Nearly a month was passed in the journey from Paris to Rome. The travellers paused in every town, and explored its monuments, churches, and libraries. During the halt at midday, and again in the evening, they talked over all they had seen, and read aloud by turns. Ballanche and his young friend Ampère discussed questions of history and philosophy, and Madame Récamier gave an air of elegance to an apartment in the meanest inn. She had her own table-cloth to spread, together with books and flowers; and her presence alone, so dignified, so graceful, invested every place with the charm of poetry. Ballanche and Ampère projected a guide-book, and thus the latter was unconsciously laying up stores for that graphic "Histoire Romaine à Rome," [Footnote 15] on which his reputation as an author mainly rests. The year was just closing when they arrived in Rome. It was here that he met Prince Louis Bonaparte, the present emperor, who was then a boy, and here he had long and frequent conversations with Prince Napoleon, his elder brother, while Queen Hortense, then called the Duchess of Saint-Leu, was walking with Madame Récamier in the Coliseum, or the campagna around the church of St. John Lateran or the tomb of Cecilia Metella. Rome was then the asylum of the Bonapartes, as it has ever been the home of the outcast and the consolation of the wretched. The aspect was greatly changed since the former visit Pius VII. had lately yielded up his saintly spirit to God, and Leo XII. sat on his throne. The fêtes and ceremonies that attended his elevation were all over except that of the pontifical blessing given from the balcony of St Peter's. Madame Récamier took her place beside the Duchess of Devonshire in joint sovereignty over society at Rome. {93} The Duc de Laval, Montmorency's cousin, who was then the French ambassador, placed his house, horses, and servants at her disposal, and began or ended every evening with her. The duchess just mentioned was in her sixty-fourth year, and preserved the traces of remarkable beauty. Her eyes were full of fire, her skin was smooth and white. She was tall, erect, queenly, and thin as an apparition. Her skeleton hands and arms were like ivory, and she covered them with bracelets and rings. Her manners were distinguished, and she seemed at the same time very affectionate and rather sad. [Footnote 15: Published in the _Revue des Deux Mondes,_ 1866-67.] The long friendship which subsisted between this English Protestant lady and Cardinal Consalvi was not the least singular feature in her history. Her intimacy with Adrien and Mathieu de Montmorency was such that they always called her the _duchesse-cousine_, though they were not related to her at all. The Duc de Laval, whom she had known in England, writes thus of her to Madame Récamier, in May, 1823: