protection. Severn replied that without my consent
he could do nothing for him; he had come with an American passport
and must abide by it, unless I gave him up. He was wilted, in such
a fright as I never saw a man in before or since, and he had good
reason, for the penalty of coming to Rome with a false passport was
imprisonment in St. Angelo. Meanwhile Miss Cushman had gone into
heroics over the insult I was offering so distinguished a man as to
suspect his identity, and all her clique were united in abusing me;
but on Monday the impostor slipped out of Rome by the connivance of
Severn, the police, and myself, after I had attached the amount of the
subscriptions for his class, which were still lying at the bankers',
and pledged him to abstain in future from any similar impersonation.
As Miss Cushman had stood sponsor for him, she having been a pupil of
the real Rarey, his confession was a mortification which she
visited on my head, but as it disarmed her I was tranquil over the
consequences.

I was continually at war with the Confederate Americans, galled to
extreme bitterness by the right I had of compelling them to take the
oath of allegiance before renewing their passports. Amongst them was a
very beautiful woman, a Virginian, and the wife of a commodore in the
navy of the United States of America, then on service in the Potomac.
She refused to take the oath, and insulted me in the grossest manner
and in public, as an insulter of ladies, _etc., etc_. But all the
influence she could bring to bear could not get her passport from the
police without my visa; and at last, despairing of escape from Rome,
she came to make her peace, meeting me at the bank, but unwilling to
accept the degradation of coming to the consulate. "You are not going
to make me come to your dirty little consulate, are you?" she said; to
which I replied, "Oh, no; my secretary shall administer the oath to
you in your bedroom, if you choose;" but, in the end, she had to take
the oath and sign it, as did many of her compatriots. Amongst the
Southerners who came under my administration was the wife of General
Winfield Scott, commander-in-chief of our army, who actually died
under my care, without a friend or relative near her.

This social warfare, the consequence of my official position, had the
effect of giving me occupation and excitement, and I was sustained
cordially by the loyal Americans in Rome, so that the position, though
unremunerative, w