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    Feb. 4, I860.] The Leader and Saturday A...

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    Letter From Italy. (Spkcial.) K The L'Ai...

    Tlieri follows the foreign intelligence , under the heading ; of " Varieties : " Seventy pro-papal Works have , I read ., been published in France ; indeed , " the zeal in behalf of the pontifical cause gains day by day so rapidly in that country , that evervone- ^ s 0 some paper says—who can ; hold a peri in hand , uses it m favour of justice and religion upon the question of the papacy . So much for France . All I learn about Italy is that all writings jiv defence of the Pope are eagerly sought after and perused ,.. Spanish affairs meet with more attention . An English vessel has been captured , it freighted with fourteen thousand bayonets for Tangiers , and

    seems , the shipwrecked crew of a French brig were all but massacred by the Moors , or rather if they were not massacred it was from no want ot malignity on the part of the Infidels . I have next an account of the opening of the Victoria Bridge , Canada—interesting certainly , though I confess that some account when the setvers in tlie Piazza di Spagna are likely to be closed would possess more practical interest for myself . This paragraph is followed by two columns long of the American President ' s letter to Congress , which is not a subject on which , as a Roman citizen , I feel keenly ^ excited . The next heading is " The Morning ' s News . " This news is made extracts

    up of small short extracts from , or rather paragraphs aDouc from the foreign newspapers . If I have not heard anrraraours at my cafe , these paragraphs are utterly unintelligible ; if 1 have heard such reports of agitation or excitement abroad in reference to the papacy , I always find from these paragraphs that they were utterly erroneous : There is a good deal about the new * rench freetrade tariff , and the pacific intentions of the Emperor . -There are . 'rave dissensions , it appears , in the cabinets of London , and lunn , nnd the return of Count Waiewski to office is confidently expected in Paris . Lord Cowxey ' s journey to London is now known to have no political signification , and the idea that any accord between France and England signified a desertion of the Villafranca stipulations is asserted , on the best authority , to be an entire delusion

    . .. . This concludes my budget of news . A whole page is covered with quotations from " VixlEmain ' s" pamphlet , " La . 1 ranee , V Empire , et la Papautd ;'' which , as my own personal observation and daily life must of course be the best testimonies to the blessings « . f a Papal government , seems to me carrying coals to Newcastle . I have then a list of the strangers arrived at Borne ; one advertisement of some religious book / the " Devotions of Saint Alphonso Maria of Signori , " whoever he may have been ; a few meteorological observations from the pontifical observatory , anc ( half-a-dozen official notices of legal judgments in cases to which , till now , I have never been allowed to hear a single allusion . I have , however , the final satisfaction of observing that . my paper was printed -at the friend

    office of the Holy Apostolic Chamber . " Ex uno , " my Roman might truly say * " disce ! omnes . " This number I have taken as a sample , as one of more than average interest . I know , indeed , no trreater proof of the anxiety and alarm of the Papal Government at the present crisis , than the fact that so much intelligence should be allowed to ooze out through the Roman press . I know , also , no greater proof of its weakness . A strong despotic government may ignorethe press . altogether , but a government which tries to defend itself by the press , and such a press , must be weak indeed . None but a government of priests , half terrified out of their senses , would < lresim of feeding- strong , men with such babes' meat as this . There are signs of the times even in the Roman journal .

    ROMAN HUMOURS . Ro ^ e , 26 th January , 1860 . At last there is a break in the dull uniformity of Roman life . There is a ripple on the waters , whether the precursor of ft tempest , or to be followed by a dead calm , it is hard to tell . Meanwhile it is some gain , at any rate , that the old corpse-like city should show signs of life , however transient . Feeble as those symptoms arc , let us make the most of them . Since the Imperial occupation . of Rome , the building in the * ' Piazza Colonna , " which old Roman travellers remember as the aibode of the post-office , has been confiscated to the service of the French army . It forms , in fact , a sort of military head quarters . All the bureaux of the different departments of the service are to bo

    found here . The office of the electric telegraph is contained under the same roof , and the front windows of the civil town-lmll-looking building , ljt . up so brightly" and so lute at night , aro those of the French military circle . The " Piazza Colonnn , ? where stands the column of Mark Antony , opens out of the " Corso , " and is perhaps the most central position in all Rome . At the corner is the ^ afe " , monopolized by the French non-commissioned officers ; and next door is the great French bookseller '** . Altogether the " Piazza Colonna" and its vicinity is the French quartier of Rome . At r even o ' clock every evening , the detachments who are to be on guard during the night , at the different military posts , are drawn up in front if the said building , receive the pass-word , and then , headed by the

    drums and fifes , march off to their respective stntions . Every * 3 unday and Thursday evenings too , at this hour , the French band plays for a short time in the Piazza . Generally , this ceremony pulses off in perfect quiet , and in truth attracts as . littlo attention from bystanders as our lilo of guardsmen passing on their dully round from , Charing Cross to the Tower . On Sunday evening 1 last , n conttiderablo crowd , as far us I enn learnt of some two or three thousand perilous , chiefly men and boys , assembled round the bund , and as the patrols marched off down the Corso , nnd towards the Unntloof Saint Angelo , followed them with nhouta . of " Viva 1 'Ituliu , " " Vjvft Napo ^ bonnk , " and wont ominous of all " Vivii Cavour . " As ttuon an the untrnlrt hud punned thu cimw . 1 difli > oi'fiif < l , and tlieru

