While in Florence Labouchere witnessed the revolution which deposed the Grand Duke and provided Tuscany with a provisional government of her own choice, preparatory to the union of all the Italian States under the King of Sardinia. He was a personal friend of Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Hudson, the English Minister at Turin, whose Nationalist sympathies, like Labouchere's, were well known, and he was an invaluable reporter to the Liberals in Turin of the news of the struggle for liberty in Tuscany. On the morning of the revolution, after the Grand Duke and his family had left the Pitti Palace, he, with many of his revolutionary friends, entered the forsaken home of Austrian royalty, and had the astuteness to procure on the spot what was left of the famous Metternich Johannisberger for the newly founded _Unione_ Club, of which he was a member. He had an amusing story to tell about the flight of the grand-ducal family from the City of Flowers, which is best repeated in his own words, as he used to relate it to his Florentine friends after he had returned to end his days in the place which he had loved so well in his youth. "The news was brought back here by some of the people who had seen them off the premises, that, on the road to Bologna, they all got out and stopped an hour or two at an inn, where they all sat in a row crying. After this had gone on for some time, it was discovered that the whole party had forgotten their pocket-handkerchiefs. Fortunately the Grand Duchess had on a white petticoat with very ample frills, so she went round to each of the grand-ducal family in turn, and wiped their {62} eyes and noses for them in the frills of her petticoat. And then she did the same for the ladies and gentlemen in waiting." "Do I think that incident really is true?" he would reply to his incredulous audience, "probably not. But from what I know of royalties in general, and from what I remember about the grand-ducal family of Tuscany in particular, I think that it is exceedingly probable that they would start out on an expedition of that kind without a pocket-handkerchief between them."[15] His personal reminiscences of Victor Emmanuel II. and of Cavour were of the raciest description and would enthral his hearers by the hour, told as only he could tell them, with all the decorative touches of local colour and local dialect.