marsh, accompanied by Capt. Fox, of the 
 Navy, Mr. Clay, our Secretary of Legation, 
 and the most ef&cient of its attaches, left 
 Florence, I am told, to meet the King on 
 his entrance into Venice. It was whispered 
 about, however, in the course of the day, that 
 the King had been taken suddenly ill, and his 
 entrance w^ould have to be postponed, but as 
 no confirmation of the rumor appeared in the 
 evening papers, it was probably a false report. 
 Another bit of gossip was that the Crown- 
 Prince had made a morganatic marriage. 
 
 1^ 
 
Florence, November 24, 1866. 
 
 In spite of every effort of the municipality 
 to the contrary, the King's reception to his 
 Capital last Thursday was a complete failure. 
 The city had outdone itself in preparations. 
 Night and day for more than a week, work- 
 men had been employed in its decoration, but 
 vain were triumphal arches, waving flags, 
 winged lions, trophied arms, tapestried glories 
 of every description ; vain the Syndic's pray- 
 ers, almost commands, to the people to be 
 enthusiastic, loyal, and einpresse. The King 
 passed through the resplendent streets, unwel- 
 comed by the hearts of his subjects, and took 
 his sullen way through the midst of the 
 crowds, assembled to see the show, with 
 scarcely an evviva to greet his return. It is 
 said, even, that on his arrival at the Piazza 
 Pitti, he was saluted with hisses instead. 
 Many reasons for this strange dissatisfa6lion 
 besides the memories of Custoza and Lissa 
 have been alleged. The King is reproached 
 with partiality for Turin, his ancient capital, 
 
 124 
 
with receiving there instead of at Florence, 
 the Venetian deputation, but, above all, with 
 his entourage of inauvais sujets. And though 
 it is asserted that Cialdini, the people's favor- 
 ite, has consented to accept the place of first 
 aide-de-camp to his Majesty, on condition of 
 making a clean household, and turning out 
 the civil and military ofiicers, that at present 
 disgrace it, until the thing is done as well as 
 said, the Florentines will not cease to doubt 
 the King. To all these legitimate causes of 
 discontent, add that on Thursday he was two 
 hours later than he was expecl;ed, and the 
 absence of evvivas is sufficiently accounted 
 for, as it is only the loved and popular who 
 are watched and waited for with patient impa- 
 tience. It was one o'clock instead of eleven, 
 the hour fixed, when the cannons of the fort- 
 ress announced his arrival at the station, 
 where all the grand dignitaries of the city 
 and many others beside, were awaiting him, 
 and the train had scarcely reached the depot, 
 when Baron Ricasoli approached the door of 
 the royal wagon with outstretched hand, to 
 
 125 
 
welcome him, to which his Majesty responded, 
 Italian fashion, by a cordial kiss on each 
 cheek, a salutation he graciously extended to 
 the five cabinet ministers accompanying Sig- 
 nor Ricasoli, and afterwards shook hands with 
 several others, entitled by rank or position to 
 the distin(5lion of a personal greeting, the 
 young princes following his example. The 
 King then entered a magnificently furnished 
 pavilion, especially prepared for the occasion, 
 where several ladies were in waiting, one of 
 whom presented him with an exquisite bou- 
 quet, tied with the national colors, which he 
 received with his accustomed gallantry and 
 kept in his hand until he reached the Pitti, 
 and then, leaving the pavilion, he slowly pro- 
 ceeded, bowing right and left, to his carriage, 
 and commenced his progress through the city, 
 which, as I said before, was anything but a 
 triumphant one. He was followed by several 
 other carriages, with the royal liveries, con- 
 veying ministers, generals, deputies, court 
 officials, and other notabilities, in their proper 
 order and precedence, though what that may 
 
 126 
 
be, I do not exactly know. At the right of 
 the King sat the Crown Prince, Umberto, and 
 two aides-de-camp facing them on the front 
 seat. In the next carriage was Amadeo, Vic- 
 tor Emmanuel's second son, with the Prince 
 Carignano (cousin to Vi6lor Emmanuel) and 
 another aide. Three uglier human beings 
 than the King and his two sons, it would be 
 dif&cult even among crowned heads to dis- 
 cover. Amadeo, especially, seemed a sort of 
 skeleton parody of humanity, beside whom, 
 the King, coarse and unrefined as he is in 
 appearance, looked almost distinguished. I 
 had gone early to our Consulate in Via Mag- 
 gio, in order to secure an uncontested place at 
 one of its two windows, and amuse myself 
 with watching the crowd, a little before the 
 arrival of the royal cortege. 
 
