The Grand Duke is about to be married, and the court is to be unusually gay in the carnival. Our countryman, Mr. Thorn, was presented some time since, and I am to have that honor in two or three days. By the way, we feel exceedingly in Italy the want of a _minister_. There is no accredited agent of our government in Tuscany, and there are rarely less than three hundred Americans within its dominions. Fortunately the Marquis Corsi, the grand chamberlain of the duke, offers to act in the capacity of an ambassador, and neglects nothing for our advantage in such matters, but he never fails to express his regret that we should not have some _chargé d'affaires_ at his court. We have officers in many parts of the world where they are much less needed.
[4] The name of a wooden frame by which a pot of coals is hung between the sheets of a bed in Italy.
[5] As if everything should be poetical on the shores of the Clitumnus, the beggars ran after us in quartettes, singing a chaunt, and sustaining the four parts as they ran. Every child sings well in Italy; and I have heard worse music in a church anthem, than was made by these half-clothed and homeless wretches, running at full speed by the carriage-wheels. I have never met the same thing elsewhere.
FLORENCE--GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY--THE GRAND CHAMBERLAIN--PRINCE DE LIGNE--THE AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR--THE MARQUIS TORRIGIANI--LEOPOLD OF TUSCANY--VIEWS OF THE VAL D'ARNO--SPLENDID BALL--TREES OF CANDLES--THE DUKE AND DUCHESS--HIGHBORN ITALIAN AND ENGLISH BEAUTIES, ETC., ETC.
I was presented to the grand Duke of Tuscany yesterday morning, at a private audience. As we have no minister at this court, I drove alone to the ducal palace, and, passing through the body-guard of young nobles, was met at the door of the ante-chamber by the Marquis Corsi, the grand chamberlain. Around a blazing fire, in this room, stood five or six persons, in splendid uniforms, to whom I was introduced on entering. One was the Prince de Ligne--traveling at present in Italy, and waiting to be presented by the Austrian ambassador--a young and remarkably handsome man of twenty-five. He showed a knowledge of America, in the course of a half hour's conversation, which rather surprised me, inquiring particularly about the residences and condition of the United States' ministers whom he had met at the various courts of Europe. The Austrian ambassador, an old, wily-looking man, covered with orders, joined in the conversation and asked after our former minister at Paris, Mr. Brown, remarking that he had done the United States great credit, during his embassy. He had known Mr. Gallatin also, and spoke highly of him. Mr. Van Buren's election to the vice-presidency, after his recall, seemed greatly to surprise him.