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

[89] are persons of truly good sense, the instincts of aristocracy could not be quite suppressed. There is not a drop of its blood in Europe that does not tingle at the name of a representative government. The Grand Duke having desired me to let him know when I should be here again, I desired the French Minister to give notice to the Master of Ceremonies, . . . and I suppose he knew from the Saxons that I was to visit them to-day. While, therefore, we were quietly talking, a Court messenger came in, and announced that the Grand Duke would receive me immediately if I would come to Petraia. another little villa a quarter of a mile off. . . . . . The annunciation produced quite a stir, for it made it necessary for the Saxon princes to dismiss us at once . . . . However, there had been some talk of our seeing a prospect, and the Princess Amelia hurried us up stairs— through servants' halls, antechambers, and once through a room where women were ironing clothes—to a saloon, where we could see the city, the valley of the Arno, and a long stretch of the river and of the richest country in the world. But we could stop only an instant to enjoy it . . . We drove up the hill to Petraia, which we found an old building that had belonged to the Medici, modernized and fitted up as for a common family. Nothing announced the presence of the Prince but the guards. A livery servant showed me up stairs to the antechamber, and while he went to make known to the Grand Duke that I was there, I looked into a little ancient chapel, with some pretty good frescos in it, and a very good copy of the Madonna della Impannata . . . . . The Grand Duke received me in a little room which he uses as a cabinet de travail, with bare walls, no carpet, and only a few chairs, and a table with papers and portfolios on it, for the whole of its furniture. . . . . After the first formal compliments were over, I spoke of the Maremme. It is a favorite subject with him, for he has spent immense sums of money to rescue them from the malaria, and do, on that part of the coast, what Peter Leopold did for the now beautiful Val di Chiana. He talked well about it, but it remains still doubtful whether his treasure and labors have not been thrown away. Taking up Dr. Baird's French ‘History of American Temperance Societies,’ he made many inquiries about them; said there was very little intemperance in Tuscany; spoke of spirituous liquor as an unnatural, artificial, noxious beverage, but treated wine, like a true Italian, as a gift of God, and one of the comforts and consolations of life, as healthy, and as nourishing. Coming accidentally upon the subject of the Medici, he spoke with great interest and admiration of Lorenzo; said