It is in works like these, and in the journals and pamphlets published during the intensity of the struggle, that the still-surviving Italian genius, which it has been so long the northern policy to smother and repress, betrayed itself. Nor among these works, as striking another key, ought we to omit the Souvenirs of the War of Lombardy by M. de Talleyrand-Perigord. Duke of Dino--and the history of the Revolution of Rome by Alphonse Balleydier. The Souvenirs are devoted to the glory of the unhappy King Charles Albert, the dupe of his own vanity and the victim of his own weakness.
Upon the pages of M. le Duc de Dino, however, he blazes very brilliantly as a martyr--martyr of a cause hopeless even in the first flush of success--martyr of an army without enthusiasm, of a liberalism without freedom or heroism. The English royalists, the reader will remember, were fond of the same title for the unhappy Charles I.
In M. Balleydier's history of the Roman revolution, Rossi is the central figure, in whose fate there was something extremely heroic, because he had received information, just as he quitted the Pope's palace to go to the assembly, from a priest who had heard it in confidence, that he was to be attacked, and he must have known the Italian, and especially the Roman character, sufficiently to have felt assured of his fate. After hearing the priest, Rossi said to him calmly: "I thank you, Monseigneur, the cause of the Pope is the cause of God," and stepping into his carriage drove to the palace of the Cancelleria, at whose door he fell dead, by a stroke that wounded much more mortally the cause which condemned him, than the cause he espoused.
With all our waste of money, and continual boasts of encouraging individual merit, we have not yet a single pension in this country except to homicides. "They manage these things better in France." A return just published in the official _Moniteur_, shows that one department of the government, that of Public Instruction, distributes the following pensions to literary persons: five of from $400 to $480 a year; nine of $300 to $360; twenty-nine of $200 to $240; thirty-four of $120 to $180; and fifteen of $40 to $100. To the widows and families of deceased authors, two of $400 to $450; six of $300 to $360; seventeen of $200 to $240; twenty-five of $120 to $180; and thirty-one of $40 to $100. In addition to this, it may be mentioned, that the same department distributes a large sum annually, under the title of "Encouragements," to authors in temporary distress, or engaged in works of literary importance and but small pecuniary profit. It also awards several thousands to learned societies, for literary and scientific missions, purchases of books, &c. The department of the Interior gives $2,500 a year in subscriptions to different works, and nearly $30,000 for "indemnities and assistance to authors." The other departments of the government also employ considerable sums in purchasing books, and in otherwise encouraging literary men. It is said indeed to be no unusual thing for an author, laboring under temporary inconvenience, to apply for a few hundred, or, in some cases, thousand francs, and they are almost always awarded. No shame whatever is attached to the application, and no very extraordinary credit to the gift. Surely, France must be a Paradise for authors.