They enjoyed the beauty of Lake Geneva, and were charmed by the attractions of "Ferney," Voltaire's home on Leman's shore, and enjoyed
the solemn gorge-valley of the Rhone, and through the Simplon passed into fair Italy.
As they "drew near a small chapel in a rock Casper flourished his whip, calling out the word
'Italia!' I pulled off my hat in reverence," wrote the author. Down the steep mountains, over bridged torrents, past the hill-towns and valley-lands, they came to the City of the Lily,—fair Florence of the Arno. "As early as 1829," Cooper thought, "the unification of Italy was irresistible."
In Florence a home was soon found in the Palazzo Ricasoli, Via del Cocomero. Lofty of ceiling—twenty feet—was their apartment, in which they enjoyed "two noble bed-rooms, several smaller ones, a large drawing-room, dining-room, baths, a small court and garden within the iron gates, and all for the modest sum of sixty dollars per month." The oil burned in