cioli is married. The Countess
I have seen several times; she still looks young, and retains the
charms which by the contemporaries of Byron she is reputed to have
had; they never were of a very high order; her best expression is that
of a good heart. I always supposed that Byron, weary and sick of the
world such as he had known it, became attached to her for her good
disposition, and sincere, warm tenderness for him; the sight of her,
and the testimony of a near relative, confirmed this impression. This
friend of hers added, that she had tried very hard to remain devoted
to the memory of Byron, but was quite unequal to the part, being one
of those affectionate natures that must have some one near with whom
to be occupied; and now, it seems, she has resigned herself publicly
to abandon her romance. However, I fancy the manes of Byron remain
undisturbed.

We all know the worthless character of Maria Louisa, the indifference
she showed to a husband who, if he was not her own choice, yet would
have been endeared to almost any woman, as one fallen from an immense
height into immense misfortune, and as the father of her child. No
voice from her penetrated to cheer his exile: the unhappiness
of Josephine was well avenged. And that child, the poor Duke of
Reichstadt, of a character so interesting, and with obvious elements
of greatness, withering beneath the mean, cold influence of his
grandfather,--what did Maria Louisa do for him,--she, appointed by
Nature to be his inspiring genius, his protecting angel? I felt for
her a most sad and profound contempt last summer, as I passed through
her oppressed dominion, a little sphere, in which, if she could not
save it from the usual effects of the Austrian rule, she might have
done so much private, womanly good,--might have been a genial heart
to warm it,--and where she had let so much ill be done. A journal
announces her death in these words: "The Archduchess is dead; a woman
who _might_ have occupied one of the noblest positions in the history
of the age";--and there makes expressive pause.

Parma, passing from bad to worse, falls into the hands of the Duke of
Modena; and the people and magistracy have made an address to their
new ruler. The address has received many thousand signatures, and
seems quite sincere, except in the assumption of good-will in the Duke
of Modena; and this is merely an insincerity of etiquette.

LETTER XXI.

THE POPE'S RECEPTION OF THE NEW OFFICE