    apparently was an end of the matter . The next night poured with rain , with such rain as only Rome can supply ; and yet , in sp ite of the rain , a good number of people collected to see the guard march off * and again a few seditious or patriotic cries ( the two terms are here synonymous ) were heard . Such things in Italy , and in Rome especially , are matters of grave importance , and the Government was evidently alarmed . Contrary to general expectation ^ and I suspect to the hopes of the clerical party , the French general has issued no notice , as he did last year , forbidding these demonstrations . However , the patrols have been much increased in number , and great numbers of the Pontifical gendarmes have been brought into the city . On Tuesday night , the Papal police made soveral arrests , and a report is spread by the priests that the French troops had orders to fire at once , if any attempt is made tocreate disturbance . On the same night , too , there was a demonstration at the Apollo . I have heard , from several quarters , that on some of the Pontifical soldiers entering the house , the whole

    audience left the theatre , with very few exceptions . However , in t his city , one gets to have a cordial sympathy with the unbelieving Thomas , and not haying been present at the theatre myself , I cannot indorse the story . Last night I strolled down the Corso to see the guard pass . The street was very fall , at least full for Rome , where the streets seem empty at their fullest , and numerous groups of men were standing on the door steps , and at the shop windows . Mounted patrols passed up and down the street , and wherever there seemed the nucleus of a crowd forming knots of the Papal " Sbirri" with their

    long cloaks and cocked hats pressed over their eyes , and furtive , hang-dog looking countenances , elbowed their way unopposed and apparently unnoticed . In the square itself , there were . . a hundred men or so —chiefly , I should judge , strangers or artists , a group of young ragged ragamuffins , who climbed upon the pe destal of the columns , iiud seemed actuated only by the curiosity .-natural to the boy genus ; and a very large number of French soldiers , who , at first sight , looked merely loiterers . The patrol of perhaps four hundred men stood drawn up under arms , waiting for the word to marchttrnduailv . one nerceived that the ¦ -. crowd ' s of soldiers who loitered

    about without muskets were not mere spectators . Almost imperceptibly they closed round the patrol , ' pushed back the bystanders not in uniform , and then retreated , forming a clear ring for the guai'd to move in . There was no pushing , no hustling , no cries ot aiiy kind . After a few minutes the drums and fifes struck up , the drum major whirled his staff round in the air , the ring of soldier spectators parted , driving the crowd back on either side , and , through the clear' space thus formed , the patrol marched up the square ; divided into two columns , one going to the right and the other to the left , and so passed down the length of the Coiso . The crowd and

    made no sign , and raised no shout as the troops went by , only looked on in sullen silence . In fact , the sole opinion I heard uttered was that of a French private , who formed one of the ring * and who remarked to his comrade thut this duty of theirs was ' ¦ ' ' ere nom de chien de metier , " a remark in which I could not but coincide . As soon as the patrol had passed , the crowd retreated into the cafds . or the back streets , and in half an hour the Corso was as empty as usual , and was left to the " Sbirri , " who passed up and down slowly and silently . Even in the small side streets , which lead from the Corso to the English quarters , I met knots of the Pupal police accompanied by French soldiers , and the suspicious scrutinizing glance they cast upon you as you passed showed clearly enough they wore out on business . • . .

    All this , perhaps , may seem somewhat of the " tempest in ji teapot" character , but if you live in a teapot you must perforce chronicle its tempests . Besides , these symptoms arc perhaps more serious than may at first appear . The " Guerroniere" pamphlet and the Imperial manifesto have been received here with very mixed feelings . The acknowledgment that the temporal power of the Pope can be , and must be , modified , has been received with extreme exultation ; at the fiame time this exultation has been almost balanced by the mortification of learning that Rome itself is to be exempted from the promised deliverance . The evils of the Pontifical ! government are probably more acutely felt ljere than elsewhere , from the immediate presence of the ruling priesthood , and , iu consequence , the bitter hatred and personal animosity felt towards priostpruft and priestruje in every part of the Pupal States , is , above all , inveterate at Rome . The Roning-na is the great tlilHoulty of the Italian question , and , in like manner ,

    Rome is the great diflictiltv of the Kpmagna one , However , I must not depart from my vule and indulge in political speou" - lutions . I have often said before , that it is at Paris , and at Puris alone , that the Italian question must bo and will be decided for the present , and to tin ' s opinion I still adhere , nnd , mdood , shall adhere , till I see the JVonch troops not leaving- Rome , but having laft Roine : a sight which , in spite of rumours nnd reports of every kind , I have no hone , : u yet , of witnessing ' . After nine months or so , tlie Pontifical Government has thought .

    fit to publish a sort of vindication of the " Perugia massacres . In the Giornala di Roma of Monday lant , there appears a statement to the effect thut tlio whole of the Peruv ian disturbances wore only got up by a Macohiavollian policy of canting obloquy upon the Pope , ' in conaequenco of the moans ho must take to suppress them ; t \ ml in cbrrubomtlon of this view a letter is published , Irom an English Protestant lady ( whose name I will not repeat ) , to lior huaband . It seems that this lady had a villa some distance from Peniffln , nnd could see the Swiss troops advance against the any fromliev gardens . From thia position-of observation , die writes « vorv m ¦ iiWiiitp and not ovpi- wImo letter to Iwr IiiihI »«» hI i indiiljjrmpr

    Feb. 4, I860.] The Leader And Saturday A...

    Feb . 4 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . . 110

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 4, 1860, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04021860/page/19/