The sight of Florence recalls its history, previous to the Medicean sway. The palaces of its best families are built like fortresses: without, are still seen the iron rings, to which the standards of each party were attached. All things seem to have been more arranged for the support of individual powers, than for their union in a common cause. The city appears formed for civil war. There are towers attached to the Hall of Justice, whence the approach of the enemy could be discerned. Such were the feuds between certain houses, that you find dwellings inconveniently constructed, because their lords would not let them extend to the ground on which that of some foe had been pulled down. Here the Pazzi conspired against the De Medici; there the Guelfs assassinated the Ghibellines. The marks of struggling rivalry are everywhere visible, though but in senseless stones. Nothing is now left for any pretenders but an inglorious state, not worth disputing. The life led in Florence has become singularly monotonous: its natives walk every afternoon on the banks of the Arno, and every evening ask one another if they _have_ been there. Corinne settled at a little distance from the town; and let Prince Castel Forte know this, in the only letter she had strength to write: such was her horror of all habitual actions, that even the fatigue of giving the slightest order redoubled her distress. She sometimes passed her day in complete inactivity, retired to her pillow, rose again, opened a book, without the power to comprehend a line of it. Oft did she remain whole hours at her window; then would walk rapidly in her garden, cull its flowers, and seek to deaden her senses in their perfume; but the consciousness of life pursued her, like an unrelenting host: she strove in vain to calm the devouring faculty of thought, which no longer presented her with varied images; but one lone idea, armed with a thousand stings, that pierced her heart. CHAPTER III.