Breakfast over, we left the inn and were about to walk ahead of the carriages, as the chariot and three came rolling down the declivity into the village. Seeing us apparently in possession, the _Grognon_ thrust out his head, gave a growl and an order, and the equipage moved proudly on, as if it disdained stopping. We followed, telling the servants they would find us on the road below. To our surprise, at the bottom of the hamlet we met the _Grognon_ and his party on foot, walking sulkily back towards the inn, with the manner of people humbled by misfortune, and yet not totally above indignation. The last house was the eating-house in question, and stopping to inquire, we discovered that he had heard of the two roasted fowls, in Foligno probably, and finding us at the inn, had pushed on to seize these devoted birds, which, alas! were already eaten. Necessity has no law, and this gallant man was compelled to subdue his stomach, lest his stomach should subdue him. We sympathized with his situation, precisely as the well-fed and contented are apt to sympathize with the unlucky and hungry; or, in other words, we determined that, in an extremity, one might breakfast even on bread. W—— affirmed that the man was rightly served;—“Let him take a fourth horse, instead of compelling three to drag that heavy chariot up these mountains, if he wish to eat chickens.” The road was beautiful the remainder of the day. It had at first a sort of camera-lucida wildness about it; a boldness that was quite pleasing, though in miniature, after the grandeur of the Alps; and as the day drew towards a close, we rolled, by a gradual and almost imperceptible descent, into a lovely region, affluent in towns, villas, hamlets, and all the other appliances of civilized life. This was in the March of Ancona, and our day’s work terminated at Tolentino, a place celebrated for one of Napoleon’s early negotiations. Tolentino stands on an insulated hill, in the midst of a beautiful but broken country, and it struck us as a place more important as lying near this pass, than from any other cause. The Serra valle, a gorge in the road above, has a reputation, but it is not of Swiss frightfulness. Earlier in the spring and in winter, however, the passage of the Col Fiorito is a matter of more gravity. Starvation was the only danger on this occasion. We watched impatiently the arrival of the _Grognon_, but he disdained entering within the walls of Tolentino that night.