sat on the
point from whence James II. saw the battle of La Hogue, and admired the
courage of his English rebels.

Ampere has spent much of his life in Rome, and is engaged on a work in
which its history is to be illustrated by its monuments.

We talked of the Roman people.

'Nothing,' said Ampere, 'can be more degraded than the higher classes.
With the exception of Antonelli, who is charming, full of knowledge,
intelligence, and grace, and of the Duke of Sermoneta, who is almost
equally distinguished, there is scarcely a noble of my acquaintance who
has any merits, moral or intellectual.

'They are surrounded by the finest ancient and modern art, and care
nothing for it. The eminent men of every country visit Rome--the Romans
avoid them for they have nothing to talk to them about.

'Politics are of course unsafe, literature they have none. They never
read. A cardinal told me something which I doubted, and I asked him where
he had found it. "In certi libri," he answered.

'Another, who has a fine old library, begged me to use it. "You will do
the room good," he said. "No one has been there for years." Even scandal
and gossip must be avoided under an Ecclesiastical Government.

'They never ride, they never shoot, they never visit their estates, they
give no parties; if it were not for the theatre and for their lawsuits
they would sink into vegetable life.'

'Sermoneta,' I said, 'told me that many of his lawsuits were hereditary,
and would probably descend to his son.'

'If Sermoneta,' said Ampere, 'with his positive intelligence and his
comparative vigour, cannot get through them, what is to be expected from
others? They have, however, one merit, one point of contact with the rest
of the world--their hatred of their Government. They seem to perceive,
not clearly, for they perceive nothing clearly, but they dimly see, that
the want of liberty is a still greater misfortune to the higher classes
than to the lower.

'But the people are a fine race. Well led they will make excellent
soldiers. They have the cruelty of their ancestors, perhaps I ought to
say of their predecessors, but they have also their courage.'

'They showed,' said Beaumont, 'courage in the defence of Rome, but
courage behind walls is the commonest of all courages. No training could
make the Spaniards stand against us in the open field, but they were
heroes in Saragossa. The caprices of courage and cowardice are
innumerable. The French have no