Let those who doubt our debt to France remember where we were last year, and see what our political life is now--real, vivid, unhindered! Our moral qualities are our own, but our practical opportunities come from another; we could not have made them by force of moral qualities, great as those are allowed to be.

And how striking the growth of this people since 1848.

Massimo d' Azeglio said to Robert and me, 'It is '48 over again with matured actors.' But it is even more than that: it is '48 over again with regenerated actors.

All internal jealousies at an end, all suspicions quenched, all selfish policies dissolved.

Florence forgets herself for Italy.