When strangers would sometimes venture some word of compliment on the prosperity and contentment of the Tuscans, his reply invariably was, "_Sono tranquilli_"-- they are quiet.

But in truth much more might have been said; for assuredly Tuscany was a Land of Goshen in the midst of the peninsula.

There was neither want nor discontent (save among a very small knot of politicians, who might almost have been counted on the hand), nor crime.

There was at Florence next to no police of any kind, but the streets were perfectly safe by night or by day.
There was a story, much about that time, which made some noise in Europe, and was very disingenuously made use of, as such stories are, of a certain Florentine and his wife, named Madiai, who had been, it was asserted, persecuted for reading the Bible.

It was not so.