e Monday morning 15th August
A review of the French troops, four or five thou-
sand, in the grounds of the Villa of the Prince
Borghese. It was of course a splendid military
show. Invitations of it however, more accurately
giving its character there any thing I could write
you here every where and very often at home. Long
oh long may it be before the reality of a standing
army for purposes of civil policemay ^shall^ occur in
my country, and God forbid that it should ever
happen that such an army then should consist of
foreigners sent either from ambition or party by a
foreign state.
The review over, I descended into the
excavated dungeons of the or state prisons
of the City of Rome which date from the days of
her Kings anterior to the Republic. You know their terri-
ble character when I tell you that they are two chambers
one over the other, very small, excavated out of the
rock beneath the surface of the ground, of course

37
without light and almost without air. Here captive
Kings were starved to death, and rebellious ones ended
their captivity by being plunged through the roof and
the aperture in the floor between the two to the bottom
of the . Here the accomplices of Catilina
were executed by order of Cicero. Thus far then
is history. The Church tradition here deemed more
authentic than history a core scripture adds that
in these prisons St Peter was confined by order
of the Emperor Nero, and they show you that the
chain which fastened his limbs, the iron ring to
which it was affixed, and a fountain ^or spring^ of, yet
flowing with the purest and coldest water in
Rome, which opened at the Apostles feet in
the lower cell in order that he might baptise
his jailers. History and tradition disagree on this
latter fact. You must decide it for yourself.
At 10, oclock I stood on the base of one of the
noble columns which support the roof of the magnificent
church of San Mary Maggiore, overlooking the
heads of the whole congregation of the Faithful
and from there I saw the Holy Father ride
through the broad nave of the Church on the
shoulders of ten nobles, and descend and take
the throne in the tribune surrounded by the whole
body of cardinals, receive their adorations! go through
the ceremony of High mass, and then borne in the

38
same way to the balcony in part of the church
and then pronounce his blessing on the People of
Rome. He entered and departed with a military
guard, and a like guard stationed about the
columns and in front of the altar protected
the Bishop from any irreverent approach of his
spiritual sheep. You can conceive an adequate
idea of it only by reading so the history of
Oriental deification. And thus ends the
The Church is magnificent, as so many churches in this
little stay are. I had time to see only one of
its many precious relics, but that one, what would
you not give to look upon it? It was nothing less
these five boards of the manger in which the
infant Saviour was cradled. True I did not ^exactly^ see
the boards themselves but I did see the silver
urn in which they are kept, and ^I have^ the word
of the Church that she got them in the seventh
Century from Bethlehem – direct – and that she put
them then into this urn – which she exhibits while
she recites the story to the grateful people of
Rome every Christmas eve. You will ask me
when will this strange confusion of the ^Kingdom^ Church of
God with their authority end? I can only
add that answer that even here it would be
repudiated – if it were not upheld from interested
motives by foreign monarchies. France and Austria

39
maintain it ^here^ by armed force. But neither France
nor Austria can persist in that policy forever.
The latter is a part of upward rising Germany.
The Bonaparte race alone keeps down the
Republic in France. That will end soon.
And thus ends the journal of the 5th day in
Rome.