In my way here I saw Genoa again, and visited the Doria Palace, which had just been quitted by the victorious Piedmontese soldiery, who had not, I am glad to say, damaged the frescoes on the ceilings, as far as I saw (the battle of the Titans, which I suppose is the finest, was quite uninjured), but in other respects had played all sorts of furious and beastly pranks. The balcony with the fresco figures of Andrea Doria and his family is a good deal damaged, one or two cannon-balls have passed through, and the soldiers have scratched it with their bayonets. The furniture is all destroyed; it belonged, they say, to the Prince of Carignano, the King’s uncle or cousin, who had latterly taken the palace: gilded cupboards and tables, japanned cabinets and chess-boards, porcelain vases and French clocks, mingled their precious fragments on the floors with relics of bread and other deposits, among which empty bottles should be mentioned; the Prince appears to have had a fine assortment of Madeira. No other damage is done in Genoa.
About 150 refugees came off with us in the French steamer; the government paid for them as far as Leghorn, but at Leghorn they wouldn’t have them, so they came on to Civita Vecchia, and I see several of them about in the streets; they are incorporated with the other forces.
Yesterday was the most lively day I have had here. In the morning a review in the Piazza before St. Peter’s, where Avezzana, the Genoese commander, who is also an American citizen, and is now Minister of War, reviewed about 10,000 men and twenty pieces of artillery. In the evening a grand illumination of the Campidoglio, Forum, &c., all the way to the Colosseum, which was the great scene. When I entered, it was mostly dark, and a great crowd filling it, a band somewhere above the entrance playing national hymns. At the end of the great hymn, of which I don’t know the name, while the people were clapping, viva-ing and encoring, light began to spread, and all at once the whole amphitheatre was lit up with—the trois couleurs! the basement red fire, the two next stories green, and the plain white of the common light at the top. Very queer, you will say; but it was really fine, and I should think the Colosseum never looked better than it did, if not then at least afterwards, when the plain light was left, and the area got cleared. The same thing was done again for the outside.
In the afternoon, I had paid my visit to Mazzini; a French envoy or agent was with him, and I had to acknowledge the triumviral dignity by waiting almost an hour in the ante-chamber. However, on the envoy’s retiring, he discoursed with me for half an hour. He is a less fanatical fixed-idea sort of man than I had expected; he appeared shifty, and practical enough. He seemed in excellent spirits, and generally confident and at ease. He asked me if I had seen anything of the pillaging, which the English papers were acquainted with; he said that any of the English residents would bear witness to the perfect tranquillity, even greater than before, which prevailed in the city (and certainly I see nothing to the contrary).
The ‘Times,’ he said, must be dishonest, for the things it spoke of as facts were simply not facts! émeutes where émeutes had never been thought of; the only outbreak had been at Ascoli, near the Neapolitan frontier, where a sort of brigandage had been headed by two or three priests, but easily suppressed. In Rome there were plots going on amongst some of the nobles and priests, but they were well known to the government. The temper of the people and the Assembly alike was clearly against the restoration of the temporal power; on that point he believed the Right would go heartily with the Left in the Assembly, and the people be unanimous. The object at present was rather to repress violence against the priest-party, or Neri, to which some sections of the populace were inclined; but this the government was careful to do. The feeling everywhere is, he says, simply political or national. Communism and Socialism are things undreamt of. Social changes are not needed; there are no manufacturing masses, and in the lands there is a métayer system. You have heard perhaps that they are going to divide church lands amongst peasants; this is true, but only of a portion, a surplus he called it, after provision is made for the carrying on of the services of each establishment. They have got about 22,000 troops, and mean to have 50,000, so as to be able to take the field, at any rate not in mere desperation. But he expects foreign intervention in the end, and of course thinks it likely enough that the Romana Reppublica will fall. Still he is convinced that the separation of the temporal and spiritual power is a thing to be, and that to restore the Pope as before will merely breed perpetual disquiet, conspiracies, assassinations, &c.; and he thinks it possible the Great Powers may perceive this in time. The French envoy had asked him if he would apply to France for protection; he said, No, but that if France or any other power offered protection, they would welcome it.
So much for Mazzini. Meantime, Rome is very peaceable to all appearance, rather cold, however, and very rainy: the illumination, which you should be told was in honour of the Palilia, was put off one day in consequence. I do not observe much enthusiasm for the Romana Reppublica: but neither do I hear as much complaint as might be expected from the shop folk and foreigners’ jackals. The religious customs seem to thrive still; they kissed away yesterday at St. Peter’s toe as fast as they could have done in its best days. Money, however, is scarce; one pays 30 per cent. for silver, and Mazzini acknowledged that the financial crisis was a great difficulty; but, as he said, it was unavoidable in revolutions. I get on but poorly in lionising, but have at last to-day seen the Sibyls. How much of this is restoration? how much is really Raphael? Michael Angelo’s Moses has ‘met my views’ as much as anything I have seen. Are the two figures beside it also by M. Angelo? And tell me what is M. Angelo’s design for St. Peter’s exactly? do the huge inside pilasters belong to him? I think it utterly lamentable and destructive that his plan was not carried out.
Tell Blackett he really must defend S. P. Q. R. in the ‘Globe.’ It is a most respectable republic; it really (ipse dixit) thought of getting a monarch, but couldn’t find one to suit.
To his Sister.
Rome: April 30, 1849.
Perhaps it will amuse you hereafter to have a letter commenced while guns are firing, and I suppose men falling dead and wounded. Such is the case on the other side the Tiber, while I peacefully write in my distant chamber with only the sound in my ears. I went up to the Pincian Hill and saw the smoke and heard the occasional big cannon, and the sharp succession of skirmishers’ volleys—bang, bang, bang—away beyond St. Peter’s. They say the French have settled down in three positions, and do not mean to enter till the Neapolitans arrive. And the affair of to-day is probably only with their advanced guard: the Romans profess to have carried off four cannon and fifty prisoners, but who knows?