Spain two years later. Neri was made a cardinal and practically ruled the Papal States not only under his uncle, who trusted him implicitly, but under three successive Popes. He built the great Corsini palace at Rome and formed magnificent collections of pictures, engravings, manuscripts and books. Intensely hostile to the Jesuits, he used all his influence to obtain the suppression of the Order, but died in 1770 before the promulgation of the decree against them. Pope Clemente would have left a greater name had he abstained from showering gifts and honours on members of his own family. One great-great-nephew he made a Knight of Malta while still in swaddling clothes and Prior of Pisa at the age of four, in spite of the indignant protests of the Grand Master of the Order; another was domestic prelate and Apostolic pro-notary almost before he could read and a cardinal at twenty-four; while Bartolomeo, their brother, became Captain-General of the Papal Guard. His son Tommaso began life as Chamberlain to the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, but when Florence was occupied by the troops of the French Republic and “death to the aristocrats” was the popular cry, he fled to Sicily, and when he returned he found Tuscany transformed into the Kingdom of Etruria. Queen Maria Louisa made Tommaso Corsini master of her household and sent him to Bologna to receive Napoleon I, on whom he made so favourable an impression that when Tuscany was incorporated with the Empire he summoned him to Paris, made him a Senator, a Count of the Empire and a Chamberlain, in which capacity he escorted the Arch Duchess Marie Louise to France. On the fall of the Emperor Corsini returned to Italy, and was Senator of Rome during the exciting days of 1848, when the first dawn of Italian Unity was fostered for a time by Pio IX. After the Pope abandoned the popular party Corsini in vain attempted to stem the tide of republicanism; he had to fly for his life and only returned to Rome after the Papal Government had been re-established by French troops. He was a man of considerable culture and added largely to the Corsini galleries at Florence and Rome. His brother Neri was deservedly beloved in Tuscany, for he advocated her independence at the Congress of Vienna, and obtained the restitution of the art treasures which had been carried off to Paris. As Prime Minister he devoted himself to the amelioration of the condition of the people, made new roads, gave a fresh impulse to the great work of the bonification of the Val di Chiana, and, a strong free-trader, successfully withstood his retrograde colleagues who, during a period of scarcity, desired to impose a heavy tax on corn. Imbued, like all his forebears, with a great dislike and distrust of the Jesuits he resolutely set his face against their re-admittance into the country. Don Tommaso, the present representative of the princely house of Corsini, by his kindly hospitality, learning and charm of