When they returned to Florence in May the Grand Duke had withdrawn, the city was occupied by French troops, and there was unusual animation in the streets.  Browning shared to some extent in his wife’s alienation from the policy of England, and believed, but with less than her enthusiastic confidence, in the good intentions towards Italy of the French Emperor.  He subscribed his ten scudi a month to the Italian war-fund, and rewarded Pen for diligence in his lessons with half a paul a day, which the boy might give as his own contribution to the cause of Italian independence.  The French and the Italian tricolour flags, displayed by Pen, adorned the terrace.  In June the sun beat upon Florence with unusual fierceness, but it was a month of battles, and with bulletins of the war arriving twice a day they could not bear to remove to any quiet retreat at a distance from the centre.  It was not curiosity that detained them but the passion for Italy, the joy in generous effort and great deeds.  In the rebound, as Mrs Browning expresses it, from high-strung hopes and fears for Italy they found themselves drawn to the theatre, where Salvini gave his wonderful impersonation of Othello and his Hamlet, “very great in both, Robert thought,” so commented Mrs Browning, “as well as I."[72] The strain of excitement was indeed excessive for Mrs Browning’s failing physical strength; there was in it something almost febrile.  Yet the fact is noteworthy that the romantic figures secured much less of her interest than the men of prudent statesmanship.  She esteemed Cavour highly; she wholly distrusted Mazzini.  She justified Louis Napoleon in concessions which she regarded as an unavoidable part of diplomacy directed to ends which could not be immediately attained.  Garibaldi was a “hero,” but somewhat alarming in his heroisms—­a “grand child,” “not a man of much brain.”  After the victories of Magenta and Solferino came what seemed to many the great betrayal of Villafranca.  For a day the busts and portraits of the French Emperor suddenly disappeared from the shop-windows of Florence, and even Mrs Browning would not let her boy wear his Napoleon medal.  But the busts returned to their places, and Mrs Browning’s faith in Napoleon sprang up anew; it was not he who was the criminal; the selfish powers of Europe had “forced his hand” and “truncated his great intentions.”  She rejoiced in the magnificent spectacle of dignity and calm presented by the people of Italy.  And yet her fall from the clouds to earth on the announcement of peace with Austria was a shattering experience.  Sleep left her, or if she slept her dreams were affected by “inscrutable articles of peace and endless provisional governments.”  Night after night her husband watched beside her, and in the day he not only gave his boy the accustomed two hours’ lesson on the piano, but replaced the boy’s mother as teacher of those miscellaneous lessons, which had been her educational province.  “Robert has been perfect to me,” expressed Mrs Browning’s feelings in a word.