 The sight that met my eyes as I turned 
 from the Idruaiola de^ Pitti into the street, 
 was enlivening and animating to the last 
 degree, though the decorations that excited 
 my admiration were not perhaps in the best 
 possible taste, " NW?uportey The fagades of 
 
 127 
 
the houses were in a perfedl glory of green, 
 white and red, and the street below was liter- 
 ally dark with the shade of innumerable flags 
 that were suspended on cords from one side of 
 it to the other. It looked for all the world as 
 if there had been a grand national wash, and 
 all the banners of the country had been hung 
 out in Via Maggio to dry. It was enchant- 
 ing — the flowers, the flags, the crowd, the 
 movement, more than all the view of our own 
 dear, old " Stars and Stripes," waving proud- 
 est among them all, roused in me such a fer- 
 ment of patriotism, both foreign and domestic, 
 that I could scarcel}'' await the King's coming 
 to exhale it. My pocket-handkerchief com- 
 menced instindlively waving, evvivas were 
 bursting from my lips, and blessings from my 
 heart, when the attitude of the people col- 
 lected in the street, all at once threw a wet 
 blanket upon my enthusiasm. It was really 
 too bad ; why couldn't they, Italians, be sym- 
 pathizing, and gushing, when I, an American, 
 who had no particular call to be excited, was 
 overflowing with emotion. I knew as well as 
 
 128 
 
tliey did that Vi6lor Emmanuel didn't deserve 
 any homage, but how few heroes ever do, and 
 many a heart would rest forever motionless 
 and dumb, if desert only could stir it into life, 
 so I still said " Evviva it Re^^'' and would not 
 allow my heart to cool down to the popular 
 level. I waved my handkerchief and flung a 
 little bouquet at the King as he passed, and 
 though he paid no particular attention to 
 either of these manifestations, and seemed 
 supremely indifferent at the same time, to the 
 evidences of his people's dissatisfaction, my 
 conscience at least was clear, and I had noth- 
 ing to reproach myself with, if dislike on one 
 side and indifference on the other marked 
 Vidlor Emmanuel's reception in Florence 
 where, to my thinking, Leopold II still 
 reigns supreme. In the evening there was 
 an illumination, finer than anything that has 
 been seen here for years. That, in spite of 
 the rain, crowds flocked to see. Oh, how 
 beautiful it was ! The outlines of the prin- 
 cipal edifices in this lovely mediseval city, the 
 glorious Duomo, the graceful Campanile, the 
 
 129 
 
curious course of the Arno, seemed garlanded 
 with incandescent jewels, tracing their perfe(5l 
 forms in lines of fire, and a blaze of light from 
 almost every house in the city, transformed 
 its stone and marble palaces into habitations 
 fit for the genii of Oriental tradition. But I 
 will not attempt to describe it, for no words 
 can ever do it justice or convey an idea of its 
 marvelous effe6l. Whether the King saw it 
 or not I do not know, but think it more prob- 
 able that he was in bed and asleep, dreaming 
 perhaps, of Rosina, his morganatic bride. 
 
