the air is growing almost too fresh. I only hope we shall be able
(for the cold) to keep our intention of staying here till the end of
October, I have enjoyed it so entirely, and shall be so sorry to break
off this happy silence into the Austrian drums at poor Florence. And
then we want to see the vintage. Some grapes are ripe already, but
it is not vintage time. We have every kind of good fruit, great
water-melons, which with both arms I can scarcely carry, at twopence
halfpenny each, and figs and peaches cheap in proportion. And the
place agrees with Baby, and has done good to my husband's spirits,
though the only 'amusement' or distraction he has is looking at the
mountains and climbing among the woods with me. Yes, we have been
reading some French romances, 'Monte Cristo,' for instance, I for
the second time--but I have liked it, to read it with him. That Dumas
certainly has power; and to think of the scramble there was for his
brains a year or two ago in Paris! For a man to write so much and
so well together is a miracle. Do you mean that they have left off
writing--those French writers--or that they have tired you out with
writing that looks faint beside the rush of facts, as the range of
French politics show those? Has not Eugene Sue been illustrating
the passions? Somebody told me so. Do _you_ tell me how you like
the French President, and whether he will ever, in your mind, sit on
Napoleon's throne. It seems to me that he has given proof, as far
as the evidence goes, of prudence, integrity, and conscientious
patriotism; the situation is difficult, and he fills it honorably. The
Rome business has been miserably managed; this is the great blot on
the character of his government. But I, for my own part (my husband is
not so minded), do consider that the French motive has been good, the
intention pure, the occupation of Rome by the Austrians being imminent
and the French intervention the only means (with the exception of a
European war) of saving Rome from the hoof of the Absolutists. At the
same time if Pius IX. is the obstinate idiot he seems to be, good and
tenderhearted man as he surely is, and if the old abuses are to be
restored, why Austria might as well have done her own dirty work
and saved French hands from the disgrace of it. It makes us two very
angry. Robert especially is furious. We are not within reach of the
book you speak of, 'Portraits des Orateurs Francais' oh, we might
nearly as well live on a de