LETTER XXX.

THE STRUGGLE IN ROME.—­POSITION OF THE FRENCH.—­THE
AUSTRIANS.—­FEELING OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE.—­THE FRENCH TROOPS.—­EFFECTS
OF WAR.—­HOSPITALS.—­THE PRINCESS BELGIOIOSO.—­POSITION OF MR. CASS AS
ENVOY.—­DIFFICULTIES AND SUGGESTIONS.—­AMERICA AND ROME.—­REFLECTIONS
ON THE ETERNAL CITY.—­THE FRENCH:  THE PEOPLE.

Rome, May 27, 1849.

I have suspended writing in the expectation of some decisive event; but none such comes yet.  The French, entangled in a web of falsehood, abashed by a defeat that Oudinot has vainly tried to gloss over, the expedition disowned by all honorable men at home, disappointed at Gaeta, not daring to go the length Papal infatuation demands, know not what to do.  The Neapolitans have been decidedly driven back into their own borders, the last time in a most shameful rout, their king flying in front.  We have heard for several days that the Austrians were advancing, but they come not.  They also, it is probable, meet with unexpected embarrassments.  They find that the sincere movement of the Italian people is very unlike that of troops commanded by princes and generals who never wished to conquer and were always waiting to betray.  Then their troubles at home are constantly increasing, and, should the Russian intervention quell these to-day, it is only to raise a storm far more terrible to-morrow.

The struggle is now fairly, thoroughly commenced between the principle of democracy and the old powers, no longer legitimate.  That struggle may last fifty years, and the earth be watered with the blood and tears of more than one generation, but the result is sure.  All Europe, including Great Britain, where the most bitter resistance of all will be made, is to be under republican government in the next century.

  “God moves in a mysterious way.”

Every struggle made by the old tyrannies, all their Jesuitical deceptions, their rapacity, their imprisonments and executions of the most generous men, only sow more dragon’s teeth; the crop shoots up daily more and more plenteous.

When I first arrived in Italy, the vast majority of this people had no wish beyond limited monarchies, constitutional governments.  They still respected the famous names of the nobility; they despised the priests, but were still fondly attached to the dogmas and ritual of the Roman Catholic Church.  It required King Bomba, the triple treachery of Charles Albert, Pius IX., and the “illustrious Gioberti,” the naturally kind-hearted, but, from the necessity of his position, cowardly and false Leopold of Tuscany, the vagabond “serene” meannesses of Parma and Modena, the “fatherly” Radetzsky, and, finally, the imbecile Louis Bonaparte, “would-be Emperor of France,” to convince this people that no transition is possible between the old and the new. The work is done; the revolution in Italy is now radical, nor can it stop till Italy becomes