To his Mother.
Rome, Hôtel d’Angleterre:[11] April 18, 1849.
I am at Rome; I stayed two days at Paris, where I called on your American friends the Murats, and saw Madame and her sister. She is now Mme. la Princesse, and her daughter Mdlle. la Princesse.
There is no immediate expectation of any change in the Government here; the only difficulty is to get money. They are going to divide the lands of the Church in small farms among the peasants; but payment will not be made for some time for these allotments.
St. Peter’s disappoints me; the stone of which it is made is a poor plastery material; and, indeed, Rome in general might be called a rubbishy place; the Roman antiquities in general seem to me only interesting as antiquities, and not for any beauty. The Arch of Titus is, I could almost say, the only one really beautiful relic I have yet seen. I have seen two beautiful views since I came, one from San Pietro in Montorio, the other from the Lateran Church, over the Campagna. The weather has not been very brilliant.
April 21.
I have seen the Vatican gallery and Sistine Chapel. To-day being the natal day of Rome, was to have been a great feast, with illumination of the Colosseum, &c., but it is impossible for the weather.
I see the ‘Times’ tells very odd stories of Rome. People here tell you that it has been bought by Austria. At any rate the story of the proposed sale of the Belvidere Apollo to the Americans is as simply a joke, I am told, as another story, that the Pantheon was sold to the English for a Protestant chapel.
To F. T. Palgrave, Esq.
Rome: April 23, 1849.