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the heading of my letters. You can imagine how I grieved at leaving Siena, where for five months I enjoyed a tranquillity that must be discounted now. Before I left I received your letter of the 11th" (of April), "and I was amazed to find that I had told you I felt more full of strength and courage than usual. It must have been true at the moment, but the scene changed afterwards, and I cannot possibly describe to you the trouble, the sorrow, the apprehensions, and so forth, by which I am surrounded now. I have suffered in these days all that it is possible to suffer physically and morally; the burden of this journey makes itself felt more and more.

"You tell me to write in French if that is easier for me, but I assure you that I write quite as easily in Italian. Perhaps I make absurd mistakes, but you will be indulgent about them."

After this protest, Cunegonda suddenly begins a sentence in French, the language of her childhoodand always of her heart-pulls herself up and goes on in sober Italian to describe the first stage of her journey, a long one, for the party left Siena at a quarter to seven in the morning and did not reach Florence till ten that night.

"There," she says, we stayed over Thursday, the Feast of Corpus Domini . . . and I had a visit from the Prince and Princess of Palestrina and their sons, as well as Don Orazio Borghese.

"On arriving in Florence we went to the

'Pelicano,' which I think was the inn you spoke of to me; but it was quite full, so I went to the 'Four Nations,' where I was very well satisfied, and where even the hotel-keepers showed the interest they felt for us, assuring me, with tears in their eyes, that they would certainly not take advantage of my circumstances; and indeed they charged me much less than they are accustomed to do.

"... The next morning we started off again, halted at Le Maschere,' and slept at beautiful Covigliano.... On Saturday at nightfall we reached this place. Immediately Benedetto and Clementino Spada came to see me, having come expressly from twelve miles away in the country, where Clementino is in villeggiatura with his wife; I shall see the villa when I pass."

Bologna was full of friends and relations who vied with each other in showing their affection and sympathy for the travellers in this time of trouble. Clementino Spada insisted on having the whole party stay at his house in the town, and poor Cunegonda was already so worn out that she decided to rest there for a few days before going farther. The physical repose, however, seems to have in no way lightened the heavy weight that lay at her heart; on June 11 she writes:

"What I have become, Giovanni mine! I can truly say that I am a reed shaken in the wind, for every moment some new fear takes possession of me; the only thing that consoles and reassures

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me a little is that when I am most troubled is the time when I turn with most faith to prayer.

*

"... Yesterday the ex-Court of Spain arrived “ here and was to go on to-day. They have to move in instalments, as they require sixty-nine horses, and could never find them if the whole company travelled together!"

The next little note is written somewhere between Modena and Saliceta, on June 17. The heat was becoming overwhelming.

"I cannot describe to you," Cunegonda says, "what I am suffering from heat and the fatigue of the journey. I have to stop constantly to rest. I propose to do so in Milan, and I am sure you will approve. It is no exaggeration to say that I have not strength to do anything else. Oh, if I knew how to accept all this, how much of my purgatory could I be sparing myself!"

* Charles IV of Spain travelling to Rome with his Court. He remained there for some time.

CHAPTER IX

MILAN was reached on June 20, and the next day the Marchesa wrote to her husband:

"I left Modena, or rather Saliceta, on Thursday. The Marchisios, husband and wife" (friends with whom she had stayed near Modena), "did everything they could to show their cordial affection. On Friday we dined at Piacenza and slept at Lodi, and yesterday morning at half-past ten we arrived here. I am lodging at the Hotel Imperial, an excellent inn in a quiet situation, where I found both the Bailli Ruspoli and Cardinal Albani. . . Monsignor Odescalchi and Count Francesco Scotti came to see me and send you many greetings.

"I forgot to tell you in my last letter that at Bologna I had to part with Tommaso and take to the post. His demands became so outrageous that I could not consent to them. I am quite satisfied with the new arrangement, as the roads as far as Turin are splendid; at Turin I must consider again what I had better do.

". . . I should be telling you an untruth if I were to say that my health is good, and you would perhaps not believe it; may the Lord help me to