“It was more generous than Austria’s,” said the physician, eagerly.

“Austria squeezes and gives us nothing back, and you squeeze to enlarge and beautify our towns; you stimulated us by giving us an army.  You thought you could keep Italy, and they expect to lose it —­there lies the difference.

“The Austrians provide us with a sort of ease that is as stultifying and heavy as themselves, while you overwhelmed us by your devouring energy.  But whether we die of tonics or of narcotics, what does it matter?  It is death all the same, Monsieur le docteur.”

“Unhappy Italy!  In my eyes she is like a beautiful woman whom France ought to protect by making her his mistress,” exclaimed the Frenchman.

“But you could not love us as we wish to be loved,” said the Duchess, smiling.  “We want to be free.  But the liberty I crave is not your ignoble and middle-class liberalism, which would kill all art.  I ask,” said she, in a tone that thrilled through the box,—­“that is to say, I would ask,—­that each Italian republic should be resuscitated, with its nobles, its citizens, its special privileges for each caste.  I would have the old aristocratic republics once more with their intestine warfare and rivalry that gave birth to the noblest works of art, that created politics, that raised up the great princely houses.  By extending the action of one government over a vast expanse of country it is frittered down.  The Italian republics were the glory of Europe in the middle ages.  Why has Italy succumbed when the Swiss, who were her porters, have triumphed?”

“The Swiss republics,” said the doctor, “were worthy housewives, busy with their own little concerns, and neither having any cause for envying another.  Your republics were haughty queens, preferring to sell themselves rather than bow to a neighbor; they fell too low ever to rise again.  The Guelphs are triumphant.”

“Do not pity us too much,” said the Duchess, in a voice that made the two friends start.  “We are still supreme.  Even in the depths of her misfortune Italy governs through the choicer spirits that abound in her cities.

“Unfortunately the greater number of her geniuses learn to understand life so quickly that they lie sunk in poverty-stricken pleasure.  As for those who are willing to play the melancholy game for immortality, they know how to get at your gold and to secure your praises.  Ay, in this land—­pitied for its fallen state by traveled simpletons and hypocritical poets, while its character is traduced by politicians—­in this land, which appears so languid, powerless, and ruinous, worn out rather than old, there are puissant brains in every branch of life, genius throwing out vigorous shoots as an old vine-stock throws out canes productive of delicious fruit.  This race of ancient rulers still gives birth to kings—­Lagrange, Volta, Rasori, Canova, Rossini, Bartolini, Galvani, Vigano, Beccaria, Cicognara, Corvetto.  These Italians are masters of the scientific peaks on which they stand, or of the arts to which they devote themselves.  To say nothing of the singers and executants who captivate Europe by their amazing perfections:  Taglioni, Paganini, and the rest.  Italy still rules the world which will always come to worship her.