_Rome, June_ 6, 1849.--The help I needed was external, practical. I
knew myself all the difficulties and pains of my position; they were
beyond present relief; from sympathy I could struggle with them, but
had not life enough left, afterwards, to be a companion of any worth.
To be with persons generous and refined, who would not pain; who
would sometimes lend a helping hand across the ditches of this strange
insidious marsh, was all I could have now, and this you gave.
On Sunday, from our loggia, I witnessed a terrible, a real battle. It
began at four in the morning: it lasted to the last gleam of light.
The musket-fire was almost unintermitted; the roll of the cannon,
especially from St. Angelo, most majestic. As all passed at Porta San
Pancrazio and Villa Pamfili, I saw the smoke of every discharge, the
flash of the bayonets; with a glass could see the men. Both French and
Italians fought with the most obstinate valor. The French could
not use their heavy cannon, being always driven away by the legions
Garibaldi and ----, when trying to find positions for them. The loss
on our side is about three hundred killed and wounded; theirs must
be much greater. In one casino have been found seventy dead bodies
of theirs. I find the wounded men at the hospital in a transport of
indignation. The French soldiers fought so furiously, that they think
them false as their general, and cannot endure the remembrance of
their visits, during the armistice, and talk of brotherhood. You will
have heard how all went:--how Lesseps, after appearing here fifteen
days as _plenipotentiary_, signed a treaty not dishonorable to Rome;
then Oudinot refused to ratify it, saying, _the plenipotentiary
had surpassed his powers_: Lesseps runs back to Paris, and Oudinot
attacks:--an affair alike infamous for the French from beginning to
end. The cannonade on one side has continued day and night, (being
full moon,) till this morning; they seeking to advance or take other
positions, the Romans firing on them. The French throw rockets into
the town: one burst in the court-yard of the hospital, just as I
arrived there yesterday, agitating the poor sufferers very much; they
said they did not want to die like mice in a trap.