Rome in 1860
From 1858 to 1870, a privileged and gifted English observer, Odo Russell, watched the declining fortunes of the Papal government. Russell reported in his strong and lucid style, writes Noel Blakiston, “as though they formed a chapter of medieval history.”
During the last critical years of the Risorgimento, England, unlike the other most interested great powers, had no diplomatic representative accredited to the central victim of the patriots, the Papal State.
She was represented by a mere secretary of the legation in Florence, detached to Rome as observer.
From 1853 till the autumn of 1858 this minor diplomat was Mr. Lyons, later, Lord Lyons, ambassador in Washington and Paris. How minor he was is revealed by a rather pathetic note he wrote to the Permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office on February 16th, 1857:
“May I venture to remind you of a request which I made when in England.
It is particularly useful to me here to have occasionally something to communicate in the way of intelligence to the great diplomats here, who are otherwise liable to forget the existence of so small a person as I am.
I am therefore anxious that when circulars on the policy of the government and Parliamentary Papers are communicated to the Missions abroad, copies should be sent also to me here...”
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