 Speaking of kings, princes and the like, I 
 read in this morning's paper an explanation 
 of the report, relative to the Prince of Wales' 
 death, which resulted from a mistake in a tel- 
 egram announcing that " the Prince's skill in 
 riding was greatly admired," which in French- 
 ified English was read, " the Prince is kill^^'' 
 and led to the mistake that sent for a day and 
 a half all the Florentine English into mourn- 
 ing. A report of less importance, but greater 
 authenticity, that has already been alluded to 
 in some of the English papers, was confirmed 
 
 130 
 
to me to-day by official authority, which is, 
 the presence in Italy of Surratt, one of the 
 conspirators of Lincoln's assassination^ who 
 has been in the country for several months 
 under the name of Watson, dressed in the 
 uniform of a papal Zouave. His presence in 
 Naples was recently telegraphed to our Con- 
 sul in that cit}^ from our IVIinister at Rome, 
 with the order to arrest him if possible, which 
 unfortunately was impossible, as it was discov- 
 ered that he had already left for Alexandria 
 in a steamer that sailed the evening before, 
 Saturday, November 17th, and was to touch 
 at Malta, on which our Neapolitan Consul 
 telegraphed to his brother official at Malta, 
 informing him of the fa6l and reiterating the 
 order for his arrest. It has since been dis- 
 covered that Surratt came to Naples as long 
 ago as the 8th of November, without a pass- 
 port, but stating that he was an Englishman 
 escaped from a Roman regiment. He pro- 
 fessed to be without money, and at his own 
 request was lodged in prison, when his con- 
 dudl exciting suspicion, a sort of surveillance 
 
 131 
 
was kept over him and attempts were made 
 to discover who and what he was. To the 
 questions asked him from time to time, he 
 replied that he was a Canadian, that he had 
 been living in Rome nearly a year, when his 
 resources becoming exhausted, he had enlisted 
 in the papal Zouaves, and having been put 
 into prison for insubordination, had escaped 
 from a window and injured his back and arm 
 in so doing. He remained in the Naples 
 prison three or four days, when apparently 
 tired of the confinement, he requested to be 
 taken to the British Consulate, and went there 
 accompanied by a policeman, when he com- 
 plained of the treatment he had received, and 
 claimed his release on the ground of being a 
 British subject. In the meantime the police 
 had found twelve sciidi in his possession, and 
 when asked why, having money, he wished to 
 go to prison, he replied that he wanted to save 
 it. His story and appearance, for it is said 
 that he is very good-looking, and, above all, 
 his quality of British subjedl, immediately 
 enlisted the sympathies of the English at 
 
 133 
 
Naples, and money was raised to pay his pas- 
 sage to Alexandria, to wHich was added a 
 small sum to provide for his most pressing 
 wants on his arrival there. He left for that 
 place in the steamer of Saturday, the 17th, 
 and as in case of the telegram reaching Malta 
 too late for his arrest there, a similar despatch 
 was to be transmitted to Alexandria, it is 
 probable that ere this, the miserable creature 
 has been arrested. 
 
 Florence, December 10, 1866. 
 
 To a vain, pretty woman, a walk through 
 the streets of Florence must be a very agree- 
 able event. A triumphant monarch's progress 
 is hardly more prolific of homage, and if, by 
 any almost impossible combination of circum- 
 stances, such an one had hitherto been uncon- 
 scious of the power and quality of her charms, 
 a half hour's promenade on the Lung' Arno^ 
 or through any of the other principal thor- 
 oughfares of Florence, would most pleasantly 
 dispel her ignorance. The Florentines, as 
 
 133 
 
every one knows, are a demonstrative people, 
 but whether the men are really more sensible 
 here than elsewhere to the attractions of 
 beauty, or only more independent, I can't pre- 
 tend to say. Certain it is, that they express 
 their admiration with a freedom unknown in 
 other parts of the earth, from which its obje<5l 
 can onl}^ escape, by a speedy return to the 
 family nest. Of course this out-spoken admi- 
 ration is excessively disagreeable to its vic- 
 tims — indeed, they say it is — and yet, consid- 
 ering the indignation it excites, it is surprising 
 to observe how patiently it is borne. I have 
 known indignant beauties come home furious 
 from a morning stroll, who declared that they 
 would shut themselves up forever, stay at 
 home like cloistered nuns all their lives, 
 rather than expose themselves to such imper- 
 tinence, whom the next fair day saw parading 
 the same streets, apparently quite resigned to 
 endure its repetition. One young girl in par- 
 ticular I remember, whose rage at being told 
 on one of these occasions that she was a 
 " belV angelo^^^ was something quite ludicrous. 
 
