George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

Let me add that I visited the Duchess de Blacas, and was much touched with her situation and appearance,—a charming person, the resources of whose character seem to be brought out by the great calamity of her husband's illness. Pray offer my homage to the Duchess de Rauzan, and tell her how much I was gratified by my little visit to her daughter, and how sincerely I sympathized with the misfortune that brought her to Rome. . . . .

The most spirituel of the persons I knew was the Duc de Sermoneta, who would be distinguished anywhere for his taste, knowledge, acuteness, and wit. But others were not wanting.

Cardinal Antonelli, whom I visited at the Vatican, and who was to be found in all societies, struck me as an accomplished person, with winning manners, but with much more the air of the world than that of the church. He was always agreeable to me, and I think agreeable to nearly everybody in common intercourse. . . . . He is the whole government. The Pope occupies himself very sincerely and earnestly with the spiritual condition of the church. Cardinal Antonelli does all the rest. . . .

It is difficult, however, to see how the Roman government can get on at all, without a man of vigor and ability, like Cardinal Antonelli, at its head. Its finances are much embarrassed, and yet no jot of its outlay can be spared, for its employes are often unpaid, and its inevitable expenses are increasing, though the fact is, as much as possible, covered up and concealed. The French troops are a grievous burden and dishonor, but no reasonable person would ask to have them taken away, so important are they to the maintenance of order. The whole government, therefore, is carried on in the boldest, firmest manner, as if everything were safe, sure, and easy, and nothing else, it seems to me, could permit it to be carried on at all. The question is, how long such a state of things can last. Under ordinary circumstances, it could hardly have lasted as long as it has already. But so much of Europe is in a similar condition,—if not in one so bad,—there is such a general moral decay, demanding everywhere military repression and great vigor, that the common fate seems to be a common bond, holding all together, lest the whole should break up in one and the same convulsion. For what is the condition of Spain, or even Austria,—both really bankrupt and dishonored,—and how stands your own France, with its vast resources and yet unspent energies, leaning on the most extravagant financial projects that have been imagined since the days of Law? Indeed, it seems to me that the financial question is the great question next to be solved, and that its solution