the
Church's right of sanctuary, and upholds the decree forbidding his
subjects to study at the University of Pavia, where, as you know, the
natural sciences are professed by the ablest scholars of Italy. He
allows no public duties to interfere with his private devotions, and
whatever the urgency of affairs, gives no audience to his ministers on
holydays; and a Cardinal a latere recently passing through the duchy on
his return to Rome was not received at the Duke's table because he
chanced to arrive on a Friday.

"His Highness's fears for Prince Ferrante's health have drawn a swarm of
quacks to Pianura, and the influence of the Church is sometimes
counteracted by that of the physicians with whom the Duke surrounds
himself. The latest of these, the famous Count Heiligenstern, who is
said to have performed some remarkable cures by means of the electrical
fluid and of animal magnetism, has gained such an ascendancy over the
Duke that some suspect him of being an agent of the Austrian court,
while others declare that he is a Jesuit en robe courte. But just at
present the people scent a Jesuit under every habit, and it is even
rumoured that the Belverde is secretly affiliated to a female branch of
the Society. With such a sovereign and such ministers, your excellency
need not be told how the state is governed. Trescorre, heaven save the
mark! represents the liberal party; but his liberalism is like the
generosity of the unarmed traveller who throws his purse to a foot-pad;
and Father Ignazio is at hand to see that the people are not bettered at
the expense of the Church.

"As to the Duke, having no settled policy, and being governed only
through his fears, he leans first to one influence and then to another;
but since the suppression of the Jesuits nothing can induce him to
attack any ecclesiastical privileges. The diocese of Pianura holds a
fief known as the Caccia del Vescovo, long noted as the most lawless
district of the duchy. Before the death of the late Pope, Trescorre had
prevailed on the Duke to annex it to the principality; but the dreadful
fate of Ganganelli has checked bolder sovereigns than his Highness in
their attempts on the immunities of the Church, and one of the fairest
regions of our unhappy state remains a barren waste, the lair of outlaws
and assassins, and a menace to the surrounding country. His Highness is
not incapable of generous impulses and his occasional acts of humanity
might endear him to hi