stood, and past the famous stone where Dante drew his chair out to sit.[173] Strange, to have all that old-world life about us, and the blue sky so bright besides, and ever so much talk on our lips about the new French revolution, and the King of Prussia’s cunning, and the fuss in Germany and elsewhere.  Not to speak of our own particular troubles and triumphs in Lombardy close by.  The English are flying from Florence, by the way, in a helter skelter, just as they always do fly, except (to do them justice) on a field of battle.  The family Englishman is a dreadful coward, be it admitted frankly.  See how they run from France, even to my dear excellent Uncle Hedley, who has too many little girls in his household to stay longer at Tours.  Oh, I don’t blame him exactly.  I only wish that he had waited a little longer, the time necessary for being quite reassured.  He has great stakes in the country—­a house at Tours and in Paris, and twenty thousand pounds in the Rouen railway.  But Florence will fall upon her feet we may all be certain, let the worst happen that can.  Meanwhile, republicans as I and my, husband are by profession, we very anxiously, anxiously even to pain, look on the work being attempted and done just now by the theorists in Paris; far from half approving of it we are, and far from being absolutely confident of the durability of the other half.  Tell me what you think, and if you are not anxious too.  As to communism, surely the practical part of that, the only not dangerous part, is attainable simply by the consent of individuals who may try the experiment of associating their families in order to the cheaper employment of the means of life, and successfully in many cases.  But make a government scheme of even so much, and you seem to trench on the individual liberty.  All such patriarchal planning in a government issues naturally into absolutism, and is adapted to states of society more or less barbaric.  Liberty and civilisation when married together lawfully rather evolve individuality than tend to generalisation.  Is this not true?  I fear, I fear that mad theories promising the impossible may, in turn, make the people mad.  I Louis Blanc knows not what he says.  Have I not mentioned to you a very gifted woman, a sculptress, Mademoiselle de Fauveau, who lives in Florence with her mother practising her profession, an exile from France, in consequence of their royalist opinions and participation in the Vendee struggle, some sixteen or fifteen years?  On that occasion she was mistaken for and allowed herself to be arrested as Madame de la Roche Jacquelin; therefore she has justified, by suffering in the cause, her passionate attachment to it.  A most interesting person she is; she called upon us a short time ago and interested us much.  And Mrs. Jameson would tell you that her celebrity in her art is not comparative ‘for a woman,’ but that, since Benvenuto Cellini, more beautiful works of the kind have not been accomplished.  An exquisite