'
_Tuesday, August_ 13.--We drove to La Prenelle, a church at the point of
a high table-land running from Tocqueville towards the bay of La Hogue,
and commanding nearly all the Cherbourg peninsula. On three sides of us
was the sea, separated from us by a wooded, well-inhabited plain, whose
churches rose among the trees, and containing the towns and lofty
lighthouses of Gatteville, Barfleur, Vast, and La Hogue. We sat on the
point from whence James II. saw the battle of La Hogue, and admired the
courage of his English rebels.
Ampere has spent much of his life in Rome, and is engaged on a work in
which its history is to be illustrated by its monuments.
We talked of the Roman people.
'Nothing,' said Ampere, 'can be more degraded than the higher classes.
With the exception of Antonelli, who is charming, full of knowledge,
intelligence, and grace, and of the Duke of Sermoneta, who is almost
equally distinguished, there is scarcely a noble of my acquaintance who
has any merits, moral or intellectual.
'They are surrounded by the finest ancient and modern art, and care
nothing for it. The eminent men of every country visit Rome--the Romans
avoid them for they have nothing to talk to them about.
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