Another scene which I remember well was on a long day's journey through the Val di Chiana, a day's journey by fertile fields and smiling villages, and on pleasant country roads. The King was coming in the course of the day along the same route. At every corner, at every bridge and roadside house, there were groups of peasants standing waiting to see _Il padrone nuovo_, the new sovereign and master. The children had flags in their little hands, and the cottagers had hung out their coloured bed- quilts, and the roadside crosses were decked out with flowers. The church-bells were ringing, country bands were playing lustily, and the national guard of every little town I passed stood under arms, to the admiration of all beholders. It was a holiday everywhere; the fields were left untilled, the carts were taken up to carry whole peasant families to the market-town of Arezzo, where the King was to spend the night. Man, woman, and child wore the national colours in some part of their Sunday dress; and about everything and everybody there was a look of happiness, hard indeed to describe, but one not often seen nor easily forgotten. Let us turn northwards. The old streets of Bologna, with their endless rows of colonnades, are filled with people. The dead Papal city is alive again. The priests have disappeared; friars, monks, Jesuits, and nuns have vanished from their old haunts. St Patrick did not clear the land of Erin more thoroughly and more suddenly of the genus reptile than the presence of Victor Emmanuel has cleared Bologna of the genus priest. It is whispered that out of top windows, and from behind blinds and shutters, priests are peeping out at the strange sight of a glad and a free people, with glances the reverse of friendly; but neither the black robe nor the brown serge cowl, nor the three-cornered, low-crowned hat, are to be seen amongst the crowd. Well, perhaps the scene looks none the less gay for their absence. The flags and flowers glitter beneath the blue, cloudless sky, and the burning sun of a hot summer day gives an unwonted brightness to the grey colours of the grim, gaunt houses. Down the steep, winding road leading from the old monastery of St Michael, where the King is lodged, through the dark, narrow, crowded streets, a brilliant cavalcade comes riding slowly; half a horse's length in front rides Victor Emmanuel. Amongst the order-covered staff who follow, there is scarcely one of not more royal presence than their leader; there are many whose names may stand before his in the world's judgment, but the crowd has its eye fixed on the King, and the King alone. For three days this selfsame crowd has followed him, and stared at him, and cheered him, but their ardour remains undiminished. All the school-children of the city, down to little mites of things who can scarcely toddle, have been brought out to see him. Boy-soldiers, with Lilliputian muskets, salute him as he passes.