1825-1826] The Poverty of Italy 169 



so attractive. Mr Pictet 1 is I think in love with her, and 

 Mr de Candolle seeks her company with more gallantry than 

 common acquaintance usually use. The whole town is in 

 mourning and grief for Professor Pictet who is to be buried 

 to-morrow. I don't like Madame Simond, but am much 

 pleased with Madame de Candolle, Bossi, Dumont, and 

 Favre. 2 We scarcely ever fall in with any young girls as 

 they are all with their Societies. I suppose there were a 

 dozen young men here last night and only two young women. 

 To-night is the select Thursday evening we expect Mme 

 Constant and Mme de Candolle. God bless you all now at 

 Kingscote. My dearly beloveds', E. W. 



Bessy received many letters from her husband and the 

 girls while on their Italian journey. These contain less 

 expression of enjoyment than might have been expected, 

 but my mother told us she never felt well all the tour. 

 They were all deeply impressed with the poverty of Italy. 

 Jos wrote, " I never saw so much misery in so small a space 

 before, and really it is paying dear for any pleasure that 

 travelling affords, to be besieged by crowds of hideous men, 

 women, and children begging importunately every time we 

 stop to change horses." 



Their aunt Jessie had been anxious about the girls' dress 

 and appearance. Elizabeth wrote to her mother after a 

 party at Florence (Ap. 1825): "Emma acquitted herself 



1 Adolphe Pictet (1799 1875), Ethnologist. Professor Marcus 

 Auguste Pictet (b. 1752), whose death is mentioned above, was a 

 Physicist. 



2 These four names appear constantly in the Geneva letters. De 

 Candolle (1778 1841), the famous Botanist, was Professor of Natural 

 History there from 1816 to his death. Bossi is mentioned by Edouard 

 Scherer as one of the literary Geneva-Coppet circle. Dumont was 

 one of Sismondi's best friends and one of the foremost figures in the 

 intellectual society of Geneva. Eossel, in his Histoire Literaire de 

 la Suisse Komande, speaks of him as " ce savant actif et jovial dont 

 la rondeur et 1'entrain contrastaient avec le ton pedant et les airs 

 ennuyes da la socie"te Genevoises du temps." He was a friend of 

 Mackintosh and other leading English Liberals, and had been in- 

 timate in England with Bentham, of whose doctrines he was the 

 chief continental apostle. Favre was a man of great learning and 

 a profound historical student Mme de Stael called him "mon 

 e"rudit." He and Sismondi had been prison companions thirty 

 years before this, at the time of the Genevan " terror." The 

 Simonds were relatives of Sismondi. 



