None of you in England understand what the crisis has been in France; and how critical measures have been necessary. Lamartine's work on the revolution of '48 is one of the best apologies for Louis Napoleon; and, if you want another, take Louis Blanc's work on the same. Isn't it a shame that nobody comes from the north to the south, after a hundred oaths? I hear nothing of dear Mr. Kenyon. I hear nothing from you of _your_ coming. You won't come, any of you.... I am much relieved by hearing that Mazzini is gone from Italy, whatever Lord Malmesbury may say of it. Every day I expected to be told that he was taken at Milan and shot. A noble man, though incompetent, I think, to his own aspiration; but a man who personally has my sympathies always. The state of things here is cruel, the people are one groan. God deliver us all, I must pray, and by almost any means. As to your Ministry, I don't expect very much from it. Lord Aberdeen, 'put on' to Lord John, is using the drag uphill. They will do just as little as they can, be certain. Think of my submitting at last to the conjugal will and cod's liver oil--yes, and think of its doing me good. The cough was nearly, if not quite, gone because of the climate, before I took the oil, but it does me good by making me gain in flesh. I am much less thin, and very well, and dearest Robert triumphant. * * * * * _To Mrs. Jameson_ Florence: April 12, [1853]. The comfort is, my ever loved friend, that here is spring--summer, as translated into Italy--if fine weather is to set you up again. I shall be very thankful to have better news of you; to hear of your being out of that room and loosened into some happy condition of liberty. It seems unnatural to think of you in one room. _That_ seems fitter for _me_, doesn't it? And the rooms in England are so low and small, that they put double bars on one's captivity. May God bring you out with the chestnut trees and elms! It's very sad meanwhile.