onaparte, who resides here), they would not have
resisted as they did: thus were they deceived! There is more in it
all than one sees at first; and clearly it was an affair got up to
make out a case against the Pope. Piedmontese money was circulated
there just before the revolution. N---- got it in change in the
shops.
"June 22.--P.S.--Our servant has been to town to-day; he brings me a
letter from the Perkins', and such news as is the general talk of
the _cafes_. Our poor friends in the Hotel de France (Locanda
Storti) suffered much. Deceived to the last, they had not even
been told of the actual arrival of the troops, and had just sat
quietly to dinner when the roar of the guns startled them. They
strove to go to another hotel, but alas! the gates of their inn
were fastened; they could not stir. The letter I got from them
said that the troops were _irritated on account of the firing from
the roof_. We knew beforehand how it would be _there_; and in fact
they did shoot an officer and two men while passing the door. It
was on this that the soldiers, infuriated, rushed and assailed the
house.... I hear every one blames the imprudence of these people.
They could not afford to be hostile; for the hotel, if you
remember, commands the street from the base up the hill. No
troops, therefore, could risk going up that hill with a hostile
house in that position ready to take them in the rear. The escape
of the poor Perkins' is a perfect miracle; they, I hear, lost
everything. The innkeeper, waiter and stableman, they say, were
killed in the fray. The number of deaths among the Swiss were 10,
and 33 of the Perugians. Several prisoners were made. I went up on
this same afternoon (June 22) with the two little boys to see the
colonel of the regiment. The town is wonderfully little injured,
only broken windows ... after a mob riot, with the exception of a
few houses in the suburbs, between the outer and inner gates. One
was burned by the accident of the falling of a bomb-shell. The
other was cannonaded as being a resort of the rebels. There is
great talk of how the heads of the revolution scampered off,
betraying thus the tools and dupes of their faction."
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Extract from another letter to David Ross of Bladensburgh:
"There is great
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