ew enthusiasm the people agreed to celebrate the birthday of
Rome.

"A great dinner was given at the Baths of Titus, in the open air. The
company was on the grass in the area, the music at one end; boxes filled
with the handsome Roman women occupied the other sides. It was a new
thing here, this popular dinner, and the Romans greeted it in an
intoxication of hope and pleasure." Many political exiles, amnestied by
the Pope, were present. The Marquis d'Azeglio, painter, novelist, and
diplomatist, was the most noted of the speakers. From this renewed,
regenerated Rome Margaret went on to visit the northern cities of Italy,
passing through Perugia on her way to Florence. In this neighborhood she
explored the churches of Assisi, and the Etruscan tombs, then newly
discovered. She was enchanted with the beauty of Perugia, its noble
situation, and its treasures of early art. Florence interested her less
than "cities more purely Italian. The natural character is ironed out
here, and done up in a French pattern; yet there is no French vivacity,
nor Italian either." The Grand Duke was at the time in an impossible
position between his allegiance to the liberalizing Pope and his fealty
to despotic Austria. Tuscany accordingly was "glum as death" on the
outside, but glowing with dangerous fire within.

Margaret, before leaving Florence, wrote: "Florence is not like Rome. At
first I could not bear the change; yet, for the study of the fine arts,
it is a still richer place. Worlds of thought have risen in my mind;
some time you will have light from all."

Here she visited the studios of her countrymen, Horatio Greenough and
Hiram Powers, and, after a month's stay, went on to Bologna, where she
greatly appreciated the truly Italian physiognomy of the city, and
rejoiced in the record of its women artists and professors, nobly
recognized and upheld by their fellow-citizens.

Thence she went to Ravenna, prized for its curious remains, its Byronic
memories, and its famous Pineta, dear to students of Dante. After this
came a fortnight in Venice, which, like Angelo's Moses, surpassed her
utmost expectations: "There only I began to feel in its fulness Venetian
art. It can only be seen in its own atmosphere. Never had I the least
idea of what is to be seen at Venice."

The city was, in those days, a place of refuge for throneless royalty.
The Duchesse de Berri and her son had each a palace on the Grand Canal.
A queen of another sort, Tagli