 134 
 
*' BeW angelo /" she exclaimed, " liow dare 
 he — the wretch ! Oh, if I were only a man ! 
 But, girl as I am, he shall have a taste of my 
 parasol if I ever meet him again !" In short 
 the belV angelo' s wings were so fiercel}^ ruffled, 
 that I seriously believed she would never 
 spread them again in a Florentine sky, and 
 was never more surprised in my life than to 
 meet her only two days later, unaccompanied 
 by pater-familias, with a parasol indeed, which 
 did its duty faithfully in keeping off the sun 
 in the firmament, but had never interposed, 
 as far as I could learn, between her and any 
 son of man. She was a modest girl, too, but 
 the most modest of the sex loves admiration, 
 and will not reject it, though picked up in the 
 streets, a fa6l of which American husbands 
 seem strangely unconscious, when they send 
 their young and pretty wives without pro- 
 te6lion, to this land of gallantry and intrigue, 
 where love-making is the principal manufac- 
 ture of the country, and one in which most 
 of its children are accomplished proficients — 
 an imprudence of which I am reminded by 
 
 135 
 
the well known fadl, that several of the matri- 
 monial disasters that have befallen two or 
 three of our confiding stay-at-home country- 
 men of late, have had their origin in these 
 chance street encounters. But, again, apropos 
 to them, I must not forget to add that these 
 running comments are not always confined to 
 beauty, or invariably of a flattering descrip- 
 tion ; things not particularly pleasant are oft- 
 times heard by the greedy vain ones, and, 
 above all things, an eccentric or unusual 
 toilette is sure to excite remarks more promo- 
 tive of good taste than good temper, for a 
 woman any day would rather have her eyes 
 condemned than her bonnet, and beauty, 
 itself, if ill-dressed, cannot escape sarcastic 
 criticism. I never shall forget seeing once 
 upon a time a lovely young girl, actually cry- 
 ing with shame and vexation at the observa- 
 tions provoked by a Nizzarda hat (a Nice hat) 
 that the poor thing wore for the first time ; 
 " Oh, my eye !" cried one of the tormentors, 
 " look at that soup plate." " 'Tis not a soup 
 plate," said his companion, " it's only a famous 
 
 136 
 
big musliroom that the girl has got on." One 
 gamin told her that she looked like a Chinese. 
 Another considerately advised her " not to 
 trouble herself to buy a parasol ;" and though 
 these criticisms did not proceed from patrician 
 lips, they were none the less provoking, and 
 I didn't wonder at the maiden's tears. 
 
 But a truce to Italians and their impertinent 
 and naughty ways. I went last evening to Mrs. 
 Van Nest's weekly reception, where a greater 
 number than usual of our compatriots were 
 assembled, for the drawing-room was already 
 overflowing into the study, as I entered early 
 in the evening. How merry every one seemed. 
 All the world was laughing, talking, and chat- 
 tering together, in a manner so unusually 
 animated and sprightly, that I could only 
 account for it, by remembering that joyous, 
 merry Christmas was at hand, reason enough 
 indeed for gayety ! The blessed anniversary 
 is this year to be celebrated with unusual 
 pomp and circumstance in our church. In 
 facft, during Mr. H — 's reign, it was never 
 celebrated at all, and the day passed, as to 
 
