282 Mary Somerville. 



a landscape painter. "We went all over the country 

 on mules to some of the towns, such as Cervara, up 

 steep flights of steps cut in the rock. The people, 

 too, were extremely picturesque, and the women 

 still wore their costumes, which probably now they 

 have laid aside for tweeds and Manchester cottons. 



I often during my winters in Eome went to paint 

 from nature in the Campagna, either with Somer- 

 ville or with Lady Susan Percy, who drew very 

 prettily. Once we set out a little later than usual, 

 when, driving through the Piazza of the Bocca della 

 Verita, we both called out, " Did you see that ? 

 How horrible ! " It was the guillotine ; an execution 

 had just taken place, and had we been a quarter of an 

 hour earlier we should have passed at the fatal 

 moment. Under Gregory XVI. everything was 

 conducted in the most profound secrecy ; arrests 

 were made almost at our very door, of which we 

 knew nothing ; Mazzini was busily at work on one 

 side, the Jesuitical party actively intriguing, accord- 

 ing to their wont, on the other ; and in the mean 

 time society went on gaily at the surface, ignorant 

 of and indifferent to the course of events. We 

 were preparing to leave Rome when Gregory died. 

 We put off our journey to see his funeral, and 

 the Conclave, which terminated, in the course 

 of scarcely two days, in the election of Pius IX. 



