"Monsignore Luigi," I replied, bowing, "how can he sufficiently thank you?" "By permitting me to take, as usual, the supreme command over them: in truth, Signor Claude, they will scarcely obey any one else. At their head, I have already seen some sharp service at Rome and in Apulia; where I fought in three pitched battles under the Cardinal Ruffo, when he was a loyal man, and true to Italy. In those days, how little could we have dreamed that the Cardinal Prince of Scylla, would become a traitor, and of such unhappy fame? I have fought well and hard for Italy," continued the Visconte, as we ascended the staircase, "and would still have continued in open hostility against Peppo the Corsican: but I left the army in disgust, at certain slighting expressions used towards me on a recent occasion, by his Majesty of Naples; who ought in person to lead on his people to death or victory, instead of eating his maccheroni at Palermo, like a coward as he is!" "Harsh words, my lord!" "Not more harsh than true. Know, Signor, that the high spirit of Carolina alone keeps the cause of liberty alive in the hearts of the Neapolitan people. Oh! for a hero to raise the house of Parma to its ancient fame! But we will talk of these matters over a glass of the ruby-coloured Capri Rosso. Be it remembered, Signor," continued the young lord, as he led me through a suite of noble apartments, "that zealous as I am in the service of my country and its unhappy royal family, it is not without considerable dread that I draw off the sbirri from my territory, in the present state of Calabria. Divided by politics and old family grudges, our Feudatories are all at enmity, and quarrels exist here among these wild mountains, which are altogether unknown to northern Italy. Up the Valley of the Amato, some miles from this, there dwells a certain troublesome fool, Dionisio Barone, of Castel Guelfo: a rank Buonapartist. He is descended from that ancient family which, when but petty lords of Germany, in their wars with the Ghibelines, contrived to involve all the seignories, the cities, and families of Italy in feuds and bloodshed: and all ’for the sake of a vile cur!’ as Giovanni Fiorentino tells us in his novel. Now, since the wars of Campanella the rebel-friar, there has existed a bitter quarrel between the family of Alfieri and that of the Barone; who (as he has been making himself more than usually active and obnoxious of late) may, in my absence, overrun my territory with his followers and the banditti, and sack the villa. He is encouraged by the success of the French; whose general has abetted him in many an act of outrage and hostility."