This week all the animals are being blessed,[A] and they get a gratuitous baptism, too, the while.  The lambs one morning were taken out to the church of St. Agnes for this purpose.  The little companion of my travels, if he sees this letter, will remember how often we saw her with her lamb in pictures.  The horses are being blessed by St. Antonio, and under his harmonizing influence are afterward driven through the city, twelve and even twenty in hand.  They are harnessed into light wagons, and men run beside them to guard against accident, in case the good influence of the Saint should fail.

[Footnote A:  One of Rome’s singular customs.—­ED.]

This morning came the details of infamous attempts by the Austrian police to exasperate the students of Pavia.  The way is to send persons to smoke cigars in forbidden places, who insult those who are obliged to tell them to desist.  These traps seem particularly shocking when laid for fiery and sensitive young men.  They succeeded:  the students were lured, into combat, and a number left dead and wounded on both sides.  The University is shut up; the inhabitants of Pavia and Milan have put on mourning; even at the theatre they wear it.  The Milanese will not walk in that quarter where the blood of their fellow-citizens has been so wantonly shed.  They have demanded a legal investigation of the conduct of the officials.

At Piacenza similar attempts have been made to excite the Italians, by smoking in their faces, and crying, “Long live the Emperor!” It is a worthy homage to pay to the Austrian crown,—­this offering of cigars and blood.

  “O this offence is rank; it smells to Heaven.”

This morning authentic news is received from Naples.  The king, when assured by his own brother that Sicily was in a state of irresistible revolt, and that even the women quelled the troops,—­showering on them stones, furniture, boiling oil, such means of warfare as the household may easily furnish to a thoughtful matron,—­had, first, a stroke of apoplexy, from, which the loss of a good deal of bad blood relieved him.  His mind apparently having become clearer thereby, he has offered his subjects an amnesty and terms of reform, which, it is hoped, will arrive before his troops have begun to bombard the cities in obedience to earlier orders.

Comes also to-day the news that the French Chamber of Peers propose an Address to the King, echoing back all the falsehoods of his speech, including those upon reform, and the enormous one that “the peace of Europe is now assured”; but that some members have worthily opposed this address, and spoken truth in an honorable manner.

Also, that the infamous sacrifice of the poor little queen of Spain puts on more tragic colors; that it is pretended she has epilepsy, and she is to be made to renounce the throne, which, indeed, has been a terrific curse to her.  And Heaven and Earth have looked calmly on, while the king of France has managed all this with the most unnatural of mothers.