The latter blow staggered even Mrs.
Browning for the moment, but though her frail health suffered from the shock, her faith in Louis Napoleon was proof against all attack.

She could not have known the good military reasons he had for not risking a reversal of the successes which he had won more through his enemy's defects than through the excellence of his own army or dispositions; but she found an explanation in the supposed intrigues of England and Germany, which frustrated his good intentions.
* * * * * _To Miss Browning_ Florence: [about May 1859].
My dearest Sarianna,--You will like to hear, if only by a scratch, that we are back in Tuscany with all safety, after a very pleasant journey through an almost absolute solitude.

Florence is perfectly tranquil and at the same time most unusually animated, what with the French troops and the passionate gratitude of the people.

We have two great flags on our terrace, the French flag and the Italian, and Peni keeps a moveable little flag between them, which (as he says) 'he can take out in the carriage sometimes.' Pen is enchanted with the state of things in general, and the French camp in particular, which he came home from only in the dusk last night, having 'enjoyed himself so very much in seeing those dear French soldiers play at blindman's buff.' They won't, however, remain long here, unless the Austrians threaten to come down on us, which, I trust, they will be too much absorbed to do.

The melancholy point in all this is the dirt eaten and digested with a calm face by England and the English.