I am convinced that the larger part of the animosity shown for Crispi by the better classes in Rome was due to her.

One of Crispi's oldest and most constant friends told me of a visit he once made to his house with General----, one of the Mille of Marsala, when, as they left the house, the general said mournfully, "Poor Crispi, he has not a friend in the world." "Nonsense, he has thousands," replied the other.

"No," returned the general, "if he had _one_ he would kill that woman." In the latter part of Crispi's first ministry we were on friendly terms, though our first intercourse was anything but kindly; but I avoided going needlessly to his house to the end of my term of residence in Rome, except when the service demanded it, because I did not like to meet his wife.
Crispi and I were never intimate, and the supposed confidence between us never extended beyond the communication of political matter which he thought should be made public, and which could be made public without violation of official secrecy.

He had far too high an estimate of his position as the head of the government of one of the powers of Europe to enter into intimacy with a correspondent of even the "Times," a journal of which, nevertheless, he always spoke with the respect due another power.

"It is not merely a journal, but a great public institution," he said, and he treated me as the agent of that power; but intimacy in any other sense there never was.