es of the Church where
one could find lodgings. With an American lady friend staying with us,
we planned to make an excursion by boat to the Punta d'Astura, where
are the ruins of a villa of Cicero; but when half way there we were
driven back by a passing shower. On the same day a party of Roman
sportsmen, out quail shooting, were "held up" in the ruins and obliged
to pay a ransom of five thousand scudi. The brigands of the kingdom
of Naples were constantly given refuge and sustenance on our side
the frontier, and on a visit to Olevano, in the Sabine hills, I was
witness of a band of over two hundred taking refuge from the Italian
troops in the Papal territory, and being furnished with provisions and
refreshments as at a festa. Artists out sketching were never molested,
not because the Papal influence protected us, but because the brigands
knew their poverty, and had a tinge of sympathy with the arts.

The ecclesiastical authorities were so severe on heresy that a friend
of mine, who had married an English lady who remained a Protestant,
was brought before the Inquisition (the "Holy Office") and put under
the severest pressure to compel his wife to abstain from attending
the English church outside the Porta del Popolo. He escaped ulterior
consequences only by appealing to the French authorities, he being a
surgeon in the service of the French garrison. For common morality
there was little care. The sexual relations were flagrantly loose,
and the scandal even of some of the great dignitaries was widespread.
Antonelli's amours were the subject of common gossip, and most of
the parish priests were in undisguised marital relations with their
housekeepers; nor was this considered as at all to their discredit by
the population at large. One of the leading Liberals, permitted to
remain in the city on account of the importance of his industry,
one of the great goldsmiths' works, told me that the Liberals never
permitted the priests to frequent their houses, as they invariably
conspired to corrupt the newly married women, unmarried girls being
unmolested. In the lower circles of the bourgeoisie it was a matter of
common knowledge that the husbands openly made a traffic of the virtue
of their wives; and in my personal acquaintance amongst the artists,
I knew of a number of cases in which the artist had the wife as a
mistress for a fixed compensation to the husband.

For this kind of immorality the police had no eyes, and, admitt