In Lombardy and Venetia, immediately after the treaties of the Holy
Alliance had consigned these provinces to Austria, there flourished
famous _conversazioni_ at many noble houses. In those of Milan many
distinguished literary men of other nations met. Byron and Hobhouse
were frequenters of the same _salons_ as Pellico, Manzoni, and Grossi;
the Schlegels represented the German Romantic School, and Madame de
Stael the sympathizing movement in France. There was very much that
was vicious still, and very much that was ignoble in Italian society,
but this was by sufferance and not as of old by approval; and it
appears that the tone of the highest life was intellectual. It cannot
be claimed that this tone was at all so general as the badness of the
last century. It was not so easily imitated as that, and it could not
penetrate so subtly into all ranks and conditions. Still it was very
observable, and mingled with it in many leading minds was the strain
of religious resignation, audible in Manzoni's poetry. That was a time
when the Italians might, if ever, have adapted themselves to foreign
rule; but the Austrians, sofar from having learned political wisdom
during the period of their expulsion from Italy, had actually
retrograded; from being passive authorities whom long sojourn was
gradually Italianizing, they had, in their absence, become active and
relentless tyrants, and they now seemed to study how most effectually
to alienate themselves.
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