May 2.
600 prisoners and 500 killed and wounded, they say. The French have certainly retired. But the Neapolitans are at hand.
To his Mother.
Rome: May 11, 1849.
The war would seem to you very small if you saw it; and except for the nuisance of all galleries being shut, I should be very well content. We are all safe and comfortable, with British flags hanging out of our windows; and Lord Napier, an attaché of the British Embassy at Naples, has been here, and is at present, I believe, at Palo, a port between this and Civita Vecchia, where H.M.S. ‘Bulldog’ is lying, and has arranged with Marshal Oudinot that his troops are to behave politely to us. Which troops came again yesterday within three miles, but have done nothing, and are said to be retiring. The Neapolitans, i.e. a detachment of 7,000 men near Palestrina, are stated to have got a severe licking from the corps of Garibaldi, about 5,000, the day before yesterday.
The only awkward thing that has happened in the city has been the killing of four or perhaps five priests by the mob, soon after the news of the advance of the Neapolitan army. Some say that one of them had fired out of a window and killed a soldier; others, that they were found making off to the Neapolitans. However, some, I don’t know the exact number, were killed in the street. Next day the government sent out a proclamation, and I have heard of no more outrages of this kind. Some plundering by the troops has given trouble, but they seem to be suppressing it.
Meantime the gates are all shut, and the streets strongly barricaded. The Pincian gardens, the great resort for walking, are closed and fortified, and between the Trinità dei Monti and Sta. Maria Maggiore, in one line of streets, you can count, I think, six barricades, besides smaller ones in the side streets.
My great affliction is that the Vatican is shut up. I got into the Sistine Chapel, however, and St. Peter’s of course is open. These and the Pantheon are my resources. Many of the churches are occupied as hospitals (the Frenchmen who were taken up wounded are very kindly and lovingly treated there, I am told; and they have sent back their prisoners without stipulation), and the Palaces are mostly shut up.
May 16.
Two French commissioners arrived here yesterday, and it is understood that France has more peaceful intentions than appeared before.