 137 
 
church, commemoration, wholly unnoticed. 
 Now we are to have a Christmas-tree for the 
 children, and as the young scions of native 
 growth are not particularly numerous, the 
 children connected with the Vaudoise church 
 are to be invited to share its delights. The la- 
 dies of our church are consequently in a delight- 
 ful state of benevolent adlivity, and no wonder 
 that the chatter was gayer and the laugh 
 louder than usual in Mrs. Van Nest's pleas- 
 ant drawing-room. I was introduced in the 
 course of the evening to a certain grave — no — 
 he was not grave, but how like a burr certain 
 epithets do stick to certain conditions and call- 
 ings, — but to a decidedly gay Greek professor, 
 I am happy to say, with whom I had such a 
 delightful conversation, and who talked as 
 well as if he had never seen the inside of a 
 university. Professor M — , of Chicago. How 
 we did talk ! Nothing was too high or too 
 low for our tongues ; we wandered among the 
 stars, not disdainful of the pebbles at our feet. 
 Naturally enough, we did homage to the 
 mighty dead, whose tombs are in our midst, 
 
 138 
 
that he had that morning visited — Michael- 
 Angelo, Dante, Galileo — a galaxy of glory — 
 and he told me that the four hours spent in 
 Santa Croce seemed hardly one, so absorbed 
 was he in his homage to genius and the remi- 
 niscences it inspired — an oblivion I certainly 
 could not have shared this cold weather, and 
 that in his case was nourished undoubtedly 
 by a warm overcoat and thick soled boots. 
 Thus discoursing of one thing and another, 
 from the pure intelle6lual empyrean, we grad- 
 ually and safely descended to the regions of the 
 tea-table, and I defied him to guess what Mrs. 
 Van Nest had in store for us. He tried once. 
 *'No." Again. " Oh dear, no, how can you 
 be so dull?" A third time. "No, no, no!" 
 Farther than ever from the mark, like a true 
 philosopher and Greek professor that he was, 
 for had the secret been hidden in the clouds, 
 or buried in the bowels of the earth, he would 
 soon have brought it to light. So, at last, 
 tired of vainly guessing, he gave it up and I 
 turned to his wife, — ^just the wife, by the way, 
 for a Greek professor — so gay, sunshiny and 
 
 139 
 
merry, — and she on the instant, divined the 
 enigma! "Doughnuts!" she cried trium- 
 phantly, and doughnuts it was. But even she 
 did not conjedlure all the delicious truth, and 
 that " riz " doughnuts were in store for our 
 patrician palates ! — The " riz " doughnut 
 being to the ordinary articles of the same 
 name, what the spiritual is to the carnal, a sort 
 of glorified edible, more properly qualified per- 
 haps as "risen doughnuts," what we might 
 suppose a doughnut in short to be after its 
 resurredlion. 
 
 Since I wrote you last, the society for the 
 encouragement of the fine arts has opened its 
 halls to the public and the exhibition has a 
 special interest this year, as being a rendez- 
 vous for the display of the works that are to 
 be sent to the Universal Exposition at Paris. 
 I had only time the morning I visited it, to 
 run through the halls, but it struck me that 
 the paintings especially, were superior to 
 those of the two preceding years, that a visi- 
 ble progress had been made, doubtless due to 
 the noble and inspiring influences of patriotism 
 
 140 
 
since the transfer of the capital to Florence ; 
 that conventionalism and mannerism were 
 yielding to a more conscientious study of 
 nature. Here and there a marked individ- 
 uality was revealed, and particularly was it 
 visible in a pi6lure representing the abdu6lion 
 of a young girl, Bianca Capello, by Pietro 
 Buonaventuri, at the moment of her depar- 
 ture from the paternal mansion. Her face is 
 turned to the home of her childhood, while 
 resting tenderly and confidingly upon her 
 lover's shoulder, and nothing can be more 
 pathetically touching than the struggle 
 between passionate first-love and filial duty. 
 Pity it is that a knowledge of the real fadls of 
 the case should destroy the charm, and that 
 history, pitiless and unromantic, has destroyed 
 forever all illusion with regard to this famous 
 heroine of the chisel and brush. There is 
 also at the exhibition a fine life-size study of 
 Garibaldi, seated and apparently in a reverie. 
 What are his dreams ? Italy doubtless is in 
 his thoughts, but only the gods can fathom 
 the pure depths of a hero's heart. 
 
 141 
 
J 
 
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